Whonix mistake with Internet connection

Support
1

I had Whonix running and had an open VPN running on the host. Then I got off of tor and left Whonix running, with the Gateway and the Workstation on my computer. Then as luck would have it the VPN crashed and I didn;t know it for about 2 hours. I came back to the computer and found a number of ERRORS on the Whonix workstation one after another around 7 notifications one on top of the other. Then I looked at the gateway and found the gateway to be trying to sync the time but could not because it could not access the Internet. I looked into this and found it was because the host VPN went out. So my question is even though when my VPN kicks off my ISP turns on and my computer runs off of that. Is Whonix set up with a kill switch so that if the Internet that it is connected to goes out, that is it and it shuts down it does not try to reconnect to my home connection with the VPN turned off. An explanation of if this exposed me in any way with no VPN running and Whonix running as well. I would assume that I am safe as it said it could not connect to the Internet but I want to be sure of this. Furthermore I would like to know if this kind of a Internet kill switch is a feature of Whonix. Again I am new, so I apologize if this is another dumb question I just would like to know if my ISP saw that I was on Whonix based on my careless mistake.

Thanks

2

Good day,

what is your host OS? On Windows, for example, OpenVPN is using a virtual, internal, LAN adapter, which then connects with programs, once they start. So, if you’re using Windows, Whonix’ll have a hard time connecting, since your VM always wants to use said adapter.

Have a nice day,

Ego

3

My host OS is Linux Ubuntu 64 would that do the same thing as windows?

4

Don’t use Ubuntu please, use Debian instead .
However, you should use a VPN-Firewall wrote by Patrick ( Whonix developer ) .
It’s all correct, the host device stop a connection so Whonix for extreme security can’t send data to old enstablished connection to a different interface ( I think ), you should poweroff workstation and restart gateway .

Really, the protection supposed by me is that the enstablished connection to a particulat entry node won’t be valid in the future because the ip connected to it will be different, the ip won’t be more the vpn ip but your real ip ( your home ) .

5

Hiberts, can you explain why Ubuntu is so bad and Debian is so much better? I am very new to Linux, not to mention I am not very computer savvy to begin with. That said, getting switching from Windows 10 to Ubuntu was an extreme task to a guy like me. It took 2 days of trial and error until I actually got the partition working to that I could dual boot into Ubuntu. The most difficult part about being new to LInux is everything for Linux is worded for those who have some background in computer science. So once I got Linux working I challenged myself to get Whonix working on there. Which was nowhere near as hard as I thought it would be.
So if you could explain why Debian is so much safer than Ubuntu like you would to a 5 year old so I can understand it would help. I was so happy I was comfortably using Ubuntu with Gnome, getting things like xmpp chat and PGP working correctly. In fact installing everything on Ubuntu is always a difficult task. For example installing pidgin I was not getting the tool bar menu, and although I rarely use it I wanted to get it working with OTR which was impossible due to a bug. I had to look for hours on the net for the command to get it to show up. It seems for a novice user all apps installed outside the Ubuntu Software Center can be a challenge. Is that not the case with Debian? Or is Debian just safer? I thought they were very similar. Please explain.

Thanks for your advice.

6

Good day,

first of all, installing something (outside of some kind of “store”) is the same on Ubuntu and Debian. Simply type

sudo apt-get install NAME OF PROGRAM

in the terminal, press enter and accept it with Y, once asked. It really is rather simple, if you think about it and actually takes less input, than installing something on Windows (Download → Extract → Open → Tell UAC it is OK → Accept EULA → click through installation → install).

Now, regarding your question, whether Debian is safer and why, the reason for this is rather simple: Ubuntu (and on some parts of the net, I would get ripped apart, if I wrote this) is really not a good Linux in general. It isn’t really safe, it’s not easier to use than other distributions, it’s commercialised, like nothing, it hurts the open source aspect in more than one way, etc.

The thing is, that Ubuntu simply is one of many distributions, based on Debian. What set it apart a long time ago, was that it was rather simple to install, compared to other distributions and pure Debian. However, these times are long gone and Debian is not harder to install and use, than Ubuntu, especially, if you already use Gnome, which is the standard on Debian. Today and that is, why Ubuntu really isn’t so safe, Ubuntu has become a brand, used to squeeze as much money as possible out of it. Tracking, is just one of these things, which are “normal” for Ubuntu, regard this for more on this topic: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/10/privacy-ubuntu-1210-amazon-ads-and-data-leaks Furthermore, Canonical (the company behind Ubuntu) did some rather awful things in the area of licensing, forcing the creators of distributions based on Ubuntu, to sign contracts, to be allowed to use their repository’s, more to this here: Making sense of the Ubuntu licensing fiasco | Network World Adding to that, it is a 70mio dollar company, located in the UK, a country where politicians currently plan on abolishing encryption of any kind all together.

Personally however, I’m first and foremost in the camp Fedora, since it has BY FAR the both, most versatile and easiest to use installer, supports the open source idea like no other and has a community, which is more active than any other, when it comes to finding security issues, since Fedora and its distributions, are often used by company’s and server providers, who need a safe and stable base. That’s also the reason, why it’s used by the “Qubes guys”.

Which brings us to the last point. If you are really serious about security, maybe try Qubes. It’s actually very easy to install and use (thanks in large to the “Fedora installer”) and makes a lot of attacks, impossible.

Have a nice day,

Ego

7

[quote=“new2this, post:1, topic:1557”]I had Whonix running and had an open VPN running on the host.
Thanks[/quote]

So I assume that you were using Tor in guest. If so, the only person your IP could possibly be exposed to is the VPN. If that is a problem I cannot advise without knowing exactly and precisely what you did. But if your are worried about the VPN knowing your real IP you have other issues.

8

So again with another stupid question of mine. Assuming I wanted to switch from Ubuntu to Qubes or even Debian, that would be an entire OS switch correct?? I would lose Whonix and have to reinstall along with all the apps I have downloaded and everything correct?? There is no shortcut to doing this right? Say someone who knew what they were doing how long would it take to switch from Ubuntu to another system like Debian?? I am very new to Linux and am not that computer savvy like I said earlier. I just want to get an an idea of how much time to set aside for switching.

Thanks for all of your help!!

9

Good day,

yes, you’d have to install everything again. Furthermore, someone “who knew what they were doing” would need between 5-15min, depending on your install medium, to switch from Ubuntu, to for example Debian.

Have a nice day,

Ego

10

There is no kill switch.

To my knowledge, there is no such feature in Tor. [Or Whonix.] [Such a feature would be problematic, because then switching (open) WiFi’s or to mobile back and forth would result in connection issues.]

11

Maybe the Tor entry node doesn’t control che Ip but the key exchanged, or if the Entry node is able to read the data inside .