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HOW TO SECURE YOUR TOR ONION KEYS

This is a quick guide on how to secure your Tor Onionsite from someone intercepting the keys and hijacking your domain.

Open a terminal and Type

sudo su –

Only hs_ed25519_secret_key is required for TOR to work

Copy other keys to a backup location

Do do this type:
mkdir /backup
mkdir /backup/current-tor-keys
cd /var/lib/tor/hidden_service/
cp -R ./* /backup/current-tor-keys/
rm hs_ed25519_public_key
sudo chown -R debian-tor: /var/lib/tor/hidden_service
sudo chmod -R u+rwX,og-rwx /var/lib/tor/hidden_service

Now use WinSCP and copy the keys off the server to a safe location and delete them from your /backup directory

INSTALL TOR ON KALI 2024.1

This is a quick guide on how to install tor on the newest version of Kali Linux. By default the version that I am running does not have it.

Open a terminal and Type:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt install tor -y
sudo apt install torbrowser-launcher -y

Now to run Tor you will need to open a second terminal

In the first terminal type:
tor
Press Enter. This will start the service

In the second terminal, type:
torbrowser-launcher
Press Enter

This will open the Browser

Try navigating to my Onion site to test it out:
longleycr37tvhhrxmbs3buk3ze6vtpyouz3gy6uytdqqfvoiqrf3yyd.onion

HOW TO SETUP A TOR ONIONSITE ON APACHE

Here is a simple how-to guide on setting it up in 2024

First you will want a server that has nothing on it and is not publicly available. I suggest getting a spare PC, or setting it up on a VM.

Make sure the PC/VM is on a standalone VLAN and behind a firewall so no other traffic can get to it. Open NO Ports, setup No NATs, TOR does not need them open to function properly.

First, Install Ubuntu Server 22.04 or Ubuntu Server 24.04

Then ssh into the server

Type:
sudo su –

dpkg –print-architecture

If it is either amd64, arm64 or i386, it will work, if it is not any of those structures, find a different system to run it on.

Type:
apt install apt-transport-https

lsb_release -a

What is your version of linux? It wil be listed as something like
Codename: focal
or
Codename: jammy
or whatever the latest flavor is

Install Apache:
apt-get update

apt install apache2

mv /var/www/html/index.html /var/www/html/index.html.orig

nano /var/www/html/index.html

Type in
Hi, You Found Me!

Save and Exit

Now Type:
cd /etc/apt/sources.list.d/

nano tor.list

paste in this:
deb     [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/tor-archive-keyring.gpg] https://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org <DISTRIBUTION> main
deb-src [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/tor-archive-keyring.gpg] https://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org <DISTRIBUTION> main

Change <DISTRIBUTION> to focal or jammy or whatever, so it looks like this:
deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/tor-archive-keyring.gpg] https://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org jammy main
deb-src [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/tor-archive-keyring.gpg] https://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org jammy main

Save and Exit

Now type:
wget -qO- https://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org/A3C4F0F979CAA22CDBA8F512EE8CBC9E886DDD89.asc | gpg –dearmor | tee /usr/share/keyrings/tor-archive-keyring.gpg >/dev/null

apt update

apt install tor deb.torproject.org-keyring

nano /etc/tor/torrc

Uncomment these lines by deleting the #

HiddenServiceDir /var/lib/tor/hidden_service/
HiddenServicePort 80 127.0.0.1:80

Save and Exit

systemctl restart tor

systemctl restart apache2

cat /var/lib/tor/hidden_service/hostname

and your onion site will show like this:
longleycr37tvhhrxmbs3buk3ze6vtpyouz3gy6uytdqqfvoiqrf3yyd.onion

Now you can go to a site like torgateway.com and browse to that onion site to ensure it is live. I would prefer if you actually used your own tor browser instead using a setup like the one I created here for Tor and Tails.

Enjoy the darkweb!

HOW TO ACCESS TOR SAFELY

This is a quick How-To on installing Tails OS to a USB Drive, so you can use TOR on any computer, Anywhere

To start, on your computer:

Download BalenaEtcher and install it

Visit https://tails.net/ to get your copy of Tails, which was created by the makers of TOR

Download Tails, the latest version

Insert a USB into your Computer

Open BalenaEtcher

Click Flash From File

Select Tails

Select Target

Select your USB Drive

Click Flash!

Once it is done being flashed, you can put it in a computer to use

Boot/Reboot the computer

Select your USB Drive on startup

Tails will begin!

Once you are in Tails, to use TOR, click Activities in the Top Left

Select Tor Browser

Connect the circuit to the tor network.

Once connected to Tor you can test it by visiting my website:

Go to https://jaylongley.com and navigate to the Contact Page

Note that UBlock Origin has found trackers on my website. It finds google analytics and whatnot. This is supposed to happen. You will see why in a minute.

There you will see a tor address. Copy that address

Open a new tab in Tor

Place the Onion address that you received from my contact page, and navigate there

You will see my darkweb page appear

Now note UBlock Origin, has NO trackers here. To use Tor and ensure your safety, only work with pages and sites that do not track you!

Happy Surfing

FIX TORSOCKS PERROR ISSUE

In ParrotOS if you install torsocks using apt-get install torsocks, it installs fine, however you cannot run it from the commandline as it has the following error

Error:
PERROR torsocks[2859]: socks5 libc connect: Connection refused (in socks5_connect() at socks5.c:202)

To fix this error do the following

Type:
sudo nano /etc/tor/torsocks.conf

Scroll down to the TorPort line

Change 9050 to 9150

Now it should read
TorPort 9150

Press CTRL + X
Press Y to save

Now you can run torsocks

How to use WGET with TOR through torsocks

Quick how-to on using wget for a .onion site

Once Parrot OS is installed

Open Applications menu at the top left of the screen

Open TOR Launcher

Click Install TOR

Open a terminal

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get upgrade

sudo apt-get install torsocks

Once installed, you can navigate to a terminal

Type:
torsocks wget to get the data through the tor network.

Example (change the links with valid ones):
torsocks wget
torsocks wget

ACCESSING .ONION SITES WITHOUT TOR

While TOR is the recommended way to access the dark web, everyone and anyone can still visit without the same level of anonymity. I certainly would suggest using TOR always, however if you need to get to any .onion site from a computer without tor, you can do so by following this:

Open an internet browser (Edge, Firefox, Chrome, etc)
Type in the .onion site (ex. https://protonirockerxow.onion/rc/)
After the .onion portion of the address, add .dog (ex https://protonirockerxow.onion.dog/rc/)
Press Enter
You are now viewing RISEUP’s website on the darkweb, using a regular browser