Going to try and start a new weekly post with basic Opsec tips and reminders. If you have a good one message in modmail, and we might crosspost it for the week!


This week we are going to discuss operating systems, and the importance of choosing the right one.

First we will discuss windows and mac. Both are shit for your opsec. Here is a good article from the Whonix Devs explaining why Windows, and Mac are not good Host operating systems. It covers backdoors and ways you could potentially hurt your opsec.

http://www.dds6qkxpwdeubwucdiaord2xgbbeyds25rbsgr73tbfpqpt4a6vjwsyd.onion/wiki/Host_Operating_System_Selection⚠️

You might think, well I'm a small time buyer, or I am just browsing it can't hurt anything.
Sure you could buy with Windows or Mac, but these tools are designed to help keep you safe when things go wrong. You might place 5 orders, and never have an issue. The point is you should still take your opsec seriously for when the worst case does happen.

Secure operating systems are ones that are designed with security in mind. They are hardened, and make it a lot less likely your information could fall into the wrong hands. It's also important to remember, if you go fucking with settings, and changing things in your OS it can compromise any operating system.

First we will cover Tails. You can find more information about them on their subdread /d/tails

Tails is a basic operating system based on Debian. It comes with all the tools any newbie will need to get started. Tails is designed to run off almost any USB stick, and will encrypt your data if you enable persistence. If you are not very tech savvy or not familiar with Linux environments this is a great option for you to use. It's simple and ready to work out of the box.

Whonix/host os(Debian, Fedora) I'm not going to go into great details using Whonix. You can read about it using on their website, or in the /d/dnmbible The important thing you want to remember is you still need a good host operating system. If you are running Whonix in a VB on windows or Mac it might as well be useless. This option is a good intermediate setup. If you don't know how to encrypt your data yourself, or how to properly keep your system up to date it's better to stick with Tails.

Qubes/Whonix If done properly, this is a very advance setup, but it is one of the most secure ones you can use. Qubes is your host operating system, with Whonix baked right into it! It works by compartmentalizing everything. Again if you are not very tech savvy, or not familiar with Linux it's better to stick with tails. You could potentially hurt your opsec if you do not know what you are doing.