anonym.os question for OS X

April 24, 2008 3:50 PM

Is anyone aware of an "anonym.os, livecd" installation on a USB drive that runs on OS X (equivalent to DemocraKey for Windows)?
posted by ranebo to computers & internet (3 comments total)

I'm confused-- isn't a LiveCD a bootable OS which doesn't "run on OS X"? Are you saying you're having a hard time running the particular LiveCD on Apple hardware?

An alternate would be the Incognito distro, which seems to have similar goals.

As a warning, however, please note anonym.os appears to use the Tor network which is anonymous but not secure. Last year it was discovered exit nodes were snooping on Tor traffic. And there was even evidence of SSL man-in-the-middle attacks on Tor traffic.

posted by sharkfu at 4:32 PM on April 24, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

@sharkfu --

Thanks very much, I'm the one who's confused. What you say makes sense about it being a bootable OS and (therefore) not running on OS X. I guess I should have been thinking in terms of whether it runs on Macs.

I haven't actually tried "anonym.os, live cd" but I guess I got confused by seeing a description of DemocraKey which appears to run from a USB drive but (I guess) within Windows.

Thank you for the Incognito info. Do I infer correctly that if it is installed on a USB drive (made bootable in the installation process), it could be used on both Macs and PCs?

What are the considerations for anonymous web surfing via a bootable drive (as Incognito) versus a website such as http://anonymouse.org?
posted by ranebo at 6:58 AM on April 25, 2008

Yes, I believe Incognito is bootable on both Macs and PCs, although I haven't specifically tested it. Anonym.os may be as well. I've tried a couple Live CDs, they've been hit or miss with the correct drivers installed to run on my Mac. In theory, if it didn't have the right video driver/ SATA driver/ etc you could redo the LiveCD and put in the correct driver, although that's too advanced for my linux skills.

The reason I originally looked into LiveCDs was for use in internet cafes while traveling. In theory, a LiveCD would be more secure because it wouldn't allow any nasty trojans/ keyloggers/ etc to be loaded. There's always the risk of a hardware keylogger, but you could look around for that.

I believe (although I'm not sure) that a Live CD would be more anonymous than a website because you could still trace that particular machine as having gone to the anonymous.org website before it began an anonymous session, although I'm sure there are better experts on anonymous surfing than I.
posted by sharkfu at 12:03 PM on April 25, 2008