Introduction[edit]

Whonix ™ aims to be safer than Tor alone. The main goal is, that no one can find out the user's IP and location.

The basic idea is, that all applications are untrustworthy. No application must be able to obtain the user's real external IP. Whonix ™ ensures that applications can only connect through Tor. Direct connections (leaks) must be impossible. This is the only way we know of, that can reliably protect your anonymity from client application vulnerabilities and IP/DNS and protocol leaks ^[archive].¹⁰ When the term protocol leak or "information leak" is used in the context of security and anonymity it is referring to an event that causes the release of secure or private information to an untrusted party or environment ^{[1] [2]}.

Whonix ™ consists of two machines, which are connected through an isolated network. One machine acts as the client or Whonix-Workstation ™, the other as a proxy or Whonix-Gateway, which will route all of the Whonix-Workstation ™ traffic through Tor. This setup can be implemented either through virtualization and/or Physical Isolation (explained below).

All traffic originating from Whonix-Workstation ™ and Whonix-Gateway ™ is routed over Tor. ^{[3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]}

The Whonix ™ Concept (see below) is agnostic about everything, the anonymizer, platform, etc. See Whonix ™ Framework below.

Whonix ™ Example Implementation: Anonymity setup built around Tor, two virtual machines using Qubes, KVM, VirtualBox or physical isolation and Debian GNU/Linux. Whonix ™ can be installed on every supported platform. (Supports Windows, OS X, Linux, BSD and Solaris.)

Physical Isolation describes installing Whonix-Gateway ™ and Whonix-Workstation ™ on two different pieces of hardware. It is more secure than VirtualBox / KVM virtual machines alone, requires more physical space, and hardware and electricity costs are higher. Keep in mind that you don't need very powerful dedicated servers or desktops. Unfortunately, using Qubes-Whonix ™ with physical isolation is unsupported. For more information, see Physical Isolation.

See Design for Technical Design and security of Whonix ™. For security introduction, see below.

The listed Features, advantages and disadvantages shall give you an overview, what Whonix ™ is useful for, what Whonix ™ can do for you, and what not.

Technical Challenges[edit]

System security, privacy and anonymity are dependent upon sensitive information or data not escaping the trusted environment, which is protected and under the user's control. This is a technically challenging task with a multitude of elements to be considered. The numerous applications and background processes running on a system at any given time exacerbate the difficulties encountered.

Sensitive Information[edit]

In the context of privacy and anonymity, sensitive information is any information that can be used to identify an individual. An inexhaustive list of sensitive information includes:

• Hardware serials ^[archive] - can be used to uniquely identify a computer and in turn be linked to the person who purchased or was using it.
• DNS leak ^[archive] - if DNS queries are leaking, an ISP or any on-path eavesdropper can log the sites that are visited.^[10]
• IP leaks ^[archive] - a user's external (ISP-facing) IP address can be used to identify an individual as well as their location.
• Personally identifiable information ^[archive] (PII) - information that can be used on its own or with other information to identify, contact, or locate a single person, or to identify an individual in context.^[11].

Origin of Leaks[edit]

Even if sensitive data is only a very small proportion of the total, it is extremely difficult to block all available leak avenues. Information leaks have several primary causes:

• Misbehaving applications (buggy software ^[archive]) - programs that do not function as intended, leading directly to data leakage or causing other applications they interact with to leak.

• Deliberate (Backdoors ^[archive]) - a backdoor is a method, often secret, of bypassing normal authentication or encryption in a computer system, product, or embedded device (like a home router), or its embodiment which forms part of a cryptosystem, an algorithm, a chipset, or a "homunculus computer".^[12]

• Mis-configured applications - some applications can leak sensitive information if configured improperly. For instance, VPN clients can leak DNS queries ^[archive]. Other applications that can be used to block information leaks, such as iptables ^[archive], may be ineffective if configured improperly.

• Software vulnerability - a weakness which allows an adversary to reduce a system's integrity, availability, authenticity, non-repudiation and confidentiality of user data.^[13][14]

Whonix ™ Framework[edit]

The Whonix ™ Concept is agnostic about everything. With some development effort you can replace any component. The Whonix ™ developers would like to support each and any use case, but due to limited amount of developers this is impossible and we focus on the Whonix ™ Example Implementation.

