text:
I don't understand why this is evidence that "EA Funds (other than the global health and development one) currently funges heavily with GiveWell recommended charities", which was Howie's original question. It seems like evidence that donations to OpenPhil (which afaik cannot be made by individual donors) funge against donations to the long-term future EA fund.
I like the general thrust here, although I have a different version of this idea, which I would call "minimizing philosophical pre-commitments". For instance, there is a great deal of debate about whether Bayesian probability is a reasonable philosophical foundation for statistical reasoning. It seems that it would be better, all else equal, for approaches to AI alignment to not hinge on being on the right side of this debate.
I think there are some places where it is hard to avoid pre-commitments. For instance, while this isn't quite a philosophical pre-commitment, it is probably hard to develop approaches that are simultaneously optimized for short and long timelines. In this case it is probably better to explicitly do case splitting on the two worlds and have some subset of people pursuing approaches that are good in each individual world.
FWIW I understood Zvi's comment, but feel like I might not have understood it if I hadn't played Magic: The Gathering in the past.
EDIT: Although I don't understand the link to Sir Arthur's green knight, unless it was a reference to the fact that M:tG doesn't actually have a green knight card.
Thanks for writing this Aaron! (And for engaging with some of the common arguments for/against AI safety work.)
I personally am very uncertain about whether to expect a singularity/fast take-off (I think it is plausible but far from certain). Some reasons that I am still very interested in AI safety are the following:
- I think AI safety likely involves solving a number of difficult conceptual problems, such that it would take >5 years (I would guess something like 10-30 years, with very wide error bars) of research to have solutions that we are happy with. Moreover, many of the relevant problems have short-term analogues that can be worked on today. (Indeed, some of these align with your own research interests, e.g. imputing value functions of agents from actions/decisions; although I am particularly interested in the agnostic case where the value function might lie outside of the given model family, which I think makes things much harder.)
- I suppose the summary point of the above is that even if you think AI is a ways off (my median estimate is ~50 years, again with high error bars) research is not something that can happen instantaneously, and conceptual research in particular can move slowly due to being harder to work on / parallelize.
- While I have uncertainty about fast take-off, that still leaves some probability that fast take-off will happen, and in that world it is an important enough problem that it is worth thinking about. (It is also very worthwhile to think about the probability of fast take-off, as better estimates would help to better direct resources even within the AI safety space.)
- Finally, I think there are a number of important safety problems even from sub-human AI systems. Tech-driven unemployment is I guess the standard one here, although I spend more time thinking about cyber-warfare/autonomous weapons, as well as changes in the balance of power between nation-states and corporations. These are not as clearly an existential risk as unfriendly AI, but I think in some forms would qualify as a global catastrophic risk; on the other hand I would guess that most people who care about AI safety (at least on this website) do not care about it for this reason, so this is more idiosyncratic to me.
Happy to expand on/discuss any of the above points if you are interested.
Very minor nitpick, but just to add, FLI is as far as I know not formally affiliated with MIT. (FHI is in fact a formal institute at Oxford.)
Hi Zvi,
I enjoy reading your posts because they often consist of clear explanations of concepts I wish more people appreciated. But I think this is the first instance where I feel I got something that I actually hadn't thought about before at all, so I wanted to convey extra appreciation for writing it up.
I think the conflation is "decades out" and "far away".
Galfour was specifically asked to write his thought up in this thread: https://www.lesserwrong.com/posts/BEtzRE2M5m9YEAQpX/there-s-no-fire-alarm-for-artificial-general-intelligence/kAywLDdLrNsCvXztL
It seems either this was posted to the wrong place, or there is some disagreement within the community (e.g. between Ben in that thread and the people downvoting).
Points 1-5 at the beginning of the post are all primarily about community-building and personal development externalities of the project, and not about the donation itself.
?? If you literally mean minimum-wage, I think that is less than 10,000 pounds... although agree with the general thrust of your point about the money being more valuanle than the time (but think you are missing the spirit of the exercise as outlined in the post).
You might be interested in my work on learning from untrusted data (see also earlier work on aggregating unreliable human input). I think it is pretty relevant to what you discussed, although if you do not think it is, then I would also be pretty interested in understanding that.
Unrelated, but for quantilizers, isn't the biggest issue going to be that if you need to make a sequence of decisions, the probabilities are going to accumulate and give exponential decay? I don't see how to make a sequence of 100 decisions in a quantilizing way unless the base distribution of policies is very close to the target policy.
Parts of the house setup pattern-match to a cult, cult members aren't good at realizing when they need to leave, but their friends can probably tell much more easily.
(I don't mean the above as negatively as it sounds connotatively, but it's the most straightforward way to say what I think is the reason to want external people. I also think this reasoning degrades gracefully with the amount of cultishness.)
I think there's a difference between a friend that one could talk to (if they decide to), and a friend tasked with the specific responsibility of checking in and intervening if things seem to be going badly.
I feel like you're straw-manning scenario analysis. Here's an actual example of a document produced via scenario analysis: Global Trends 2035.
When you downvote something on the EA forum, it becomes hidden. Have you tried viewing it while not logged in to your account? It's still visible to me.
then the technical advisors at OPP must have a very specific approach to AI safety they are pushing very hard to get support for, but are unwilling or unable to articulate why they prefer theirs so strongly.
I don't think there is consensus among technical advisors on what directions are most promising. Also, Paul has written substantially about his preferred approach (see here for instance), and I've started to do the same, although so far I've been mostly talking about obstacles rather than positive approaches. But you can see some of my writing here and here. Also my thoughts in slide form here, although those slides are aimed at ML experts.
Any attempt to enforce rationalists moving in is illegal.
Is this really true? Based on my experience (not any legal experience, just seeing what people generally do that is considered fine) I think in the Bay Area the following are all okay:
- Only listing a house to your friends / social circle.
- Interviewing people who want to live with you and deciding based on how much you like them.
The following are not okay:
- Having a rule against pets that doesn't have an exception for seeing-eye dogs.
- Explicitly deciding not to take someone as a house-mate only on the basis of some protected trait like race, etc. (but gender seems to be fine?).
Hi Eugene!
Thanks for posting this, I think it's good to make these things explicit even if it requires effort. One piece of feedback: I think someone who reads this who doesn't already know what "existential risk" and "AI safety" are will be confused (they suddenly show up in the second bullet point without being defined, though it's possible I'm missing some context here).
70% this account is Eugene.
I don't think you are actually making this argument, but this comes close to an uncharitable view of GiveWell that I strongly disagree with, which goes something like "GiveWell can't recommend MIRI because it would look weird and be bad for their brand, even if they think that MIRI is actually the best place to donate to." I think GiveWell / OpenPhil are fairly insensitive to considerations like this and really just want to recommend the things they actually think are best independent of public opinion. The separate branding decision seems like a clearly good idea to me, but I think that if for some reason OpenPhil were forced to have inseparable branding from GiveWell, they would be making the same recommendations.
Also like: here is a 4000-word evaluation of MIRI by OpenPhil. ???
(FYI, this was almost certainly downvoted by Eugene_Nier's sockpuppets rather than actual people. I upvoted, hopefully others will as well to counteract the trollling.)
Wait what? How are you supposed to meet your co-founder / early employees without connections? College is like the ideal place to meet people to start start-ups with.
I don't think I need that for my argument to work. My claim is that if people get, say, less than 70% of a meal's worth of food, an appreciable fraction (say at least 30%) will get cranky.
But like, there's variation in how much food people will end up eating, and at least some of that is not variation that you can predict in advance. So unless you have enough food that you routinely end up with more than can be eaten, you are going to end up with a lot of cranky people a non-trivial fraction of the time. You're not trying to peg production to the mean consumption, but (e.g.) to the 99th percentile of consumption.
I don't think this is really a status thing, more a "don't be a dick to your guests" thing. Many people get cranky if they are hungry, and putting 30+ cranky people together in a room is going to be a recipe for unpleasantness.
I don't really think this is spending idiosyncrasy credits... but maybe we hang out in different social circles.
I assume at least some of the downvotes are from Eugene sockpuppets (he tends to downvote any suggestions that would make it harder to do his trolling).
+1 To go even further, I would add that it's unproductive to think of these researchers as being on anyone's "side". These are smart, nuanced people and rounding their comments down to a specific agenda is a recipe for misunderstanding.
