Down the Snowden rabbit hole and back out again

2021-08-14

After watching the superb TV Series “Start Up”, I became fascinated with the dark web. I had previously dabbled with Tor but didn't really understand much about it.

I am a bit of a privacy freak though and the thought of securing my laptop and online presence against peering eyes certainly appealed. The heat of the Spanish summer had led me to the cool air of indoors. I had time on my hands.

I installed and tried out various worthy operating systems on my laptop. Kodachi looked good but would it stand the test of time? Tails was rather basic and meant to be run from a USB drive. I eventually installed Virtualbox with Whonix which also did the job. In all I spent 2 days testing various security conscious operating systems.

Then I read Whonix's Tips on Remaining Anonymous which I now wish I'd read first! It's a superb read. My imagined world of cosy privacy and security is just not possible without a load of give on my part. I would have to live and breathe like an online monk to stand a chance.

For instance, banks can easily block you when they detect Tor or VPNs are being used. Similarly other sites will detect and block. My own company website https://www.spanishhighs.co.uk wouldn't let me view the page. Cloudflare had seen “suspicious activity”.

It was an interesting exercise learning all about privacy and the dark web. But ... it's just not for me. Back up the rabbit hole I went towards the light!