The Tor network is Whonix ™ official and best supported anonymizing network. Whonix ™ can also potentially and optionally use other anonymizing networks (Such as JonDo, I2P, Freenet, RetroShare), either in addition (tunneled through Tor) or as a replacement for Tor. See the article for more information.

You can also avoid using virtualization by using Physical Isolation without any virtualization, although that is not recommended, see Comparison of different variants‎ for more information.

It is possible to use other virtualization platforms than VirtualBox, e.g. Qubes (which is based on XEN), VMware, KVM, XEN, QEMU, Bochs, etc. (See Dev/Other Virtualization Platforms.).

Other operating systems (e.g. Windows; *nix; BSD; etc.) can potentially be used as host and/or guest operating system. See the Other Operating Systems for more information.

Design[edit]

A robust "security by isolation" model is incorporated into the Whonix ™ framework to counter the ever-present threat of information leaks. This model is composed of four (three when using physical isolation)^[15] unique, but essential components.

• Hypervisor - also referred to as a virtual machine monitor. This is software, firmware, or hardware that creates and runs virtual machines ^[archive]. Several elements are involved:
  • The computer on which the hypervisor runs is called the host.
  • The hypervisor in turn runs virtual machines which are called guest machines. The hypervisor provides hardware virtualization which hides the characteristics of a computing platform from the user, instead presenting an abstract computing platform.
  • This platform virtualization -- creation of a virtual machine that acts like a real computer -- is performed on a given hardware platform by host software (a control program).
  • The host software creates a simulated computer environment; a virtual machine (VM), for its guest software.
  • The guest software executes as if it were running directly on the physical hardware.
  • Due to these factors, Whonix ™ is able to isolate the the virtual machines from the actual computer hardware. This prevents the virtual machines from accessing sensitive information on the host OS or from each other.^[16][17]

• Whonix-Gateway - the first of two VMs that make up Whonix ™. The function of Whonix-Gateway ™ is to run Tor processes and force all traffic through the Tor network. This is done through a modest application of iptables ^[archive], which blocks network traffic from passing through any other channel besides the dedicated Tor gateway. As mentioned earlier, the hypervisor enforces the isolation between the two VMs used in Whonix ™. Consequently, any malware that might infect Whonix-Workstation ™ (the second VM) will not compromise Whonix-Gateway ™ or the host.

• Whonix-Workstation ™ - the second of two VMs, the Workstation is responsible for running user applications. This includes any pre-installed or custom-installed user applications. Since Whonix-Workstation ™ is isolated from both the Whonix-Gateway ™ and host OS, if an application misbehaves or is exploited by an adversary, this will be contained in the isolated Whonix-Workstation ™. Unless an advanced adversary is able to break out of the VM, there is no way for hardware serials or the externally-facing IP address to leak; Whonix-Workstation ™ is simply unaware of sensitive information. Moreover, DNS leaks are eliminated since all DNS requests are sent over the Tor network via the Whonix-Gateway ™.

• Tor -Tor ^[archive] is an anonymity network which helps users defend against traffic analysis, network surveillance and privacy threats. Tor protects users by bouncing their communications around a distributed network of relays.^[18]

Whonix ™ Concept[edit]

Whonix ™ is an Isolating Proxy ^[archive] with an additional Transparent Proxy ^[archive], which can be optionally disabled. (See Stream Isolation).

Goals and Non-Goals[edit]

• Tor Browser development non-goal: make every user look like someone unique else.
• Tor Browser development goal: to make everyone look the same from the perspective of destination websites; hiding the fact that someone is using Tor from destination websites.

Whonix ™ by concept is an extension to Tor Browser expanding these goals to the whole operating system.

Goals are restricted not by what developers would ideally want to provide but by technical challenges and what's realistic.

Security Overview[edit]

In layman's terms[edit]

Shut up or put up! Is Whonix ™ safe?

It is in the nature of security related software, that there is no 100% safety. Believe it or not, we use it ourselves and we keep maintaining and developing it. We believe that Whonix ™ is safer than other tools in some aspects, threat models, and use cases. There is detailed reasoning for such claims on the Whonix ™ Homepage.