I'm well aware. It is therefore even more problematic if this account is abused --- note that there have been multiple confirmations that username2 has been used to downvote the same people that VoiceOfRa was downvoting before; in addition, VoiceOfRa has used the username2 account to start arguments with NancyLebovitz in a way that makes it look like a 3rd party is disagreeing with the decision, rather than VoiceOfRa himself. At the very least, it is better if everyone is aware of this situation, and ideally we would come up with a way to prevent such abuse.
I was 85% sure at the time that username2's comment was posted. I'm now 98% sure for a variety of reasons.
I'm only 75% sure that the upvotes on "username2"/VoiceOfRa's comments above are from sockpuppets.
Requesting a transparency report.
I think it's bad form to make costly (in terms of time) requests to moderators unless you're willing to be part of the solution. In this case, it would be good at minimum to outline exactly what you mean by a "transparency report" --- concretely, what sort of information would you like to see, and why would it be helpful? It would be even better if you were willing to volunteer to help in creating the report to the extent that the help can be utilized.
I'm 85% sure that you're VoiceOfRa.
I'm dubious that that constitutes abusing her power; AdvancedAtheist was highly and consistently downvoted for a long period of time before being banned.
As Romeo noted, Nancy was appointed roughly by popular acclaim (more like, a small number of highly dedicated and respected users appointing her, and no one objecting). I think it's reasonable in general to give mods a lot of discretionary power, and trust other veteran users to step in if things take a turn for the worse.
My main update from this discussion has been a strong positive update about Gleb Tsipursky's character. I've been generally impressed by his ability to stay positive even in the face of criticism, and to continue seeking feedback for improving his approaches.
I can understand your dislike of Gleb's approach and even see many of your concerns as justified; do you really think your actions in this thread are helping you get what you want though? They certainly won't make Gleb himself listen to you, and they also don't make you sympathetic to onlookers. To the extent that you have issues with Gleb's actions, it seems like pointing them out in a non-abusive way for others to judge would be far more effective.
Yeah; I discussed this with some others and came to the same conclusion. I do still think that one should explain why the preferred basis ends up being as meaningful as it does, but agree that this is a much more minor objection.
Cool, thanks for the paper, interesting read!
Yeah I should be a bit more careful on number 4. The point is that many papers which argue that a given NN is learning "natural" representations do so by looking at what an individual hidden unit responds to (as opposed to looking at the space spanned by the hidden layer as a whole). Any such argument seems dubious to me without further support, since it relies on a sort of delicate symmetry-breaking which can only come from either the training procedure or noise in the data, rather than the model itself. But I agree that if such an argument was accompanied by justification of why the training procedure or data noise or some other factor led to the symmetry being broken in a natural way, then I would potentially be happy.
Without defining a natural representation (since I don't know how to), here's 4 properties that I think a representation should satisfy before it's called natural (I also give these in my response to Vika):
(1) Good performance on different data sets in the same domain.
(2) Good transference to novel domains.
(3) Robustness to visually imperceptible perturbations to the input image.
(4) "Canonicality": replacing the learned features with a random invertible linear transformation of the learned features should degrade performance.
I know there are many papers that show that neural nets learn features that can in some regimes be given nice interpretations. However in all cases of which I am aware where these representations have been thoroughly analyzed, they seem to fail obvious tests of naturality, which would include things like:
(1) Good performance on different data sets in the same domain.
(2) Good transference to novel domains.
(3) Robustness to visually imperceptible perturbations to the input image.
Moreover, ANNs almost fundamentally cannot learn natural representations because they fail what I would call the "canonicality" test:
(4) Replacing the learned features with a random invertible linear transformation of the learned features should degrade performance.
Note that the reason for (4) is that if you want to interpret an individual hidden unit in an ANN as being meaningful, then it can't be the case that a random linear combination of lots of units is equally meaningful (since a random linear combination of e.g. cats and dogs and 100 other things is not going to have much meaning).
That was a bit long-winded, but my question is whether the linked paper or any other papers provide representations that you think don't fail any of (1)-(4).
Human's fastest recognition capability still takes 100 ms or so, and operating in that mode (rapid visual presentation), human inference accuracy is considerably less capable than modern ANNs.
This doesn't seem right, assuming that "considerably less capable" means "considerably worse accuracy at classifying objects not drawn from ImageNet". Do you have a study in mind that shows this? In either case, I don't think this is strong enough to support the claim that the classifier isn't breaking down --- it's pretty clearly making mistakes where humans would find the answer obvious. I don't think that saying that the ANN answers more quickly is a very strong defense.
Note that their implicit definition of "replicable" is very narrow --- under their procedure, one can fail to be "replicable" simply by failing to reply to an e-mail from the authors asking for code. This is somewhat of a word play, since typically "failure to replicate" means that one is unable to get the same results as the authors while following the same procedure. Based on their discussion at the end of section 3, it appears that (at most) 9 of the 30 "failed replications" are due to actually running the code and getting different results.
Thanks for writing this; a couple quick thoughts:
For example, it turns out that a learning algorithm tasked with some relatively simple tasks, such as determining whether or not English sentences are valid, will automatically build up an internal representation of the world which captures many of the regularities of the world – as a pure side effect of carrying out its task.
I think I've yet to see a paper that convincingly supports the claim that neural nets are learning natural representations of the world. For some papers that refute this claim, see e.g.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1312.6199 http://arxiv.org/abs/1412.6572
I think the Degrees of Freedom thesis is a good statement of one of the potential problems. Since it's essentially making a claim about whether a certain very complex statistical problem is identifiable, I think it's very hard to know whether it's true or not without either some serious technical analysis or some serious empirical research --- which is a reason to do that research, because if the thesis is true then that has some worrisome implications about AI safety.
I wrote up a pretty detailed reply to Luke's question: http://lesswrong.com/lw/kd4/the_power_of_noise/
Yes, I agree, I meant the (unobserved) probability that each judge gets a given question correct (which will of course differ from the observed fraction of the time each judge is correct. But it appears that at least one judge may have done quite well (as gjm points out). I don't think that the analysis done so far provides much evidence about how many judges are doing better than chance. It's possible that there just isn't enough data to make such an inference, but one possible thing you could do is to plot the p-values in ascending order and see how close they come to a straight line.
I think you should distinguish between "average score across judges is close to 50%" and "every single judge is close to 50%". I suspect the latter is not true, as pointed out in one of the other comments.
What why would this be true? Utility functions don't have to be linear, it could even be the case that I place no additional utility on happiness beyond a certain level.


text:
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
Onion Services
From Whonix
- 1 Tor Onion Services - EASY
- 1.1 Introduction
- 1.2 Web Server Software Recommendations
- 1.3 Security Recommendations
- 1.4 Hidden Webserver
- 1.4.1 Whonix-Gateway ™
- 22.214.171.124 Step 1: open Tor config
- 22.214.171.124 Step 2: edit Tor config
- 22.214.171.124 Step 3: Configure Onion Services Authentication
- 126.96.36.199 Step 4: Denial of Service Mitigation Options
- 126.96.36.199 Step 5: make changes to Tor config take effect
- 126.96.36.199 Step 6: get your onion hostname
- 220.127.116.11 Step 7: backup your Tor onion service private key
- 1.4.2 Whonix-Workstation ™
- 1.4.3 Debugging
- 1.4.1 Whonix-Gateway ™
- 1.5 Tips settings up any onion service
- 1.6 Hidden VoIP Server
- 2 Tor Onion Services - ADVANCED
- 3 References
Tor Onion Services - EASY[edit]
Be sure to read and understand Tor: Onion Service Protocol [archive] (general information) and Configuring Onion Services for Tor [archive] (standard setup, no isolated proxy) first. Note that onion services are always only reachable using Tor or tunnel services, such as tor2web, (be careful [archive]). Also review Riseup's Tor Hidden (Onion) Services Best Practices guide [archive].
You do not need SSL [1], because connections to Tor onion services are end-to-end encrypted by default. [2][3] This is handy, as you do not have to bother with self signed certificates or certificate authorities.
Another interesting property is they can serve as a drop-in Global Server Load Balancing and Layer 3 DDoS-resistance solution.[4] This raises the bar to withstanding attacks that the entire Tor network can tolerate. Same with I2P Eepsties. Tor can be also considered a very simple to configure encrypted transport alternative to IPSec.[5]
An adversary can see whether the service (and presumably Tor) is up and running or not.
