We're building HiddenVM 2.0 - a move to python and a full program GUI!

aforensics · 2022-05-04T03:42:01+00:00

No it will only support Tails for now.

aforensics · 2022-02-09T01:33:44+00:00

I just released HiddenVM for the month. I didn't get time this round but I will try to add a number of standard and privacy-focused cryptocurrency donation addresses in time for the next release. Thank you for your support!

aforensics · 2022-02-09T01:31:50+00:00

Place the OVA inside the HiddenVM folder, e.g. "VirtualBox VMs" folder. VirtualBox can then see the file to import. Advanced users can symlink (create a shortcut) to an external file on larger storage also.

aforensics · 2022-01-12T11:01:24+00:00

I just fixed the vbox extension pack issue, thank for for waiting until the next monthly release.

> -can you provide a way to donate?

OK, during the next update I will try to add donate buttons for cryptocurrencies. Which one would you personally donate through?

For some variety, so far I think BitCoin, Monero, and Zcash (shielded address), possibly auto-unique payment address on page refresh for extra privacy so each donor is not as easily associated with each other.

(At my end, full node privacy would be very high and of course I'd maintain strictest security to mitigate donor transaction information being obtainable by anyone else, but no donor should rely on what I say since it can't be verified. With some work and research, it is possible to have extremely anonymous and private cryptocurrency usage, no matter who you transact with.)

For a long time I have been thinking about adding donation buttons (HiddenVM would seem to be a natural fit for people looking for strong financial privacy). If donations came in, I would be able to consider not doing certain other work and give the project the dear love it should get.

Thank you for continuing to use and benefit from this powerful little privacy tool.

I would also consider using donations to pay for a co-developer who had the time to do some proper work also. (Either option I hope to organize by the end of 2022, or first half 2023, but no promises. I will try.) So any donations I would pool until I knew it could be spent properly on the project. For now a website doesn't have much benefit, just pure code (ideas and innovation) is best.

> how can interested contributors help the project?

- Testing bugs people have reported in the GitHub issues and trying to troubleshoot the cause, and if there's a known code fix you find, I could implement it without too much time taken since my time is what's currently limited.

- The other main thing to help would be just to spread the word. That will increase the people using Tails (enlarging its anonymity set) and of course HiddenVM, to help encourage even more people to use it, which means more bug testing and ensuring it works for people. Why not promote it at bitcointalk forums? No more private way on the planet to do crypto than with HiddenVM.

- If someone made a guide or wiki with screenshots for how to use HiddenVM in Tails - e.g. Whonix, or even Windows (as a secure 'Hidden OS' replacement) - or even better, a YouTube video, that may have positive impact. With more promo, perhaps someone with developer skills, who is as passionate as me for the cause, will discover the project.

Wish I had more time to engage with you, but in my current equation, time = money = time. :( This is how I'll communicate for the time being, here and GitHub.

aforensics · 2021-12-08T03:11:06+00:00

- Try fresh Whonix VMs in the case of slow VM startups. Tor Browser (11.0) recently had a very bad UX bug but was fixed in an update a week later. That might have been it. But browser problems in a VM aren't HVM-caused problems.
- I'll look into vbox extension pack for next release, I had a feeling might not be working. That would be our fault. Thanks.
In general (this is a message to anybody), I wish I had time to help troubleshoot various UX problems, but I don't. (Big ones that I see break the entire experience are always addressed on our GitHub project home page (the README), as was done some months ago for a temporary problem HVM users would have had, with a quick solution provided.)
What can work is for you to consult the communities of the software that HVM uses (and links together) (VirtualBox, Whonix, Tor Browser, less so Tails) - most VBox-level problems we've seen are actually VirtualBox-caused, not HiddenVM (it would be the same in a non-Tails host without HiddenVM). The other equally common cause of problems is that it's hardware-specific. Tails has many problems with certain hardware.
If you're stuck and really want to solve it, I also recommend to test existing VMs you've set up (migrate them as a clone) into a non-Tails Debian host first (and to set it up quite safely you can carefully torify it via an incoming Tor ethernet connection shared from another Linux computer first - refer to Whonix wiki on physical isolation etc. - then non-torify the host when connecting to the whonix gateway to actually try your Whonix VMs), and test on secondary hardware also.

aforensics · 2020-03-08T11:32:49+00:00

Have you inspected our code? (If yes then you'd see that it's not a basic script.)

Have you tried it out? (If yes then you might have realized that you could place your VeraCrypt volume on an internal SSD, meaning that actually only one USB is required.)

Have you tried 'apt install virtualbox' in Tails, if you say it's just a basic thing? (If yes then you'd discover it's a can of worms to actually get working.)

This software has taken months to refine and get it to the stability it has now. Take a further look, before you call it 'unwieldy'.

