Whonix Project Activities: Innovation, Cooperation and Education

Whonix ®

Download

Windows Linux Mac VirtualBox KVM Qubes Intel / AMD64 ARM64 PPC64 USB ISO Raspberry Pi More options Source Code

About

Overview Features Whonix vs VPNs Why Open Source? Project Activities Contributors Mission & Vision

Docs

Documentation FAQ Troubleshooting

Community

Forums Forum Best Practices Contribute

Support

Self Support First Policy Search Engines, Docs and AI Support (Limited) Reporting Bugs Contact (Restricted)

Tools Upload file Special pages Recent changes Print Version Page meta What links here Related changes Page information

Page Read Edit History Move Protection Unwatch Watch Delete Purge

User Preferences Watchlist Contributions Logout Create account Login

Donate

• Project Activities
• Why Freedom Software / Open Source
• Contributors
• Mission and Vision
• Contribute

Things the Whonix project is working on; Innovate; Cooperate; Mentor; Educate; Maintenance; Research

Whonix Project Activities

Innovation

Table: Whonix Innovation

Category	Description
Anonymity	Thinking hard about obscure attacks on anonymity such as clock correlation deanonymization attacks and developing countermeasures; see TimeSync. Adding support for multiple anonymity networks to cater to different user bases.
Invent mechanisms for rapid Debian packaging	genmkfile - easy and turbo packaging of scripts and configuration files. Demonstrating how to write hassle free man pages. For example, the following methodology is used for all related Whonix packages. Written in markdown. Just three lines of packaging is required. https://github.com/Kicksecure/tor-ctrl/blob/master/man/tor-ctrl.8.md https://github.com/Kicksecure/tor-ctrl/blob/master/debian/control#L9 https://github.com/Kicksecure/tor-ctrl/blob/master/debian/control#L17-L18
Holistic focus	Focusing on the anonymity and privacy field, without getting into unimportant details. Understanding issues regular users are experiencing and creating a better user experience.
Develop concepts	Emergency Security News Notification Permanent Takedown Attack Defender, proposal to defend against a permanent takedown threat apt-revoker Check for Revocation Certificates before running apt Package manager update security on/off switch And much more.
Miscellaneous	Maintaining a general interest in security matters, scrutinizing solutions, and connecting people.
Documentation	Huge wiki. 100's of wiki pages. See Documentation and Design. Lots of Wiki Enhancements..

Cooperation

Table: Whonix Cooperation

Category	Description
Issue/bug reports	Reporting issues or bugs at other projects, such as: Qubes VirtualBox
The Tor Project	Successfully communicate issues in the Tor ecosystem and do so whenever we find something. Some suggestions have been implemented and others accepted. https://web.archive.org/web/20201028003446/https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/query?reporter=proper&col=id&col=summary&col=status&col=type&col=priority&col=milestone&col=component&order=priority https://web.archive.org/web/20201021121818/https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/query?reporter=adrelanos&col=id&col=summary&col=type&col=status&col=priority&col=milestone&col=component&order=priority Reporting any security/privacy/anonymity issues discovered, including some which could lead to deanonymization. Please press on expand on the right for a list of references. do something about TLS HELLO gmt_unix_time get independent from host clock time / insecure NTP use Valid-Until field to prevent downgrade attacks for deb.torproject.org use sha256 or sha512 instead of sha1 for deb.torproject.org deactivate Check for new messages on startup deactive submit performance data deactivate Check for new messages every 10 minutes enable connection security by default Remove "This Plugin is Disabled" click-through set plugin.expose_full_path to false Adapt Tor installer to allow users to avoid connecting to the public tor network Add warning related to Identity correlation through circuit sharing spoof history.length - browser.sessionhistory.max_entries Linux TCP Initial Sequence Numbers may aid correlation
Other collaborative efforts/contributions	kloak - Keystroke and Mouse Anonymization Tool https://web.archive.org/web/20170511021801/https://secure-os.org/pipermail/desktops/ zuluCrypt
Developer community	Coordination of an active developer community, see: Whonix contributors. Whonix contributions: founder adrelanos developer troubadour developer madaidan former developer 0brand developer HulaHoop developer Jason Ayala developer Algernon developer Sirus Shahini incomplete list
Miscellaneous	Flexible packaging to allow cherry-picking of functionality by privacy and non-privacy distributions alike: https://github.com/Whonix/anon-meta-packages/blob/master/debian/control Providing all Whonix improvements to Debian as reusable (by others) packages split by functionality: https://github.com/Whonix Use many packages developed by Whonix with Debian too. Timely review and merging of contributions.
Based on Whonix	SecureDrop Journalist Workstation based on Qubes-Whonix

