Boot Clock Randomization
Introduction[edit]
The TimeSync page notes:
Using Boot Clock Randomization, i.e. after boot, the clock is set randomly between 0 and 180 seconds into the past or future. This is useful to enforce the design goal, that the host clock and Whonix-Workstation ™ clock should always slightly differ. It is also useful to obfuscate the clock when sdwdate itself is running, because naturally at this time, sdwdate hasn't finished. sdwdate runs after booting.
By randomly moving the system clock a few seconds (and nanseconds) in the past or future during boot, this enforces the design goal of a slightly different host clock and Gateway/Workstation clock, even before secure timesync has succeeded. This prevents time-based fingerprinting and linkability issues, thereby improving anonymity and privacy. [1]
For technical discussion on the Boot Clock Randomization design, see here. [2]
Manual Boot Clock Randomization[edit]
In the unlikely event that sdwdate fails to properly randomize the system clock, it is possible [3] to manually set a random value. Two options are available:
clock-random-manual-gui: a randomized clock setting (in UTC) is entered via a GUI.clock-random-manual-cli: a randomized clock setting (in UTC) is entered on the command line. For example:echo "Fri Sep 30 22:20:00 UTC 2016" | /usr/bin/clock-random-manual-cli
This operation should be conducted in a Whonix-Gateway (sys-whonix) terminal.
A non-zero exit codes signifies an error, while 0 means it succeeded. [4]
Log Inspection[edit]
Open /var/log/bootclockrandomization.log in an editor.
If you are using a graphical environment, run.
kwrite /var/log/bootclockrandomization.log
If you are using a terminal (Konsole), run.
nano /var/log/bootclockrandomization.log
For an overview of the time synchronization mechanism in Whonix ™, see here.
Footnotes[edit]
- ↑ https://github.com/Whonix/bootclockrandomization
- ↑ Notably, one recent change is the 0-5 second time window is no longer excluded in the process, as it was found to aid fingerprinting.
- ↑ Since Whonix 14.
- ↑ Also see:
man clock-random-manual-gui
man clock-random-manual-cli
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