Let me tell you about an OS which had been promoted by Edward Snowden and recommended by me, who have used this. I will tell you my experience of using this and of how to using it, so the readers could judge whether this could be your life-changing OS or not. You could search it yourself on youtube, which Edward Snowden himself recommend this Os.
For the introdcution I will tell you about this Os, this is an open source Os which has a community that helped to always build the lack of the Os, and by open source, that means that this OS is free. So, this is free, easy to use (especially for Linux users). But don't worry, for Windows users, you will get accus-tomed. This OS is fit for not just paranoid ones, but the real journalists who have a dangerous data at his disposal and in need for a secure OS that could protect him from surveillance and being watched. Cause many journalists who don't have concerns over security could be getting targeted easily by insti-tution or organization that are dangerous. This could lead your reseraching subject to being surveil-lanced and watched , what are you up to, who are your contacts, how you get data, how you research and etc.
Of course, a safe haven from all of that would make us work more easily and could be more focused. So I will tell your first about the structure of this OS, so you could grasp of what is this. Imagine you have an Os inside an Os, which could make you like having two computers in one computer. In Win-dows, we know this as like virtual machine, you could say that this OS work like that, but not just that, there is something more.
I will tell firstly the structure, this app contain four differents elements of VM (or you could call it a virtual machine). I will tell you the structure of each VM, that is, Admin VM, TemplateVM, AppVM, StandaloneVM.
1.AdminVM : This is the core of the OS this VM contains all other VMs in the Os, but your activity won't be here, like surfing or typing.
2.TemplateVM: This is the VM that gives birth to every AppVM. AppVM is where your activity will be, so every AppVM come from a template VM, so if you make three AppVM, it's the same as three computer. And this will give a benefit on its own. By default, the Template VM is from Debian and Fedora Os.
- AppVM: This is where your activity will be. An AppVM is where you can do your work, where you can put hardware in an AppVM, so you can put a wifi adapter in one AppVM, and a speaker in another AppVM. There are three types of AppVM: Those are AppVM for the internet, AppVM for Tor, and AppVM for other uses, like listening to music or just typing.
4.StandaloneVM : This VM is a VM which not default exists on the Qubes Os; you can still any other VM easily like Kali Linux or Windows itself.
Now, second, come the part which I will tell you about how to using each of the feature of this OS. For high risk journalists who are often afraid that his internet history getting recorded, and so their research of a subject will be known to other people can worry less. Like I said before, the AppVM is where the activity done, so to connect to the internet itself, you could put three or four layers of AppVM, that's like a three or four defense line. How this works, so for the need to connect to the internet, you need to connect the wifi adapter with one of the VMs, in the default mode, this AppVM called sys-net, which connects the wifi adapter to the sys-net AppVM, so now the AppVM has internet. Then you put an AppVM that is a firewall AppVM, which by default called by sys-firewall. This firewall AppVM is for filtering the come in and come out of the network. You could block all port except one, that is the http port, and then after that you connect the firewall AppVM to the AppVM which have wifi adapter on it, and that makes two layers of defense. Then, where can we browse the internet? You could browse from the third layer, that is, the AppVM that has Firefox in it, then you connect the browser that you use to browse to the firewall AppVM. So the scheme is internet come to the sys-net, which has wifi adapter connected, then through the firewall appvm, then the browsing AppVM. That is three kinds of layers. So the attackers need to attack three kind of layers. And about fourth layers, if you're still un-sure and scared of getting surveilled by, you could add a layer in between the firewall AppVM and browsing AppVM, that is the Whonix AppVM, which is connected to the tor internet circuit, or you could make an AppVM and put vpn on it.
After all that, now come the plan, you could make a different AppVM, one for email, one for social media, one for just typing, which you can make nothing connected to the internet connected to this AppVM so, this is an offline AppVM. Then, for browsing, if you want to be unknown in your browsing history, you could put the Tor AppVM before the firewall and the browsing AppVM. And of course, this means you could look like you have many computers inside a computer. But different than the VM software in Windows, each AppVM is assigned an IP. Or you could categorize your browsing AppVM into, for personal use, which is just plain sys-net, firewall AppVM, and browsing AppVM, then the se-cure one, which is using Tor or vpn, but for a more secure option, using Tor is better.
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