If you are more paranoid or have higher security needs, read everything, full documentation and full technical design, you'll learn about physical isolation and build Whonix ™ from source code and so on.

And no, Whonix ™ does not claim ^[archive] to protect from very powerful adversaries, to be a perfectly secure system, to provide strong anonymity, or to provide protection from technically advanced surveillance and similar.

See also Whonix ™ is a work in progress.

At first glance this site may create the impression that Whonix ™ is completely insecure and everything is a lost cause. We are upfront with things we could do better and we are still working on and try to consider all possibilities and document all thinkable and future threats. You must judge for your own which risks are acceptable for your use cases.

With more technical terms[edit]

It is difficult to write a summary of Whonix ™ security features. Both anonymity and security consist of so many different aspects. That's why there is lots of Documentation and the whole Technical Design.

The Technical Design intends to document security philosophy, design, goals and current shortcomings of Whonix ™.

This chapter is only a short introduction. Please read the full Design.

Whonix ™ follows the principle of security by isolation. We know that making our currently used systems secure is a lost cause. They are too complex and too large to be trustworthy and verifiably free of any bugs. Whonix ™ can't solve this but it tries to minimize attack surfaces and limit what danger exploitable bugs in more exposed parts can do, one primary danger specific to Tor is the danger of exposing the public IP address of a system. Whonix ™ isolates client applications inside the Whonix-Workstation ™ from discovering the external IP address. Specifically, Whonix ™ is designed to prevent direct detection of the IP (not more!) even if an adversary has unrestricted access to the Whonix-Workstation ™.

Once there is a vulnerability found in Tor (ex: exploiting Tor's ports) or a successful attack against Tor, Whonix ™ fails.

Same goes for iptables. Whonix ™ is a setup based on Linux, iptables, Tor, etc. If any of the underlying projects has a vulnerability, which cannot be ruled out, of course, Whonix ™ will fail as well.

Whonix ™ also has limited countermeasures and protections against most classes of side-channel attacks.

In summary, Whonix ™ does not claim to be a perfectly secure system or able to provide anonymity if one faces a very powerful adversary, and so on.

There are to torify ^[archive]. Read the link for a comparison of the security.

Whonix-Workstation ™ has no access to the internet without going through Tor. You can look into our setup. It is all Open Source and well documented.

(#multiple security layers)

Whonix ™ uses multiple security layers.

1. IP-forwarding is disabled.
2. In general terms (unspecific to Whonix ™): if one VM is only connected to another VM through a virtual, internal LAN and has no other network interfaces besides that, it does not easily gain internet access. That requires IP forwarding to be enabled the other VM.
3. In Whonix ™ specific terms: Since one VM Whonix-Workstation ™ is only connected to another VM Whonix-Gateway ™ through a virtual, internal LAN, it does not easily gain internet access.
4. What application traffic originating from Whonix-Workstation ™ essentially do is attempting to talk to a "service" on Whonix-Gateway ™, which is Tor. However, if Tor refuses connections or isn't even available, there is nothing legitimate that Whonix-Workstation ™. ^[19]
5. Therefore even if Whonix-Gateway ™ if powered off and only Whonix-Workstation ™ is powered on, no leaks are possible.
6. In other words, Whonix ™ fails "closed": when Tor is disabled, loses connection, or the Whonix-Gateway ™ crashes, no network connections are possible. (Fails "closed" means, connection failing without any leak. Nothing goes out to the internet. Failing "open" in this context would mean it would fail to connect using Tor and connect using the user's real external IP address instead.)
7. IPv6 is disabled.
8. Iptables firewall redirects any traffic from Whonix-Workstation ™ to Tor's ports. Local network connections are dropped. No leaks are possible, assuming the TCB is trustworthy.
9. Even without Whonix-Gateway Firewall and without Whonix-Workstation firewall, no leaks are possible. Traffic from Whonix-Workstation ™ can either reach Tor which is running on Whonix-Gateway ™ or nothing.
10. The only thing that breaks and fails closed even without any firewalls is transparent proxying.
11. Applications are configured correctly using latest suggestions (correct application and proxy and other privacy settings, Stream Isolation).
12. Firewall rules are enforced and prevent accessing the internet directly, thus leaks are prevented in case some application leaks.
13. Optionally, Physical Isolation is documented.
14. Protocol-Leak-Protection and Fingerprinting-Protection.
15. Whonix ™ Secure And Distributed Time Synchronization Mechanism.
16. Check.torproject.org is checked (see systemcheck) anyway, even though we are sure, that there are no leaks.
17. Built in update notification for operating system updates, Tor Browser version and Whonix ™ version (see systemcheck).
18. Comprehensive, growing Documentation.
19. Comprehensive, growing Technical Design.
20. Openness about weaknesses, shortcomings, etc.
21. Cryptographically signed binary builds and git source code tags.
22. ...

