[tor-talk] Is there a way to use internet in a sandbox environment? (Linux)

[Jim]

npdflr wrote:
> Can you elaborate or give example on how to run a live CD/DVD for internet access.

It has been a while since I have done this so I am a bit out of date,
but presumably the procedure hasn't changed.  You need to find and
download an .iso image from the internet or obtain it from another
source.  Hopefully the creators of the image provide a way to verify
that the image you get is correct and unaltered (PGP signature, a signed
list of secure hashes, etc).  You should verify your image.  Then you
need to burn the image to a CD or DVD (as appropriate) *as an image*.
You can find instructions on the Internet about how to to this.  Do
*not* just write it to the optical disk as a file.  Put the disk in
your computer and boot to it.  You will then be running from the optical
disk and there should be no hard drive access unless you specifically
request it.

There are multiple live systems to choose from.  Probably all will give
you Internet access but some/many may not include Tor.  TAILs does
include Tor and is specifically set up to direct all Internet traffic
through Tor.  There may be others.  You should be able to find any
additional information you need through searching the Internet.

My impression is these days it is more common to run live systems from
thumb drives than optical disks.  But I specifically mentioned CD/DVDs
because they are read-only media and therefore can't get infected
(assuming your original image is clean).

> One has to install an OS on the CD/DVD and there needs to be some means for CD/DVD to access a network-specific firmware etc for using the internet, am I right?

Live systems auto-detect hardware and will usually "just work" with the 
hardware you have.  If it doesn't you need to either find a different 
live system or different hardware.  But if your hardware works with 
standard Linux I wouldn't expect a problem.

HTH

Jim