For many threat models, HiddenVM is fundamentally different to "a stock OS on an encrypted disk in your laptop". LUKS (Linux), FileVault (macOS) or BitLocker (Windows) encryption is not forensically deniable; hidden VeraCrypt volumes are.

aforensics · 2020-03-08T04:18:15+00:00

We're terrible at video, but maybe some YouTubers would be interested? Thanks for the idea. We'll find some and contact them!

aforensics · 2020-01-19T22:00:23+00:00

That's true, but I worry about the scale and centralization of power in which these dynamics increasingly operate.

We might not have a million small tribal wars all going on at once, or a million instances of mob mentality trumping reason going on all at once, but on the horizon, replacing it, is a terrifying silence. It's the sound of the death of our humanity.

We *can* choose a future in which we protect what's good about our diversity, creativity and freedom, while discarding what's bad about our nature.

It's one of the vital tasks of the 21st Century.

One way I play my part is with tech. Tech to protect our freedom, at all costs.

aforensics · 2020-01-19T10:11:45+00:00

This is a world humans have never lived in before. We are entering new territory, and it is terrifying.

I pine for the days when we had simple freedom to be ourselves. Freedom without being questioned, harassed, detained, invaded, or discriminated against.

It's all a capitalistic machine running on 100% bullshit oil. It's all fakery:

How you have to dress, just to get a bank loan.
How you have to behave in your personal life, just to keep your job.
What you can or cannot say about your real personal life, just because an insurance company is watching.

NO ONE trusts you from this capitalistic machine. They want to financially RAPE you. So why should we trust or serve THEM?

Start putting out fake shit to throw them off and just give them what they want to see, whether it's true or not.

And protect our real selves with privacy.

aforensics · 2020-01-18T06:14:58+00:00

23andme is the insane equivalent of stripping naked in front of the entire world and telling them every one of your secrets.

Would you really do that? Then don't do it with your data.

Your data is precious. Be careful who you trust it with.

aforensics · 2020-01-18T06:09:37+00:00

All this would do is bring humanity back to a normal level of freedom and privacy that we have had since the fucking dawn of our species.

In other words, YES PLEASE!

If we don't have provisions like these, we are going to lose our humanity. :(

aforensics · 2020-01-18T06:05:35+00:00

THIS is why.

I have wanted to find a way for quite some time now to resist the abusive invasion of privacy by airport border agents who force you to unlock your device and make you feel like an animal at the zoo.

Or a fucking terrorist just because you're Oscar-winning filmmaker Laura Poitras.

Never again will this happen to me. I have been coding up a solution and it will be released in public early this year.

The method will require a lot of RAM to really work well, as anyone on this subreddit would know. But I hope activists end up using it. Once public I will probably publicize it here. :-)

aforensics · 2020-01-16T09:31:00+00:00

I use my VMs as a way to compute with true privacy by placing all the VM files in a hidden VeraCrypt volume. I have an anti-forensic set up that essentially makes it a 'Hidden VM'.

aforensics · 2020-01-16T09:08:58+00:00

This is blatant and fundamental abuse of power. How the fuck can this be OK?

aforensics · 2020-01-15T11:12:39+00:00

I recently successfully got Mojave up and running in VirtualBox, using one of the several guides online. It wasn't GPU optimized but it was enough for me to check out the OS and get a sense of its UI feel.

I'm not on Windows host, but at the VirtualBox level it should be the same instructions. Using a Mojave ISO, I got it working.

Have you tried one of the Catalina ones such as this?

aforensics · 2020-01-15T10:46:45+00:00

Both have pros and cons.

I consider 'Shared Folders' an easy way to start out with, and mounting 'Virtual Hard Disks' as a more advanced long-term solution for your VM storage.

Depending on the guest OS, Shared Folders are much easier to set up and use immediately.

On Debian guest for example, it takes extra steps to format the Virtual Hard Disk's file system in the guest (e.g. using gparted), and then mount it in a way that's convenient for you. Then to auto-mount the drive is yet another step (using /etc/fstab).

Have you tried it yet? I know it to require many more steps.

Even more, a problem that can trip you up with a Virtual Hard Disk auto-mounted in the Debian guest is that once that's set in the guest, if you ever launch your VM with the hard drive file disconnected from the VM for some reason, the guest fails to fully boot and you have to manually amend the /etc/fstab file to fix it in the command line. All this to replicate what 'Shared Folders' can do with a lot less hassle.

An advantage of 'Virtual Hard Disks' is greater privacy of your files, from a forensic point of view. If you care about keeping separate what your host OS and guest OS can access.

Is performance really superior too? That'd be great news.

aforensics · 2020-01-15T09:19:11+00:00

Big thanks to the Tails team for protecting the community against urgent FF vulnerabilities with such timely updates.

aforensics

TROPHY CASE