New Tor Tools
If you missed it, the other day Tor introduced a new privacy tool called “oniux”.
It wasn’t clear to me whether or not wrapping other apps with the command “oniux” before it like the provided Hexchat example would work to produce a different IP while separating the namespace out via the proposed isolation mechanisms. So, I thought I’d give the trusty Lynx a whirl on the command line and see what happened. After going to the https://icanhazip.com link, I was pleasantly surprised to see that Lynx was reporting the IP of a tor exit node. I’m not even sure you could set up torsocks with Lynx without a mountain of pain, whereas Oniux makes it a one-step process. I’d like to, of course, understand more of what’s going on under the hood with maybe a future wireshark scan, or to watch some system calls go by via something like strace, but that kind of investigation is going to have to be left to others at the moment who probably have a more discerning eye than mine for any kind of security mistakes with those tools if they are in the habit of daily usage of them.
One Stop Apps
One stop apps are a mixed blessing because they make what what otherwise be a several step process turn in to only one, but you also have to “trust” the app to a certain extent. Multi-pieces like torsocks complain if some piece is broken readily. With only one app, there is only one thing that has to be breached in order for all your security to go out the window. On the other hand, all security is a trade-off between levels of trust and containment. Torsocks has been known to leak information if not configured correctly without complaint. It will be nice, however, to see how Oniux refines itself in terms of this security challenge over the forthcoming months.