Even if someone hacks your hidden server software (
apache, etc.), the attacker can not steal your onion service key or bypass Tor, see Attack on Whonix ™. The key is stored on the Whonix-Gateway ™. Once you cleaned your Whonix-Workstation ™, no one can impersonate your onion service anymore.
Web Server Software Recommendations[edit]
- Avoid the
Apacheweb server. It has much more functionality, leak potential and attack surface than smaller and lighter alternatives.
- If your needs are limited to hosting static pages then look no further than
micro-httpdavailable from Debian repos. It is a bare-bones daemon made up of 150 lines of code.[8]
- The
Nginxweb server is a recommended alternative.
Security Recommendations[edit]
- Credits: Some of these instructions are paraphrased from Sarah Jamie Lewis' write-up after running OnionScan[9] on the Onion web. All credit goes to her.[10] OnionScan[11] is an open source pen-testing suite that exposes misconfiguration errors that expose Hidden Servers. Do run it before your service goes live.
- Application Level Leaks: Beware of application level leaks. See Protocol-Leak-Protection and Fingerprinting-Protection for definition.
- Hide IP: IP hiding instructions for your specific server software should be applied.
- This is because a combination of a webserver that forwards IP addresses to web apps such as for example mediawiki would be a discouraged case, since mediawiki by default puts IPs of anonymous editors in the public accessible editor logs. The IP would be 10.152.152.10. That could not be used to identify you, because that is not your real external IP address, but it would identify the server as an onion service behind a Whonix-Gateway ™.[12]
- Server Software Hardening: If any instructions for hardening the server instructions are available it is recommended to apply them. While using Whonix ™ we're quite confident that there are no IP/DNS leaks, but hardening the server software is still recommended but the responsibility of the user.
- General Hardening: In the Security Guide and in the Advanced Security Guide you'll find pointers for hardening.
- Mitigate DoS attacks: Its good practice to setup access to your site through reverse proxies to mitigate layer 7 DoS attacks and information leaks about your setup.
- Disable Banners: For SSH, FTP, SMTP and HTTP servers which leak info about the a daemon's name and version. If your SSH instance is for private use, use it with an Authenticated Onion Service to protect your server from brute-force and remote exploitation.
- Dedicated Onion Address: Each service you host should get its own dedicated onion address to prevent correlation between multiple instances running in the same VM.
- ALPaCA: An advanced website fingerprinting client/server mitigation named ALPaCA in development that applies server-side padding to requests sent out to Tor Browser. Once ts ready, service operators can run it to protect against this class of correlation attacks.[13][14][15]
- vanguards: protects against guard discovery and related traffic analysis attacks. Soon installed by default in Whonix ™. See Vanguards.
- onionbalance: onionbalance [archive] can help to prevent de-anonymization of an onion service by protecting it from becoming unavailable through denial of service attacks (DDOS). onionbalance is mentioned in security readme [archive] by vanguards author Tor developer Mike Perry on attacks against onion services and defenses. onionbalance [archive] now available for onion v3 services [16], see https://blog.torproject.org/cooking-onions-reclaiming-onionbalance [archive]
Hidden Webserver[edit]
Whonix-Gateway ™[edit]
On your Whonix-Gateway ™:
Step 1: open Tor config[edit]
On your Whonix-Gateway ™.
If you are using Qubes-Whonix ™, complete the following steps.
Qubes App Launcher (blue/grey "Q") →
Whonix-Gateway ™ ProxyVM (commonly named sys-whonix) →
Tor User Config (Torrc)
If you are using a graphical Whonix-Gateway ™, complete the following steps.
Start Menu →
Applications →
Settings →
If you are using a terminal-only Whonix-Gateway ™, complete the following steps.
sudo nano /usr/local/etc/torrc.d/50_user.conf
Step 2: edit Tor config[edit]
On your Whonix-Gateway ™.
(all Whonix ™ platforms)
You need to add two settings to
HiddenServiceDirconfiguration directive declaring where onion services files (hostname file and private key file) should be stored.
HiddenServicePortconfiguration directive declaring,
- the virtual port and
- the IP and port of the Whonix-Workstation ™ that will run a server service that processing incoming onion service connections.
HiddenServiceVersionconfiguration directive declaring which onion service versino to use (
On your Whonix-Gateway ™.
To do that, add the following three lines.
The IP of Qubes-Whonix ™ Whonix-Workstation ™ AppVM needs to be replaced with the actual IP address. To find out the IP address of the Qubes-Whonix ™ Whonix-Workstation ™ AppVM, the following command can be run within the Qubes-Whonix ™ Whonix-Workstation ™ AppVM:
qubesdb-read /qubes-ip
Make sure to replace
IP-of-q-ws-AppVM with the actual IP address of your Whonix-Workstation ™.
HiddenServiceDir /var/lib/tor/hidden_service/ HiddenServicePort 80 IP-of-q-ws-AppVM:80 HiddenServiceVersion 3
HiddenServiceDir /var/lib/tor/hidden_service/ HiddenServicePort 80 10.152.152.11:80 HiddenServiceVersion 3
(all Whonix ™ platforms)
Step 3: Configure Onion Services Authentication[edit]
Optional: authenticated onion services.
Onion services authentication is only possible for private onion services with a limited number of visitors. This is impossible for a public onion service. For a public onion service you should skip this step. Each visitor needs to be provided with a key file. This chapter describes the server side. The client side is described below in chapter Onion Service Authentication Client Setup.
With v3 onions addresses it is no longer possible for adversaries to learn about the existence of v3 onion addresses if these are not published. This was different previously with v2 onion addresses. Therefore, what is the purpose of onion services authentication for v3 onions?
Onions services authentication for v3 onions exist to eliminate the side risks where the onion address is accidentally leaked. This could be for example due to human error, a bug in the software using the onion address or other yet unknown possibilities. By using onions services authentication the onion service could not be accessed even if the onion address was leaked.
Quote: [17]
Also, if you have multiple users, having one v3 address with authentication is much better than multiple addresses, for the following reasons:
- easier management
- easier to configure and easier to maintain the application behind it (web server or whatever it is)
- less resources needed by the Tor daemon
- less load on your guard(s) / bridge(s), thus more capacity and better experience for your clients / visitors (if you have multiple addresses you need to maintain active introduction point circuits for all of them, publish descriptors, etc.)
These instructions are based on this [archive]. [18] These instruction can be quite difficult but this is not specific to Whonix ™. These instructions are quite difficult anywhere. Whonix is based on Debian and Free Support Principle. [19]
On your Whonix-Gateway ™.
1. Update the package lists.
sudo apt-get update
2. Upgrade the system.
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
3. Install the
basez package.
sudo apt-get install basez
The procedure is complete.
Create temporary private key.
openssl genpkey -algorithm x25519 -out private-key.pem
Create temporary public key.
openssl pkey -in private-key.pem -pubout -outform PEM -out public-key.pem
Create temporary file.
cat private-key.pem | \ grep -v " PRIVATE KEY" | \ basez --base64pem --decode | \ tail --bytes 32 | \ basez --base32 | \ tr -d '=' > temp1
Steps towards
Set file path variable. Modify the path below in case above you did not use what we use as defaults in these instructions
HiddenServiceDir /var/lib/tor/hidden_service/. Otherwise if you used exactly as above, no change required. If you changed, you might want to change
hidden_service to something else below.
Set onion hostname variable.
hostname="$(sudo cat "$file_name")"
View your onion hostname.
echo "$hostname"
Should show something similar.
Create variable
onionname without appendix
onionname="$(echo "$hostname" | str_replace .onion "")"
View your onion name.
echo "$onionname"
Should show something similar.
Create final
echo -n "$onionname:descriptor:x25519:" | \ cat - temp1 > 1.auth_private
Steps towards
cat public-key.pem | \ grep -v " PUBLIC KEY" | \ basez --base64pem --decode | \ tail --bytes 32 | \ basez --base32 | \ tr -d '=' > temp2
Create final
echo -n "descriptor:x25519:" | cat - temp2 > 1.auth
Now we have two files.
1.authwhich belongs to onion server in folder
1.auth_privatewhich visitors need to be provided with.
It is of course possible to use different file names.