Whonix ™ was tested for leaks, see Dev/Leak Tests. All went negative. Additionally, Skype, which is known for it is ability to punch through firewalls, was not able to establish non-torified connections. Also BitTorrent doesn't leak the IP (there is an online bittorrent leak tester), which of course should never be used through Tor (because it chokes Tor nodes), but for leak testing it was welcome. Right now we don't know of any leak tests which leaks the real IP.

Whonix ™ is safe (not affected) from Protocol leaks ^[archive], like this the ones listed on Security in Real World, Skype, Flash or BitTorrent. This already justifies to use a "no non-Tor connections possible" approach.

See also Security Reviews and Feedback.

When you go ahead now, and ask in a hacker forum, they probably won't spread a simple method to get the real IP of Whonix-Workstation ™. On the other hand, if you run an intelligence service and have 100.000 $ left over, you can announce something like "find a new exploit in Tor's SocksPort and get 100.000 $". Qualified people start looking into it and might find something.

Does Whonix ™ / Tor Provide Protection from Advanced Adversaries?[edit]

Targeted Surveillance[edit]

Whonix ™ cannot provide protection against advanced attack tools ^[archive] which have the capability to penetrate all types of OSes, firewalls, routers, VPN traffic, computers, smartphones and other digital devices. Implants are capable of surviving across reboots, software / firmware upgrades and following the re-installation of operating systems. ^[20]

Once infected in this way, it is virtually undetectable and no solution can be readily found, except throwing away the hardware and moving on from the targeted physical / network location. Encryption, Tor / Tor Browser, other anonymity tools, "secure" hardware configurations and so on are helpless against these attacks, which are increasingly automated and being scaled up in size. For example, the American IC prefers using the TURBINE ^[archive] system for this purpose.

The following is just a small sample of the hundreds of advanced implants and tools currently in use. Needless to say, advanced adversaries can achieve almost any outcome they like: ^{[21] [22] [23]}

The take-home message is that current hardware and software solutions provide multiple attack vectors which are impossible to completely close. Air-gapped solutions which have never been connected to the Internet may provide security for targeted individuals, but Internet-connected devices should be considered completely unsafe.

Passive Surveillance[edit]

Users should be aware that passive surveillance systems will attempt to intercept, record, categorize and attribute all data that can be feasibly collected, including straight off the Internet backbone. These systems are designed to hoover up everything, irrespective of whether it is browsing history, emails, chat / video, voice data, photographs, attachments, VoIP, file transfers, video conferencing, social networking, logins, or user activity meta-data.

Consistent use of anonymous handles, strong encryption, Tor / Tor Browser and world class open source anonymity tools and platforms may provide partial protection against passive surveillance programs ^[archive], such as:

Be aware that this claim comes with an important caveat - it depends on whether Tor (and other software / hardware solutions) provide adequate protection or not ^[archive]. The answer to that question is not clear. Whonix ™ has adopted a skeptical mindset and only makes conservative claims, because it is impossible to prove a negative. For a related statement about advanced adversaries, refer to the following technical introduction.

Can Certain Activities Leak DNS and/or the Real External IP Address / Location?[edit]

No activity conducted inside Whonix-Workstation ™ can cause IP/DNS leaks so long as Whonix-Gateway ™ is left unchanged or only documented changes are made like configuring bridges, establishing onion services and running updates.

However, certain behaviors can degrade anonymity or inadvertently expose a user's real identity or location. For instance:

• Do not confuse pseudonymity with anonymity.
• Avoid activities that risk de-anonymization.
• Avoid major networking changes like using non-Tor, secondary DNS resolvers or establishing permanent Tor exit relays. ^[26]

Forensics[edit]

Forensic Considerations[edit]

In the past, a number of ideas have been put forward as anti-forensics.

