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VIRTUAL MACHINES AND VPN This is a quick short guide to anyone wanting to use VPN over a virtual machine, and also how to use TOR and VPN in a virtual machine. REQUIREMENTS 1. Virtualization software such as: Oracle VM Virtualbox (Free) https://www.virtualbox.org/ VM Ware Workstation (Proffesional Software) http://www.vmware.com/uk/products/workstation.html Windows Virtual PC (Freeware but can only install systems for Windows XP and up) https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=3702 These are the three most popular options for virtualization software. I personally recommend using Virtualbox if you don't want to pay a lot of money for VM Ware, although it is packed with features and is probably the most advanced virtualization software on the market, hence why it is used by professionals and large companies. 2. An ISO image of the operating system you'd like to use. If you want general purpose virtualization, such as testing applications, I recommend Windows. If you want to use TOR, refer to the TOR section down below. 3. A decent computer. What you will be basically doing is running a computer inside your computer. Yeah I know, Inception, right? Anyway, you should have a decent computer for this, and I recommend minimum of 8gb of RAM. You should also have a decent CPU as it will also affect the performance of the virtual machine. 4. A VPN. If you are on this forum you should be using Air, but this should work with any properly configured VPN. CONFIGURATION I won't go through the set up and installation of a operating system in a virtual machine in this guide because there are plenty of resources out there that explain how to do this. Make sure you are connected to your VPN on your host machine (The computer you are running the virtual machine on). Once you have your virtual machine configured, be it Linux or Windows or any operating system, the essential thing you need to do is switch your virtual machines network adapter to use NAT. It is absolutely essential that you do this, otherwise your true IP address will be used by the virtual machine. Bridged modes simply use your network adapter hardware directly, which reveals your real IP. The NAT (Network Address Translation) mode uses your host operating system's IP address, and if your VPN is configured properly it will mean the virtual machine is using the exact same VPN connection your computer is using. USING TOR IN A VIRTUAL MACHINE If you want to use TOR in a virtual machine, you have two options. You can either use the TOR Browser like in a regular computer, running it on Windows or Linux, whatever your choice may be. I personally recommend using Tails, an operating system designed for anonymity and usage of TOR. TAILS Tails is a live operating system designed for anonymity and privacy, and is released under the GNU/GPL license. All of the source code of the applications that tails uses that are not taken directly from upstream Debian packages are available on their git repositories, they have a guide here: https://tails.boum.org/contribute/git/ The great thing about tails is that it is crammed with programs and features for anonymity, security and privacy. It has email clients, tools for public keys and GPG, disguising the operating system as Windows 8 if you want to use it in public places, instant messaging clients, and many, many more. So now that you know what Tails is, you probably can't wait to get it. The best part is that it is a live operating system, and you don't need to install it. Tails homepage: https://tails.boum.org/ They also made a great installation guide if you want to install Tails to a usb stick: https://tails.boum.org/install/ To use tails in a virtual machine, they have made a guide here: https://tails.boum.org/doc/advanced_topics/virtualization/virtualbox/ (The steps for virtualbox in Linux are pretty much the exact same as in Windows) MAKE SURE YOU USE NAT IN THE TAILS VIRTUAL MACHINE Hope you found this guide useful, and don't forget to send it to friends to help them use the internet privately, and securely

Hello everyone. I had a question for the forums today. Is it possible to run Eddie (or any other way to connect to AirVPN) on Tails OS? For those who do not know, Tails is a Linux based OS that is very secure and routes all connections through Tor. However, if I am not mistaken, since there is no VPN in that setup, the operator of the Tor relay node can see your actual IP, yes? So, is it possible to use AirVPN on Tails? I tried earlier but it gave me some sort of error when I tried to run the Eddie client's file. Also, will using a VPN on Tails make me more secure? If so, what are the benefits of doing so?

Using TAILS properly to communicate anonymously is easier said than done.* * Note: I still think One-time Pads hiding secret ciphers in on-line forum posts (or similar) is the most secure and fully deniable method for communications, however, this is certainly not convenient or practical for most circumstances. Also, this is over-kill for 99.9% of the population. However, if the OTP concept is shared widely, the Global Gestapo will be wondering whether secret messages are hidden all over the place - increasing their fruitless searching and computational crunching by several orders of magnitude. For instance, it is entirely feasible that I may have hidden several ciphers in this post for instance, and theoretically could be communicating with one or more persons. Indeed, the sender can potentially achieve one-way message authentification in this manner (a forum post that remains unedited).... Tails WorkFlow for High Endpoint Security** ** By Micah Lee of The Intercept and Freedom of the Press Foundation ​ Additional considerations: What Micah didn't mention in this particular article above is the necessity to also disguise your writing style (under his scenario) so that you cannot be identified by certain obvious patterns. This is particularly true if using email providers that scan your shit e.g. G-Mail. Even if you are "Mr Robot" on-line, if any of your communications can be ripped from email servers or otherwise intercepted e.g. the provider is part of PRISM, then the great Eye of Sauron will be intently poring over your material if it is of interest and doing everything to work out who you are. That is, even if you go to great lengths to disguise your on-line persona and achieve full or near-anonymity (no stuff-ups along the way - not easy), you can easily reveal your identity via typographical and dialectical style, spelling, pronunciation and grammar. Another obvious case where you place yourself at risk would be a release of risky 'manifestos', controversial/critical texts slamming authoritarian/military governments, your favourite drug recipes you publish on the darknet, advocating for multi-party democracy in tinpot dictatorships (or whatever else is your fancy), which are all published under a pseudonym. Yes, truly being anonymous is a real bitch, but wholly possible. You should also NOT share any personal information with your secret readers/fanclub/secret cabal of conspirators e.g. dodgy darknet forums. Many an egotistical hacker, drug peddler and so on have been undone by their own hand e.g. letting slip references to the weather, their backgrounds, habits and so on, which can uniquely identify them when cross-referenced by forum/email/other comms date and time stamps over a long enough period. "Loose lips sink ships" As a counter to true anonymity, this forum post is a perfect example of a non-anonymous communication, for I am fully aware that the author (me) is EASILY identified by the local Stasi. Why? Because I have not used washed bitcoins or a host of anonymising session, network and other measures when setting up this account, nor have I adequately separated personas when using it. Nor have I used measures to disguise my writing style. But luckily I don't give a shit. However, it might really matter for some of our AirVPN users, for example, those pushing for multi-party democracy or fearlessly reporting the actions of in hostile tin pot dictatorships. The Hidden Wiki provides some good pointers for anonymous writing. Fail to heed this at your own peril if you are a serious activist or similar. Guidelines ​

I looked through the mission page and noticed that Tails doesn't seem to have been funded before (though Tor Project has). I think this would be a good cause. Thanks, Air, for the great work once again!