Create folder
sudo mkdir -p /var/lib/tor/hidden_service/authorized_clients/
1.auth to folder
sudo cp 1.auth /var/lib/tor/hidden_service/authorized_clients/
Fix owner permissions.
sudo chown --recursive debian-tor:debian-tor /var/lib/tor/hidden_service
Step 4: Denial of Service Mitigation Options[edit]
Documentation for Denial of Service Mitigation Options is incomplete. Contributions are happily considered!
Requires Tor 0.4.25 and above. See https://forums.whonix.org/t/tor-0-4-25-release-how-can-we-upgrade/8614 [archive]
See Tor manual. https://2019.www.torproject.org/docs/tor-manual.html.en [archive] Search for
Nothing Whonix ™ specific regarding installation from source. As per:
See also: https://forums.whonix.org/t/onion-services-ddos-defense-tor-0-4-2-5/8644 [archive]
Step 5: make changes to Tor config take effect[edit]
On your Whonix-Gateway ™.
Reload Tor.
After editing /usr/local/etc/torrc.d/50_user.conf, Tor must be reloaded for changes to take effect.
Note: If Tor does not connect after completing all these steps, then a user mistake is the most likely explanation. Recheck /usr/local/etc/torrc.d/50_user.conf and repeat the steps outlined in the sections above. If Tor then connects successfully, all the necessary changes have been made.
If you are using Qubes-Whonix ™, complete the following steps.
Qubes App Launcher (blue/grey "Q") →
Whonix-Gateway ™ ProxyVM (commonly named 'sys-whonix') →
Reload Tor
If you are using a graphical Whonix-Gateway ™, complete the following steps.
Start Menu →
Applications →
Settings →
Reload Tor
If you are using a terminal-only Whonix-Gateway ™, click
HERE for instructions.
Complete the following steps.
Reload Tor.
sudo service tor@default reload
Check Tor's daemon status.
sudo service tor@default status
It should include a a message saying.
Active: active (running) since ...
In case of issues, try the following debugging steps.
Check Tor's config.
sudo -u debian-tor tor --verify-config
The output should be similar to the following.
Sep 17 17:40:41.416 [notice] Read configuration file "/usr/local/etc/torrc.d/50_user.conf". Configuration was valid
Step 6: get your onion hostname[edit]
On your Whonix-Gateway ™.
To get your Tor onion service url.
sudo cat /var/lib/tor/hidden_service/hostname
Step 7: backup your Tor onion service private key[edit]
On your Whonix-Gateway ™.
Reminder: Always backup the onion service key. This is necessary in order to restore it on another machine, on a newer Whonix-Gateway ™, after HDD/SSD failure, etc. Follow the instructions below to find its location; root permission is required to access it.
Use the usual Qubes tools. The following example shows how to copy the /var/lib/tor/hidden_service/hs_ed25519_secret_key from the sys-whonix VM to the vault VM (which should be started beforehand) using qvm-copy-to-vm.
sudo qvm-copy-to-vm vault /var/lib/tor/hidden_service/hs_ed25519_secret_key
The above step copies the Tor onion service private key file to the QubesIncoming folder of the vault VM.
Consider moving the file from the QubesIncoming folder to another preferred location.
Qubes VM Manager can be used to conveniently backup the vault and/or other VMs. Please refer to the Qubes backups documentation for necessary steps to accomplish that.
TODO document
Also see: File Transfer.
Whonix-Workstation ™[edit]
On your Whonix-Workstation ™:
Step 1: Install Server Software[edit]
On your Whonix-Workstation ™.
A) Run the following commands to install micro-httpd. OR
1. Update the package lists.
sudo apt-get update
2. Upgrade the system.
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
3. Install the
micro-httpd package.
sudo apt-get install micro-httpd
The procedure is complete.
B) Run the following commands to install nginx.
1. Update the package lists.
sudo apt-get update
2. Upgrade the system.
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
3. Install the
nginx package.
sudo apt-get install nginx
The procedure is complete.
Step 2: Open Whonix-Workstation ™ Firewall Port[edit]
On your Whonix-Workstation ™.
Modify Whonix-Workstation ™ User Firewall Settings
Note: If no changes have yet been made to Whonix Firewall Settings, then the Whonix User Firewall Settings File
/etc/whonix_firewall.d/50_user.conf appears empty (because it does not exist). This is expected.
If using Qubes-Whonix ™, complete these steps.
In Whonix-Workstation ™ AppVM. Make sure folder
/rw/config/whonix_firewall.d exists.
sudo mkdir -p /rw/config/whonix_firewall.d
Qubes App Launcher (blue/grey "Q") →
Whonix-Workstation ™ AppVM (commonly called anon-whonix) →
Whonix User Firewall Settings
If using a graphical Whonix-Workstation ™, complete these steps.
Start Menu →
Applications →
Settings →
User Firewall Settings
If using a terminal-only Whonix-Workstation ™, complete these steps.
/rw/config/whonix_firewall.d/50_user.conf with root rights.
sudoedit /rw/config/whonix_firewall.d/50_user.conf
For more help, press on Expand on the right.
Note: This is for informational purposes only! Do not edit
The Whonix Global Firewall Settings File
/etc/whonix_firewall.d/30_whonix_workstation_default.conf contains default settings and explanatory comments about their purpose. By default, the file is opened read-only and is not meant to be directly edited. Below, it is recommended to open the file without root rights. The file contains an explanatory comment on how to change firewall settings.
## Please use "/etc/whonix_firewall.d/50_user.conf" for your custom configuration, ## which will override the defaults found here. When Whonix is updated, this ## file may be overwritten.
See also Whonix modular flexible .d style configuration folders.
To view the file, follow these instructions.
If using Qubes-Whonix ™, complete these steps.
Qubes App Launcher (blue/grey "Q") →
whonix-ws-15 →
Whonix Global Firewall Settings
If using a graphical Whonix-Workstation ™, complete these steps.
Start Menu →
Applications →
Settings →
Global Firewall Settings
If using a terminal-only Whonix-Workstation ™, complete these steps.
In Whonix-Workstation ™, open the whonix_firewall configuration file in an editor.
nano /etc/whonix_firewall.d/30_whonix_workstation_default.conf
Reload Whonix-Workstation ™ Firewall.
If you are using Qubes-Whonix ™, complete the following steps.
Qubes App Launcher (blue/grey "Q") →
Whonix-Workstation ™ AppVM (commonly named anon-whonix) →
Reload Whonix Firewall
If you are using a graphical Whonix-Workstation ™, complete the following steps.
Start Menu →
Applications →
System →
Reload Whonix Firewall
If you are using a terminal-only Whonix-Workstation ™, run.
sudo whonix_firewall
Step 3: Final Notes[edit]
Note, that it may take up to 30 minutes (or so?) until a fresh .onion domain gets reachable.
Note, accessing 127.0.0.1 Local connections are no longer possible due to a change [archive] in Tor Browser by The Tor Project. Check Tor Browser, Local Connections for more information and a workaround..
On Whonix-Gateway ™.
Check permissions.
sudo ls -la /var/lib/tor/hidden_service/
In case you manually restored your hidden_service keys as root, Tor will fail to start. The folder must be owned by debian-tor. In that case, fix the permissions.
sudo chown debian-tor:debian-tor /var/lib/tor/hidden_service/
In Whonix-Workstation ™.
Check if the service is available on 127.0.0.1:80.
## Circumventing Whonix ™ curl stream isolation wrapper. UWT_DEV_PASSTHROUGH=1 curl 127.0.0.1:80
Qubes-Whonix ™: In Qubes-Whonix ™ Whonix-Workstation ™, check if the service is available on Qubes-Whonix-Workstation ™ IP, port 80.
## Circumventing Whonix ™ curl stream isolation wrapper. UWT_DEV_PASSTHROUGH=1 curl $(qubesdb-read /qubes-ip):80
Non-Qubes-Whonix ™: In Whonix-Workstation ™, check if the service is available on 10.152.152.11:80.
## Circumventing Whonix ™ curl stream isolation wrapper. UWT_DEV_PASSTHROUGH=1 curl 10.152.152.11:80
Note: Tor Browser will allow connections to 127.0.0.1:80 but not to 10.152.152.11:80.
Tips settings up any onion service[edit]
Please test the example Hidden Webserver above first. It helps understanding this in general and will ease debugging.
Quoted from the Tor manual[20]:
HiddenServiceDir DIRECTORY Store data files for an onion service in DIRECTORY. Every onion service must have a separate directory. You may use this option multiple times to specify multiple services. DIRECTORY must be an existing directory.
