Introduction:
Whonix is an operating system focused on anonymity, privacy and security. It's based on the Tor anonymity network, Debian GNU/Linux and security by isolation. DNS leaks are impossible, and not even malware with root privileges can find out the user's real IP.
Whonix consists of two parts: One solely runs Tor and acts as a gateway, which we call Whonix-Gateway. The other, which we call Whonix-Workstation, is on a completely isolated network. Only connections through Tor are possible.
https://whonix.org/w/images/9/90/Whonix.jpgThe official Bitcoin-qt client works, thanks to the Transparent Proxy feature, very well in Whonix out of the box. Connections to normal and hidden servers work. Setting up a hidden Bitcoin server should also work, since Whonix supports everything Tor support and more, just with stronger guarantees of hiding IP/location. The usual IP/DNS leak issues vanish.
This topic is supposed to find and solve any Tor/anonymity related problems with respect to Bitcoin. I am also probing for general interest in this project.
The offical Bitcoin-qt client is unfortunately not yet included into Whonix by default, because Bitcoin-qt didn't make it into Wheezy. It has to be installed manually (works well). I am also open for other clients.
Another advantage is, that any Bitcoin client, no matter if it has proxy settings or not, can be used safely over Tor. I am currently looking at and into electrum.
Whatever you wanted to do over Tor, it likely works well and safely in Whonix. Of course it inherits all weaknesses of Tor (exit node sniffing...), but it makes it much harder to misconfigure something on your side.
Please give me feedback about Whonix and free your mind about a future Bitcoin integration.
Homepage with documentation:
https://www.whonix.orgScreenshots:
https://whonix.org/wiki/ScreenshotsAnnouncement:
https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-talk/2012-October/025921.htmlConnectivity is very good. Hidden services can be connected without proxy settings, without torsocks etc.
~ $ nslookup idnxcnkne4qt76tg.onion
Server: 192.168.0.10
Address: 192.168.0.10#53
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: idnxcnkne4qt76tg.onion
Address: 10.192.0.2
/usr/bin/wget 10.192.0.2
--2012-10-20 02:49:00-- http://10.192.0.2/
Connecting to 10.192.0.2:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 492 [text/html]
Saving to: `index.html.1'
100%[==========================================================================================================================================>] 492 2.25K/s in 0.2s
2012-10-20 02:49:13 (2.25 KB/s) - `index.html.1' saved [492/492]
/usr/bin/wget http://idnxcnkne4qt76tg.onion/
--2012-10-20 02:50:21-- http://idnxcnkne4qt76tg.onion/
Resolving idnxcnkne4qt76tg.onion (idnxcnkne4qt76tg.onion)... 10.192.0.2
Connecting to idnxcnkne4qt76tg.onion (idnxcnkne4qt76tg.onion)|10.192.0.2|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 14440 (14K) [text/html]
Saving to: `index.html.2'
100%[==========================================================================================================================================>] 14,440 --.-K/s in 0.1s
2012-10-20 02:50:44 (95.5 KB/s) - `index.html.2' saved [14440/14440]
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