Mentoring

• Google Summer of Code
• Google Season of Docs (GSoD)
• CS Student Capstone (Bachelor's Senior project) for Whonix

Education

Whonix undertakes a broad range of educational activities, including:

• Extensive Documentation covering technical aspects and operational security.
  • Security and anonymity matters are documented in detail, including unique material not covered elsewhere.
  • Technical documentation is also provided, for example: Configuration Files.
• Whonix answers are seldom disputed; for example see answers by Patrick Schleizer on Tor Stack Exchange.
• Operating a responsive forum, providing user support for the community.
• Debian derivative development documentation, for example: About Debian Packaging

Maintenance

Whonix maintenance activities are wide in scope and include:

• Following developments in anonymity, security and privacy and formulating solutions.
• Maintaining various components.
• Ongoing development:
  • Refer to this subset list of Whonix git commits; and
  • ~ 16 Whonix source code repositories.
• Keeping the whonix.org server safe and up-to-date with various webapps (website, wiki, forums and issue tracker).
• Testing new packages.
• Calling for testers, then reviewing and processing feedback from testers.
• Creating downloadable Whonix builds.
• Keeping the community informed about recent developments at Whonix.
• Porting to the next stable version of Debian.

TODO expand

Research

See Research.

Kicksecure

Kicksecure Hardened

Redirection to Kicksecure Documentation

Incomplete: This wiki page is incomplete by design. It only includes details specific to Whonix. For full understanding, please follow the link below to the Kicksecure wiki, which provides more complete background and instructions.

• Introduction: Whonix Documentation Introduction, User Expectations, Footnotes and References, User Expectations - What Documentation Is and What It Is Not
• Whonix is based on Kicksecure^™: Whonix is built on top of Kicksecure. This means it uses many of the same security tools, design concepts, and configurations.
• Kicksecure is based on Debian: Kicksecure is developed using Debian as its base. Debian is a widely used, stable, and free Linux operating system.
• Inheritance: As a result, Whonix is also based on Debian.
• Debian is GNU/Linux-based: Debian is built using the GNU/Linux operating system. GNU provides essential tools and Linux is the system’s kernel (core).
• Shared documentation benefits: Since each system is based on the one below it, a lot of documentation and guides are shared. This reduces the need to duplicate information.
• Inherited documentation: Most instructions and explanations are inherited from Kicksecure or Debian, unless otherwise specified.
• Shared principles: The systems share similar security goals and setup instructions. In most cases, users can follow Kicksecure documentation when using Whonix.
• Keep using Whonix: This does not mean users should switch to Kicksecure. This page only points to related, helpful information.
• Where to apply the instructions: Follow the instructions inside Whonix unless specifically stated otherwise.
• Wiki editors notice: This information is pulled from a reusable wiki template: upstream_wiki. (See which pages use this.)
• Comparison: Whonix versus Kicksecure
• Documentation compatibility: Because Whonix is based on Kicksecure, you can often follow Kicksecure’s instructions as long as you apply them in the right place.
• Summary: Whonix is built on top of Kicksecure, which itself is based on Debian. Debian is a GNU/Linux operating system. This layered design means Whonix inherits many features, tools, and documentation from both Kicksecure and Debian.
• Click here: Visit the related page in the Kicksecure wiki for full documentation and background:

What we do

• Note: Re-interpretation...

Apply the instructions inside Whonix, not inside Kicksecure.

Kicksecure: Perform these steps inside Kicksecure.

Instead, apply the steps inside Whonix-Workstation.

Kicksecure for Qubes: Perform these steps inside Qubes kicksecure-17 Template.

Instead, use the whonix-workstation-17 Template for these steps.

Footnotes

Whonix The most watertight privacy operating system in the world.

Dark mode

Follow us on social media

Supported by Power Up Privacy

Whonix is proudly supported until 2025 by Power Up Privacy, a privacy advocacy group that seeks to supercharge privacy projects with resources so they can complete their mission of making our world a better place. (Strictly subject to our sponsorship policy.)

At Whonix we value freedom and trust, supporting Open Source and Freedom Software

By using this website, you acknowledge you have read, understood, and agree to be bound by these agreements: Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy, E-Sign Consent, DMCA, Imprint 2012- 2025 ENCRYPTED SUPPORT LLC

Your support makes
all the difference!

We believe security software like Whonix needs to remain open source and independent. Would you help sustain and grow the project? Learn more about our 13 year success story and maybe DONATE!