Quoted from the Tor manual[21]:
HiddenServicePort VIRTPORT [TARGET] Configure a virtual port VIRTPORT for an onion service. You may use this option multiple times; each time applies to the service using the most recent hiddenservicedir. By default, this option maps the virtual port to the same port on 127.0.0.1 over TCP. You may override the target port, address, or both by specifying a target of addr, port, or addr:port. You may also have multiple lines with the same VIRTPORT: when a user connects to that VIRTPORT, one of the TARGETs from those lines will be chosen at random.
Hidden VoIP Server[edit]
On the VoIP page is an example for a Hidden VoIP Mumble Server.
Tor Onion Services - ADVANCED[edit]
Onion Services Security Enhancements[edit]
- https://blog.torproject.org/announcing-vanguards-add-onion-services [archive]
- https://github.com/mikeperry-tor/vanguards [archive]
- https://forums.whonix.org/t/vanguards-additional-protections-for-tor-onion-services/8064 [archive]
- https://forums.whonix.org/t/onion-service-guard-protection-hslayer2nodes-hslayer3nodes/4855 [archive]
How Onion Services Connections Work[edit]
To understand how onion services work, a simple overview of the process is outlined below. [22]
Step 1. Onion services advertise their existence in the Tor network. This is done by randomly picking some relays and building circuits, before asking these relays to act as introduction points by providing the service's public key. The onion server's location (IP address) is shielded.
Step 2. The onion service generates an onion service descriptor containing the public key and a summary of introduction points. This is signed with its private key and then uploaded to a distributed hash table, so users can find the service when searching for a .onion resource. [23] This also forms an important verification mechanism for the user to confirm they are talking to the right onion service.
Step 3. The user who learnt that the .onion resource exists requests more information from the database, by downloading the descriptor from the distributed hash table. If the descriptor exists, the user now knows the introduction points and the right public key to use. The user also creates a Tor circuit to another randomly picked relay to use as a rendezvous point (with a one-time secret).
Step 4. If the descriptor is present and the rendezvous point is ready, the user assembles an "introduce message". This is encrypted to the onion service's public key and includes the rendezvous point address and the one-time secret. The user requests this be delivered to the onion service (via a Tor circuit) anonymously, so the IP address remains hidden.
Step 5. The onion service decrypts the user's introduce message and finds the rendezvous point address and one-time secret in it. The service creates a circuit to the rendezvous point and sends the one-time secret to it in a rendezvous message. The onion service must use the same set of entry guards when creating circuits, to prevent attackers from forcing onion services to use corrupt relays as an entry node (and learning the onion server's IP address via timing analysis).
Step 6. The rendezvous point notifies the user the successful connection has been established. Both the user and onion service use their circuits to the rendezvous point for communication. The rendezvous point relays end-to-end encrypted messages from user to service and vice versa.
Use of .onion addresses leads to a 6 relay arrangement: 3 picked by the user (with the third used as a rendezvous point), and 3 picked by the onion service. The final successful connection between a user and an onion service is represented in the picture below.
Figure: Alice (User) and Bob (Onion Service) Successful Connection [24]
Onion Services Security[edit]
Not Whonix ™ specific! Talking about Tor in general.
How safe are Tor Onion Services?
This is a difficult question. Therefore state relevant facts, quotes and links here.
Quote Roger Dingledine, an original developer of Tor, tor-talk mailing list: How easy are Tor hidden services to locate? [archive]:
Hidden services are definitely weaker than regular Tor circuits, a) because the adversary can induce them to speak, and b) because they stay at the same place over time. Mostly 'a'.
That said, there are plenty of hidden services out there, and few stories of people breaking their anonymity by breaking Tor. So they're not foolproof for sure, but they're also not trivial to deanonymize.
I'll turn it around, and ask "easy compared to what?"
When you're a Tor client, you only use the Tor network when you choose to access it (e.g. by trying to fetch a web page). So if the attacker has some attack that works only a very small percentage of time, they have to wait for you to initiate connections.
But for a hidden service, they can cause you to initiate a connection just by visiting the hidden service. And they can do it as often as they want.
See http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#hs-attack06 [archive] for the original paper about this topic (and the reason we implemented entry guards).
And then see http://freehaven.net/anonbib/#wpes12-cogs [archive] for a more recent example. The goal of that paper is to understand how long it takes in normal operation (with entry guards going offline and being replaced) before a typical user touches an adversary-controlled guard node. For simplicity, the paper assumes that you use your guards every minute of every day for however many weeks or months it takes. A realistic user doesn't do that, so the paper overestimates the risk. But a realistic hidden service *would* do that, if the adversary caused it to.
- At time of writing there are no known attacks used in the wild constantly deanonymizing Tor onion services.
- The following is outdated since NextGenOnions [archive] (
HiddenServiceVersion 3)
80 bit name hash and RSA-1024 sized keys Quote Mike Perry Tor core people[25]): http://firstname.lastname@example.com/msg05418.html [archive] Quote Mike Perry: http://email@example.com/msg05462.html [archive] Also see, The Tor Project Blog: Onion Services need some love [archive]. Non-Hidden Onion Services Considered Harmful: Attacks and Detection [archive] [26]
Onion Service Authentication Client Setup[edit]
1.auth_private from onion service provider to client.
Create folder
sudo mkdir -p /var/lib/tor/authdir
Fix ownership permissions. [27]
sudo chown --recursive debian-tor:debian-tor /var/lib/tor/authdir
If you are using Qubes-Whonix ™, complete the following steps.
Qubes App Launcher (blue/grey "Q") →
Whonix-Gateway ™ ProxyVM (commonly named sys-whonix) →
Tor User Config (Torrc)
If you are using a graphical Whonix-Gateway ™, complete the following steps.
Start Menu →
Applications →
Settings →
If you are using a terminal-only Whonix-Gateway ™, complete the following steps.
sudo nano /usr/local/etc/torrc.d/50_user.conf
ClientOnionAuthDir /var/lib/tor/authdir/
1.auth_private to
sudo cp 1.auth_private /var/lib/tor/authdir/
Fix ownership permissions.
sudo chown --recursive debian-tor:debian-tor /var/lib/tor/authdir
Reload Tor.
After editing /usr/local/etc/torrc.d/50_user.conf, Tor must be reloaded for changes to take effect.
Note: If Tor does not connect after completing all these steps, then a user mistake is the most likely explanation. Recheck /usr/local/etc/torrc.d/50_user.conf and repeat the steps outlined in the sections above. If Tor then connects successfully, all the necessary changes have been made.
If you are using Qubes-Whonix ™, complete the following steps.
Qubes App Launcher (blue/grey "Q") →
Whonix-Gateway ™ ProxyVM (commonly named 'sys-whonix') →
Reload Tor
If you are using a graphical Whonix-Gateway ™, complete the following steps.
Start Menu →
Applications →
Settings →
Reload Tor
If you are using a terminal-only Whonix-Gateway ™, click
HERE for instructions.
Complete the following steps.
Reload Tor.
sudo service tor@default reload
Check Tor's daemon status.
sudo service tor@default status
It should include a a message saying.
Active: active (running) since ...
In case of issues, try the following debugging steps.
Check Tor's config.
sudo -u debian-tor tor --verify-config
The output should be similar to the following.
Sep 17 17:40:41.416 [notice] Read configuration file "/usr/local/etc/torrc.d/50_user.conf". Configuration was valid
Notes about End-to-end Security of Onion Services[edit]
Hidden services are not really "end-to-end" encrypted, they encrypted only Tor to End. (or "Tor to Tor") The communication between the browser or server and Tor is sent in clear text. This doesn't really constitute a security issue, as localhost (or Workstation to Gateway on an isolated network), is supposed to be secure. But it has some security implications:
With onion services alone, without TLS enabled, the adversary only needs to compromise Whonix-Gateway ™ to get knowledge of the content of the connection and the clients identity/location. To compromise the content of the connection, the adversary only needs to compromise either the gateway or the workstation.
With onion services, and TLS enabled, an adversary needs to compromise Whonix-Workstation ™ to gain knowledge of the content of the connection. The adversary would have to compromise Whonix-Gateway ™ as well, to gain knowledge of the client's identity/location.
