My "Advanced Privacy and Anonymity Using VMs, VPN’s, Tor, etc" guides are online!

I've written a series of guides, describing in great detail how to use VMs for routing VPNs and Tor. As my sig now shows, they're online at <-https://www.ivpn.net/privacy-guides->.

iVPN has paid me for writing the guides. Since starting that work, I've been very careful to avoid favoring iVPN, basing my comments only on my experience using their service. Where appropriate, in discussing iVPN, I will note that I've worked for them.

Comments are enabled on the iVPN guides, so please share comments, criticism and suggestions, either there or here. I plan to write additional guides, and am open to suggestions about topics and focus.

As I note in the introductory guide:

 

I just read the first couple of parts on that advanced link. Nice read. I can see you put a few hours into those projects. Nice visuals too.

 

Great work as always looks very well done and involved! with many guides. will read them soon and try and make remote sense of it

 

Just had a quick peek Mirimir, but it's bedtime here so looking forward to a better look when Im fresh.

 

I read the VM with tc guide, love the name Secret freebsd

Was not aware of doing it in Fat only, and I always thought to give the outer layer 1gig and hidden 20gig, but its the other way round. Still am sure your guide is spot on, giving it a go is the only way to find out !

I am still weary or paranoid about showing any evidence of encryption period, which is why I like my ram idea but going the tc route is superior you loose no ram and performance and far easier to mount/dismount. As always that risk element an adversary can discover the Vb session running live or discovering the existence of installed tc/dc software can lead to Plausible D situation.

I did also yesterday attempt a deep scan data recovery from an open and then closed Virtual box linux session fixed Vdi image installed on separate drive. Was surprised the data recovery showed no such files apart from the vdi file.... and if you powered down and not saved to the vdi I believe it does not save any files. Still it should be noted data recovery is possible on a vbox, not sure how!

Who was it someone on here said to bury the vdi/tc file so deep within windows folders files lol

 

That's not one of my guides.

Only the "Advanced Privacy and Anonymity Using VMs, VPN’s, Tor, etc" ones (parts 1- are mine.

 

Just noticed when clicking the 2nd guide, No wonder why I found the 1st guide so easy it wasn't even written by yourself

Still that is a heck of a lot of guides ! great work indeed, hope you got well paid... and in many bitcoins

 

Congrats mirimir!!! I'm sure those guides will be of great use!

 

Very nice writeup.

I've partially read an advanced guide and I'm impressed with your knowledge. I think this setup is way too complicated for an average user but it shows how it's possible to stay (almost) completely anonymous online.

 

Thanks

My goal there is making it easier "for an average user" by explaining everything carefully. That does make it very long, however With that in mind, iVPN convinced me to write up the basic setup

Just to be clear, "it's possible to stay (almost) completely anonymous online" only with Tor in the mix. Let's say that you're using three VPNs in a nested chain. That may sound extreme, but with Tor you're switching at ten minute intervals among about six million three-node circuits that are on average at least as hard to compromise as the three-VPN chain. See <-http://tor.stackexchange.com/questions/685/how-many-distinct-tor-circuits-are-possible->.

 

IMHO, there's no one I know better suited for the task than you. I've learned so much from your posting here. And you've always been objective, along with a few others of us when we set off on the mission to weed out some quality choices for people. I'd like to think I was part of that crowd, though your knowledge dwarfs my own I was giving out 100% objective feedback. And iVPN was indeed one of the ones I liked and trusted.

Good work.

 

Wow! Very complete and detailed guide!

Congrats mirimir and thanks for sharing.

 

Hey thanks for sharing, Awesome guides, I'm doing my little bit by helping to propigate the message to as many folk as possible

 

That's some impressive work. Writing tutorials is harder than it looks, especially when the skill and knowledge level of the intended reader varies. It's hard to know when you need to be more detailed and when you're giving too much information. You struck a good balance. I wish I had as much motivation.

 

Thanks again, everyone, for the acknowledgements

I'll be writing more guides, as I have time. What else would you like to see?

 

I would like to see which VPN services are recommended and why... You could perhaps update it once every 6 months or once a year.

 

That's a very difficult question.

As I've said many times, it's very hard for users to verify privacy claims. We learn about users being compromised from news reports, as with HideMyAss and EarthVPN. But even then, it's hard to know just what happened. It's clear that HideMyAss provided account information to the FBI. I'm not so clear what happened with EarthVPN.

It's also hard to make basic assessments about speed, uptime, customer support etc. Or at least, it's hard to get past anecdotal reports. And it would take a lot of work.

At this point, I believe that what we have now -- feedback and news links on Wilders -- is best. I also trust the assessments from TorrentFreak.

 

agreed check torrentfreaks articles on best VPNs. No doubt a "best VPN 2014" will arrive for next year, wilders will always discuss VPNs and ones they find the best.

EarthVPN situation was a young guy gave his VPN account to a "friend" who used his laptop with his EarthVPN account.... and then chatted and mentioned words which would send adversaries into Red alert. It was however If I recall right, the actual datacenter which gave up the logs and information and not earthvpn. They have since terminated with that datacenter.

Always best to perhaps connect to a country which respects privacy and law and not english speaking places, then again its tricky to trust anyone or any country and also more reason to read the guides above !

 

ditto.

@mirimir:
though i believe you should do a more comprehensive work on vpn's, when you got the time. we are expecting that from you.

 

Good job, mirimir. You should do something similar and maybe go into more detail in certain areas and get that thing on Amazon. Niche guides like this are the best non-fiction moneymakers for people using the KDP.
https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/signin/186-4024606-5805261

 

I don't think that Amazon does Bitcoins yet

And I don't trust PayPal. But maybe there's a way.

 

maybe they can pay you in Amazon gift cards, lol.

and have your loot sent to a friend's address?

looks like they're taking 30%, which seems a bit much if its all electronic. i could see maybe 15 to 20%.
pretty cool though to be able to "publish" something instantly like that.

need something like this that takes like 10% cut and handles micropayments, then you could sell all kinds of things like privacy and security user.js file and prefs.js for firefox and opera for 25c or maybe specialized IP blocking lists or small previously freeware apps or firefox extensions (noscript?) for 25c a pop.

 

I second that! It's nice to know where to look when in trouble. It's nice to know what's possible as well (nested VPNs!).

Don't need more than one VPN at the moment but I do appreciate your thoughts and expertise on this subject!

 

That was very honest statement.

 

Spent this past weekend reading through these great guides. Mirimir is a guru to be celebrated and thanked.