Darknet Essentials [ Part 1 /? ]
Welcome
Hello everyone! Welcome to Darknet Essentials. For today, we are going to install Whonix 😆
What is Whonix?
Whonix is a Linux-based operating system that is designed for anonymity and privacy. Also, it uses Tor and runs in a virtual machine to keep your identity and IP hidden online.
Source: Whonix Gateway Concept
As seen from the picture above, this is how the operating system works. It consist of two machines: Whonix gateway and Whonix workstation.
Whonix gateway is used when all the internet traffic is sent through the Whonix gateway, which then sends to Tor to keep your identity hidden.
Whereas, Whonix-Workstation is isolated from the internet. You use this machine to do your searching and browsing. If there is any weird or funky behavior, it stays inside the machine, and nothing gets leaked out.
However, do take note that there’s no such thing as 100% anonymity. Just make sure to stay safe and avoid doing anything risky or visiting suspicious sites.
Installation
⚠️ For this installation, I'm going to use VirtualBox, and I assume you have already installed VirtualBox.
- Go to this website to install Whonix.
Click on download.
- Import the machine.
Go to file --> import appliance
The page will open up to import your Whonix package.
Click on agree
- After importing, there would be two machines available.
- Boot up Whonix gateway first.
There should be a message displayed about the login.
Then, another message would pop up saying it's not up to date.
- Now, update the whonix gateway with this command
sudo apt upgrade && sudo apt full-upgrade
After it's done, reboot Whonix gateway.
- Now boot up Whonix workstation.
It will show the login, click on ok.
It will ask you to upgrade/update. Click on ok.
Reboot the device again.
During the reboot process, instead of booting into the user session, reboot into
SYSMAIN.This is because Whonix-Workstation does not allow sudo privileges, so certain actions (like updates or system changes) can’t be done from the regular user session.
Now, after you are in, click on install.
After it installs and updates everything , reboot it.
Once you are on this page, click on USERS
- Power off both of the machines. Remember, whenever you want to boot up the machines, always boot up Whonix Gateway first before booting up Whonix Workstation.
The reason is that if you boot the Workstation before the Gateway, it won’t have internet access. This is because the Workstation relies on the Gateway to connect to the internet. So, without the Gateway running first, you can’t access any websites.
Now, open TOR.
Next, you will see this page.
You can click on IP check to see what IP you are using currently to browse the internet.
- Finally, for the fun part, browsing! ✨
Alright, now let's wrap this up. From the image above, don’t worry, it’s not a real forum haha. It’s actually part of a challenge or capstone project designed to help you practice and learn. If I have time, I will write about the challenge. This challenge is from Security Blue Team’s Introduction to Dark Web Operations course.
Introduction to Dark Web Operations - Security Blue Team
This course is free, and if you complete it, you’ll earn a certificate for free too! I highly recommend you try it out 😉
I hope this installation has been smooth for you! I’m glad you took the time to read this post. Hope to see you next time. Thank you very much for reading 🤩
Signing off,
noob3InT 📜