It is possible to use onion services and TLS at the same time, i.e. https://****************.onion [archive]. There are only a very few onion services reachable over TLS. For example https://pad.riseup.net/ [archive] can be reached over https://5jp7xtmox6jyoqd5.onion/ [archive]. But since this only offers benefits to users of Whonix ™ (and other Tor gateway implementations), there is no demand. It would provide some nice defense in depth as it eliminates a single point of failure.
It would open the question, how would the certificate be verified?
That's simple for private sites, where server and clients know each other. They simply verify it over preshared secure channel, for example, a meeting.
And public onion services? It is unlikely, that certificate authorities will give out certificates for .onion sites. Startssl.com declined, because .onion is no .gTLD, see Bug #6116: apply for .onion gTLD at IANA [archive]. Although you could try asking other certificate authorities, if they offer SSL certificates for people who can prove that they own a .onion domain. You can prove, that you have control over the domain by editing its contents on their request.
But CAs should not be relied on anyway. See chapter SSL.
Onion Services with Whonix ™ are still safer than running Tor and the server software on the same host, because even when misconfigured, there can be, by design, no IP or DNS leaks.
See Also[edit]
- ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Sockets_Layer [archive]
- ↑ To be exact, only tor-to-tor, see Notes about End-to-end security of Onion Services.
- ↑ http://www.quora.com/Is-there-an-SSL-equivalent-for-Tor-Hidden-Services [archive]
- ↑ https://archive.is/Aaqsz [archive]
- ↑ https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-talk/2016-October/042360.html [archive]
- ↑
It is advised to install libapache2-mod-removeip [archive].
1. Update the package lists.
sudo apt-get update
2. Upgrade the system.
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
3. Install the
sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-removeip
The procedure is complete.
- ↑
(Source: old forum [archive])
Stop Apache.
In ports.conf:
NameVirtualHost 127.0.0.1:80 Listen 127.0.0.1:80 ServerName localhost
In sites-available/default:
Start Apache.
Now Apache is not listening on 10.152.152.10, but only on 127.0.0.1. So now we somehow need to redirect 10.152.152.10:80 to 127.0.0.1:80.
It can be done with a firewall rule or netcat:
sudo ncat -l 10.152.152.10 80 -c 'ncat 127.0.0.1 80'
- ↑ https://wiki.debian.org/WebServers [archive]
- ↑ https://mascherari.press/why-onionscan-should-worry-you/ [archive]
- ↑ https://mascherari.press/thwarting-identity-correlation-attacks/ [archive]
- ↑ https://github.com/s-rah/onionscan [archive]
- ↑ Since it is easy to know that the internal LAN IP 10.152.152.10 is usually used by Whonix-Gateway ™.
- ↑ https://github.com/camelids/ [archive]
- ↑ Website Fingerprinting Defenses at the Application Layer [archive]
- ↑ https://www.esat.kuleuven.be/cosic/?p=6743 [archive]
- ↑
- https://github.com/DonnchaC/onionbalance/issues/69#issuecomment-58108608 [archive]
- https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2020-January/014142.html [archive] Tor development mailing list - Request for onionbalance v3 pre-alpha testing]
- ↑ The purpose of Onion Services Authentication has been asked about on the Tor Talk Mailing List [archive]. Answers:
- ↑
But modified since instructions did not create files
1.authfor the user and only echoed these two the shell which most users would not know what to do with.
- ↑
The only Whonix ™ specific thing below is
str_replace, which is only available in Whonix ™. A tool which makes string search and replace easier.
- ↑ https://www.torproject.org/docs/tor-manual.html.en [archive]
- ↑ https://www.torproject.org/docs/tor-manual.html.en [archive]
- ↑ https://www.torproject.org/docs/hidden-services.html.en [archive]
- ↑ This is currently a 16 character name, but will be increased to 54 characters in the near-medium term to upgrade the cryptographic strength of .onion services. See: https://blog.torproject.org/blog/cooking-onions-names-your-onions [archive]
- ↑ https://www.torproject.org/images/THS-6.png [archive]
- ↑ https://www.torproject.org/about/corepeople.html.en [archive]
- ↑ https://forums.whonix.org/t/cryptolog-for-whonix-website/3369/12 [archive]
- ↑ We do this here in case the user does not follow through with all instructions to avoid Tor from refusing to start due to broken file permissions. If user follows through, this chown command could be omitted here and be done at the end.
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text:
Amidst much speculation and rumors of shutting down of one of the digital media startups of India, The Tech Portal, it is confirmed now that it is starting again.
The Tech Portal, founded by Pawas Jain and Deepanshu Khandelwal and funded by RAIN in 2014, has been known for their global news coverage in the niche of technology and startups from more than 5 countries.
The website is now live again after a major break of 7 months.
"We were pivoting and learning on various models on digital content and media, and were laying a stronger ground for something more global and stable as a business model", Pawas Jain broke his silence around the break.
"While there were lot of speculations about TP closing down, we are now back with some strengthened Global and Corporate Partnerships which will be revealed in phases in the coming weeks", he further added. "The digital media is a tough space to crack and the domain is expected to see some amazing breakthroughs globally with videos, VR, Machine Learning etc. As a tech news platform, we wish to be recognized as global leaders and stay on top of the game in this domain. We are also planning a few acquisitions in the space to expand our network and create a conglomerate with strong teams."
The Tech Portal also organizes Pitch Off, a tech-startuo conference which has seen 4 editions so far. A fresh edition is also expected in the coming months.
With new blogs and platforms coming up every day in India, it will be interesting to see the competitive domain come alive again with the return of a major player on a larger scale.
View More Articles


text: Killhippie 677 Posted July 1, 2018 Since the last update I hadn't done a speedtest on my PS4. I used to be able to do a speedtest and the antibufferbloat would not engage as its set for high priority traffic only and it was never triggered by just doing a speed test, it only did when playing games. Now it takes ages to work out my NAT type (Type 2) and the speeds shown are those you would expect with antibufferbloat enabled at 70% for my line and the high priority traffic light comes on, also it now says "The router in use might not support IP packet fragmentation, and some network features of the PS4 might be restricted. Not quite sure what's happened here, also UPnP is not showing the PS4 in the UPnP tables still, although I'm not sure if a PS4 speed test would trigger UPnP port mapping. It seems only Skype triggers both TCP and UDP. Something has changed in this update unless this is now how its meant to be now regarding the PS4 speed test being high priority traffic also PS4 background traffic is triggering antibufferbloat now and then too, but I should not be getting the IP Fragmentation message surely? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites


text:
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text:
April 2, 2008
Spanish Eastern District
We have 3 new churches, each of which is achieving an effective ministry. Pastor Ramon Cruz of the Hartford, Connecticut church and of the Iglesia ACM de Enfield, Connecticut has been significantly outreaching in ministry to the community. In this area of Connecticut, there is high percentage of Puerto Ricans. The majority of this population is going through problems of family disintegration. In order to reach them, a counseling program has begun which deals personally and gives attention to individual needs such as food, health, etc. They are blossoming and we expect in the vigorous growth in the future.


text:
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Schock Logistics provides clients with the following recycling certifications: R2, ISO14001, ISO9001, OHSAS18001, NAID, and eSteward. Recycle shipments can be certified by the load or for an additional fee, by the serial number. eSteward guarantees your equipment remains in the continental U.S.A. and is not exported overseas. (To learn more about the destructive practices of machines being exported overseas, please watch the PBS News Hour video below.)
Your data security:
Many digital copiers retain a copy of every print made on their hard drive(s). Your copier's hard drive may contain memorized copies of documents with social security numbers, tax returns, medical information, credit card information, or more. This data can be mined by criminal technicians. Like computers, deleting or erasing files on your copier does not necessarily make the copier data secure. A trained technician can often recover "deleted" files.
Schock Logistics can provide you with various options regarding the data protection of your electronic devices. These options include:
Please contact our freight team at Schock Logistics to learn more and receive a quote on your desired service.


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Best smartphones you've probably never heard of
You know the major players in the smartphone game: the best phones in the world today are made up of all the big names from Apple to HTC, Samsung to LG and beyond.
But what about those smartphones not popular in the Western markets? Just because a handset isn't popular somewhere, doesn't mean it's not one of the best. Some smartphones are just a little misunderstood – so we've collated a list of those we think are worth checking out.
We've looked at their unique selling points, the main market it's aimed for – and just how hard it is to get your hands on one of these 'alternative' handsets if you're so desperate to stand out from the crowd.