• Shredding the Whonix ™ hard disk images.
• Having a zip archive of Whonix ™ hard disk images and restoring them every time Whonix ™ is used.
• Restoring a fresh snapshot every time Whonix ™ is used.
• Running Whonix ™ completely in ramdisks ^[archive].
• Using full disk encryption.
• And so on.

Unfortunately, these methods are not a sufficient substitute. It is manifestly unsafe to try and deal with data by wiping it after it has already been stored, so this is a poor design principle to implement. Use Host Live Mode instead. The advantage is that sensitive (or unencrypted) data is never stored on storage media in the first place.

Using full disk encryption is still useful to protect against forensic analysis, but in some parts of the world this is illegal or draws unwanted attention.

Anti-forensic Claims[edit]

The reader should always be cautious regarding claims made about the ability to defeat disk forensics. For example, the Whonix ™ team are not experts in matters related to:

• HDD/SSD swap space.
• Computer forensics ^[archive]. ^[27]
• Data remaining on USBs and SSDs after "secure" erasing ^[archive].
• Wear leveling ^[archive].
• The possibility of ordinary hard disks sometimes marking sectors as bad and never releasing their data. ^[28]
• Data traces that may be left on disk by Tor Browser ^[archive] on the macOS, Linux and Windows platforms.
• Other related forensic capabilities ^[archive].

Even carefully designed setups fail to approach the efficiency of an amnesic system. At a bare minimum, before any strong claims can be made about anti-forensics, the following steps should be undertaken:

1. Make an image of the HDD/SSD.
2. Run Whonix ™ and perform a range of normal user activities.
3. Make another image of the HDD/SSD.
4. Compare the images.

Unless these essential steps are performed, the setup may seem ingenious but fail against contemporary forensic tools. Users concerned about local forensics should at least use full disk encryption. When established open source encryption solutions like Linux dmcrypt are used correctly, they live up to their promises. However, always remember this approach is inferior, particularly if the user can be forced to surrender their password under certain circumstances. Use Host Live Mode instead.

Images[edit]

Why are Whonix ™ Images so Large?[edit]

From Whonix ™ 14:

• zerofree has been used to reduce the size of the Whonix-Gateway ™ from 1.7 GB to 850 MB, while the Whonix-Workstation ™ is reduced from 2 GB to 1.1 GB. ^[29]
• A headless, cli-only version of Whonix ™ is available.

This is still larger than other "Tor-VM" or "Tor-LiveCD/DVD" projects, which sometimes depend on specially "stripped-down" or minimal distributions like TinyCore ^[archive], DSL ^[archive] and Puppy Linux ^[archive].

Live Operating System[edit]

Is there Something like Whonix ™ Live?[edit]

Non-Qubes-Whonix ™: See Host Live Mode and VM Live Mode.

Qubes-Whonix ™: look into something roughly similar, see Qubes DisposableVMs.

Alternatively, users can follow the recommendations to run Whonix ™ with the dedicated host operating system installed on external media in combination with full disk encryption.

Is there a Whonix ™ Amnesic Feature / Live CD / Live DVD? What about Forensics?[edit]

Amnesic Feature: See Host Live Mode.

Live: See Whonix-Host.

Will there be a Whonix ™ Live CD or DVD?[edit]

Probably yes. See Whonix-Host.

Non-Qubes-Whonix ™[edit]

possibly in future.

Qubes-Whonix ™[edit]

Another promising long term possibility may be running Qubes-Whonix ™ on Qubes OS ^[archive] Live DVD/USB, which is currently in Alpha ^[archive]. ^[30] Unfortunately, at the time of writing Live-mode is no longer supported or maintained by Qubes. ^[31] Nevertheless, if this is further developed in the future, only limited changes are required on the Whonix ™ side. The primary responsibility for hardware support and Live operating system development rests upon Qubes developers, with whom the Whonix ™ team has a strong, collaborative, working relationship.

For something roughly similar see Qubes DisposableVMs.

See Also[edit]

• Comparison of Whonix ™, Tails, Tor Browser, TorVM and corridor

Footnotes[edit]

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