Sharp Aquos Crystal X
In Japan the Sharp brand is much more closely associated with the world of smartphones. The Aquos family highlights that and this device has a lot of alternative quirks compared to the rest of the market.
The main draw is the ultra-thin bezels that we've never seen on other handsets before. The display on the Aquos Crystal X is 5.5 inches with a 1080p resolution, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 chipset, 2GB of RAM and 16GB storage.
It's interesting we haven't seen the bezelless display technology move over to other products available in the west – but maybe it won't be long before one of the big global players joins in.
- Price: 23,000 Japanese Yen (around US$195, £135, AU$275)
- Availability: Japan
- USP: Just look at that bezel. You can't…
Ulefone Power
If you're after something with a big batch of power, Ulefone has the perfect choice that is never going to let you down for battery.
The phone features a 5.5-inch HD screen, fingerprint sensor, Android 5.1 software, 3GB of RAM and a 64-Bit Octa-core processor. But the real highlight is the huge 6,050mAh battery that's included inside.
Ulefone has managed to create a rather good looking phone considering the size of the battery pack that's inside there. It comes with either a blue, white or wood effect metal back and isn't all that thick.
- Price: US$189.99 (around £130, AU$260)
- Availability: Shipped from China
- USP: That massive battery
Wileyfox Storm
There's a small chance you may have heard of this phone if you live in the UK, but it's a smaller brand not many people have heard of. Let us fill you in: a lot about about the Wileyfox Storm hints at a premium phone, but the price point is surprisingly low.
Wileyfox is a new start up that has put together a phone with a great 5.5-inch Full HD display, 32GB of storage, a 20MP camera and a (middling) Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 processor.
But it's all about the price of the Wileyfox Storm. It's only £199, which for a phone with this high-spec is very impressive. You just have to trust a smartphone brand you've never really heard of and live in the UK.
- Price: £199 (around US$290, AU$400)
- Availability: UK only, so far
- USP: That low, low price point
Lumigon T2 HD
Lumigon aims to satisfy the stylish consumer using buzzwords like "elegant" and "exclusive look" throughout its press materials.
As much as we detest the language, we have to admit the Lumigon T2 HD has a nice design with water and dust resistant technology built in without compromising the stylish look. There's a 4.3-inch display with a 720p pixel resolution, a Snapdragon processor clocked at 1.7GHz and 2GB of RAM.
Storage goes up to 128GB with a 13MP camera on the back and it's running Android 4.4 KitKat. The Danish price of the phone comes in at 4449 Danish Krone, and a straight up conversion makes that about £460 in the UK.
- Price: DKK 4.449 (around US$665, £460, AU$930)
- Availability: Denmark, US and other European markets
- USP: Stylish design
Fairphone 2
Fairphone has one key aim, to create a smartphone restricted to "ethically sourced" materials. The company aims to create a smartphone using only conflict-free resources as well as paying workers a reasonable wage throughout the production process.
You have to admire the intention behind it. The company has now made its second phone and this time around it's modular so you can swap out elements and not have to dispose of the whole phone after 24 months.
It runs Android 5.1 software with a 5-inch 1080p display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor and 2GB of RAM. There's also 4G LTE and 32GB of storage.
If you want one, it's shipping now – but it may take a bit longer for you to get one as there's limited stock of the Fairphone 2 right now.
- Price: €525 (about US$600, £410, AU$835)
- Availability: UK
- USP: Ethically sourced
Karbonn Titanium Octane Plus
After a few years of focusing on affordable handsets, Karbonn has tried to break into high end smartphones and it's done pretty well with its latest offering.
Despite sounding like something you'd place in the Hadron collider at CERN, this low-cost phone managed to sell really well in India last year.
It doesn't have the top of the range specs you may hope for though. It features an octa-core MediaTek processor clocked at 1.7GHz, 2GB of RAM and a 16MP rear camera.
There's also 16GB of internal storage with microSD support up to 32GB and Android 4.4.2 on board as well.
- Price: INR 9170 (about US$135, £95, AU$190)
- Availability: India and China
- USP: Sold well in China and India
Yotaphone 2
If you have heard of any of the devices on this list, it's likely this one. The Yotaphone 2 gained a lot of attention for its unique dual display design offering an e-ink back panel for certain apps and to save on the battery.
The e-ink display works with certain apps such as Facebook, Twitter, RSS feeds, messages and eBooks offering a much better battery life than your average full blown display.
That battery is a 2500mAh sensor whilst the front panel is a 5-inch Full HD display. Under the hood is a Snapdragon 801 processor clocked at 2.2GHz with 2GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage on board. Plus we gave it 3.5 stars in our full review.
- Price: £359 (around US$520, AU$730)
- Availability: UK
- USP: e-ink display on rear
It's not an iPhone you see before your eyes, it is in fact the MEIZU MX4. With a 5.4-inch display on the front and a octa-core MediaTek processor underneath this certainly isn't a flagship phone to be sniffed at.
There's also 2GB of RAM, storage choices up to 64GB and a varied range of colour options including grey, black, white and tan.
As for the camera it's the same 20.7MP sensor you'll find in the Xperia Z3+ range with a 2MP sensor on the front for selfies.
At the moment the handset is running Android, but it'll soon be getting an update with Ubuntu Phone on board as well.
- Price: £180, US$290, AU$400
- Availability: UK, US and Australia
- USP: Ubuntu Phone coming soon


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Scorpio January 11, 2018 Horoscope
With the Moon in your sign, you might be hard to contain. You don't always make the best decisions or always head in the right direction, but right now you know exactly which way to go and when. Be more forthright in how you deal with others.
Tonight: You call the shots.
author details
HSN Staff Writers
HSN staff writers are a group of enthusiastic and talented creative-types that generate great story lines and write about current events with a distinctively Latino voice always respecting the audience it writes for.
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Raleigh Real Estate February 2016 Monthly Statistics
Found 4 blog entries for March 2016.
Using a Realtor when buying and selling homes is an investment. You're going to pay them a commission, and statistics show you are going to see a GREAT return on your investment. It's also a great way to avoid being sued.
Some people don't want to use a Realtor when buying and selling homes, and this is because they want to try and save on the commission normally paid to an Agent. This is easy to understand. Ask the Founder of ForSaleByOwner.com how trying to sell his home without a Realtor worked out for him. He tried to sell his New York City Condo for 6 months before asking the help of a Real Estate Agent... who sold it in a few weeks for $150,000 MORE.
Craig Newmark the founder…
Moving is NOT fun. It is one of the least enjoyable parts of buying and selling real estate.
When you buy a house, you need to move in... and when you sell your house, you need to move out.
With the amount of people moving to Raleigh NC, it's about time we simplified things with a 'Moving Checklist!' This article is intended to help with your move, so if you find it valuable please drop us a line in the comments section below... we love feedback!
If you're anything like the buyers and sellers we work with, than there is a good chance you have a lot of stuff that you need to pack, load into a truck, unload from the truck, and then unpack once you arrive to your new home. While the thought of moving is enough to make most people cringe, we are…
Here is an infographic on 'How to Sell Your House Fast and For The Most Money!'
Be sure to check out each tip in detail below!
Part of selling your house fast for the most money is going to come from the work and efforts you put in leading up to listing it for sale. Give yourself a full 2 weeks to prepare (sometimes you'll need more) because there are a lot of things you want to do in advance to make your home sell fast!
Consult with a top local real estate agent to ensure that you are preparing your home for sale the right way. If your home was once an expired listing it will likely sell the next time around if you prepare it the right way. Almost 90%…


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Your competence partner for transporting, lifting and handling
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It's already a hot start to the summer here at Plum Deluxe HQ, so we wanted to round out our seasonal set of journaling prompts with a thoughtful, inspiring set of summertime-themed journaling prompts.
Pour yourself a nice cold glass of iced tea, take a look at our previous journaling prompt tips, and see what the blank page has to share with you.
Childhood Delights
Summer brings back reminders of those delights of childhood (when you were finally free from the shackles of the school classroom). Try some of these journal prompts to bring some of your favorite things from childhood into your current routine. It's ok to be child-like sometimes!
When I was a kid, my favorite things to do were…. Why did I enjoy them so much?
If my child-like self was giving my adult self advice today, they would say…
For these prompts, it helps to pick a specific age. Just pick one, you can always go back and do the prompts again at another age.
Summer also has this notion of laziness… For those of you with children out of school, or large gardens, you will know this to be false. But, nonetheless, there is much we can learn from thinking about just chilling out in the sun.
Some things in my life that I need to take less seriously….
If I had a free day with no obligations or expectations, I would…
Fruits of Your Labor
Summer is actually when the harvest season begins — specifically, berries shed their bounty in the heat of the day.
The seeds that I planted and need my help producing their fruits are…
The fruits of my labor that I should be enjoying are….
My favorite fruit is… Free journal about your favorite fruit for at least 1 page. What do you love about the color, the scent, the flavor, how you like to enjoy it, what it pairs with… Now, once you've finished that, ask yourself, how can you have more of these joyful feelings in your life every day?


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Guide on How to Select the Best Workout Clothes
Fitness is among the important aspects of our everyday living and working out helps in fitness. after a workout, you will feel lighter and better because the harmful toxins flush out of your body. Feeling good in your inside after a workout is very important since it is usually reflected on your outside. Fitness demands a price but it is very rewarding and the result can be the enhancement of your self-esteem and self-confidence.
It is necessary to wear proper working out clothes since they make you feel pleased and more comfortable. There are six types of workout clothes that you should consider because of their comfort in the work out the process. They include undergarments, sports top, jackets, socks, shirts, pants, and windbreakers.
undergarments are important to work out clothes. Purchase undergarments of the best quality always. Good quality undergarments are important for comfortability. Nowadays in the market, you will find new design undergarments that are snug fit and resist moisture. For people who want to stay dry during the workout, such undergarments are the best for them.
A sports top is for ladies and it is mandatory during the work out for it is a symbol of both comfort and fashion. A sports top should keep the upper part of your body fresh and cool during a workout.
Windbreakers and jackets bring out a sporty and tough look of an individual. The windbreakers and jackets help in weight loss process of an individual as they enhance sweat production.
Always consider the plain shirts. Ensure that you get a fitting shirt since it is able to define your figure. Shirts that are of pure cotton will help in your comfort.
Purchase workout sock since they will provide a protective layer on your feet and also protect you from irritation. The workout socks are of different types and there are those that have additional materials to prevent discretion of odor and others charcoal which absorbs sweat.
For shorts and pants, those with an elastic waist are the most perfect. This type of pants and shorts will protect you from itching and allergies. to prevent abrasions, ensure that the pants are of the same width with your legs.
It is easier for you to work out when you have the above clothes. You can purchase the workout clothes from either the stores or internet. If you decide to buy the workout clothes online, ensure that you have network and data, then go to the search engine optimization, type the keyword and select From the options you get.
Click here for more information about workout clothes.


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Rowing alone for 44 days
The thought of rowing across an ocean does not enter many people's minds. For 19-year-old Oliver Crane, somehow it did. Crane has just rowed the Atlantic Ocean.
Crane was part of the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge which started in December 2017 and he saw it as the perfect opportunity to test himself during a gap year after graduating from New Jersey's Peddie School, USA, where he rowed in a coxed four.
Crossing the Atlantic turned out to be a much more hands-on ordeal than Crane expected, but at the end he went into the record books for youngest solo crossing. World Rowing caught up with the American rower following his epic 44-day, 5000-kilometre journey from the Canary Islands to Antigua.
"I wanted to test my physical and mental limits far beyond anything I had ever attempted," says Crane of his motivations to attempt the crossing. "I also wanted to show my little brother, who's way more capable than I am, that he can do or achieve anything he sets his mind to."
While the race may have officially started in December, there was a lot of preparation to fit in beforehand. "I spent six months trying to gain as much fat and muscle as possible, all the while doing hours of steady state on the erg every day," Crane explains. "I also did a sea survival course, learned first aid and studied my boat inside and out so I could fix anything if it broke."
Most importantly, he realised that physical challenges were only going to be a small part of what lay ahead. Something far more dangerous is also out there for solo adventurers to encounter in the vast openness of the Atlantic: the sort of loneliness that few will ever know and even fewer choose to experience.
"To prepare myself for the loneliness, I practiced meditation and mindfulness training," he says. "But to be honest, nothing could have prepared me for how crushing the loneliness was at times during the row."
"Staying positive through the loneliness and the physical setbacks like the capsizes was always a constant battle," continues Crane, who recalls just how difficult it was at times in an ocean that infamously does not allow for an easy crossing. "I had a near death experience during one of the capsizes and having to get back on the oars in the exact same conditions in which I capsized was definitely a struggle. I couldn't let the fear – which in many ways was completely rational – control me."
For all the Atlantic could throw at him, Crane made it through and a month and a half after taking his first stroke, he glided into shore at the Island of Antigua in the Caribbean. As land came into sight, he finally knew that he'd done it.
"An overwhelming sense of relief flooded my body," he recalls. "I could finally afford to relax a little. But it was also a little sad realising that the journey, which had felt like a lifetime, was over."
While that journey may be over, a new one lies ahead for the young adventurer, who is set to attend Princeton University. Despite his unique experience, when asked about his future in rowing, Crane remains modest, saying merely that he is "hoping to possibly row on the lightweight team at Princeton next year."
The 2017 Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge was notable for a number of records besides Crane's youngest solo crossing distinction. Another youngest crossing record went to a women's four – 23-year-olds Tina Liang Mintian, Cloris Chen Yuli and Sarah Meng Yajie and 22-year-old Amber Li Xiaobing. Racing as Team "Kung Fu Cha Cha," the all Chinese crew also smashed the existing women's crew record with their 34 day crossing.
British team "The Four Oarsmen" – George Biggar, Peter Robinson, Stuart Watts, Richard Taylor – finished fastest of all, setting a new record of 29 days, while a mere 17 hours later, Mark Slats of the Netherlands set a new world record for fastest solo crossing, completing the distance in 30 days.
More information and full results can be found here: https://www.taliskerwhiskyatlanticchallenge.com/


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Lean Six Sigma's Evolution
Abstract:When Motorola deployed its initial Six Sigma system in 1987 there was none of the infrastructure and focused training associated with modern Six Sigma practices. Six Sigma use expanded when Allied Signal and General Electric deployed Six Sigma with the intent of improving financial performance rather than quality. At the same time, the lean tools of the Toyota Production System method gained popularity among traditional manufacturing companies. Six Sigma and lean systems tended to be viewed as separate improvement methods, but today many organizations have begun to integrate them along with project management and business process reengineering. There are currently four major Six Sigma and lean deployment models. The decision as to which model provides the right mixture of skills for a particular organization can be achieved with the integration of each model's body of …
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Excellent information on the development and progression of Six Sigma.
--Sion Weaver, 01-01-2010
This author clearly does not understand lean, and just as clearly as a bias toward 6-sigma (after all, he sells 6-sigma training...). He gravely misleads his readers, by propagating misconception and/or misinformation (one of the most egregious example being when he writes that traditional lean is best applied to production, while 6-sigma can be applied throughout the enterprise; just the opposite is true!) It is a sad fact that this article was published; obviously no peer review, or even basic editorial review, was applied.
--Jacques Ginestet, 05-15-2009
Nicely presented material that is often overlooked. Knowing where tools and concepts come from helps with effective engagement. Inexperienced LSS practitioners, like inexperienced problem-solvers in general, might miss the subtle power provided and jump to the tired and always ineffective conclusion that they "already know all that" (i.e., the material presented in this article. To me, you can't review the basics too often. It's most always the basics that trip you up.
--rjsfhl, 02-22-2009
--Tom Garner, 02-20-2008
--QualityColorado, 02-07-2008
--Tim Schuh, 02-07-2008
--Ira Goldman, 01-24-2008
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Bennett to Head Civilization Programming
Kevin Bennett, a veteran of Discovery Health Channel, has been named director
of programming for Discovery Civilization Channel, which will relaunch next
year, officials said Tuesday.
Bennett, most recently director of scheduling for Discovery Health, will lead
the development of all programming strategies for Discovery Civilization, as
well as managing the overhead and budgets for the department.
Bennett will report to Vivian Schiller, general manager of Discovery
Civilization, a joint venture of Discovery Communications Inc. and The New York
Times Co. Schiller is a documentary maker from Cable News Network.
This spring, The Times paid $100 million for a 50 percent stake in Discovery
Civilization. DCI and The Times plan to relaunch the digital service, using the
print giant's resources for some of the network's content.
Bennett joined Discovery in May 1996 as senior research analyst for Discovery