Bitcoin Forum

This is a project I have been working on for the Pirate Party of Canada. You can see the feature list and download links at http://piratelinux.org. The video walk-through is at http://youtu.be/s9kj4pziojQ?hd=1.

Some features that are perhaps unique when compared to other distros:

- Ubuntu based together with a package called "piratepack" that installs all the modifications.
- Full disk encryption is preseeded for the installation of the OS.
- The piratepack has been tested to work on Ubuntu 10+ and Debian 6.
- Tor & Vidalia run in the background and you can access Vidalia from the icon on the top panel.
- Tor browser uses your current firefox under a profile called "tor".
- Both the Tor browser and the regular firefox get addons automatically installed (your firefox settings and history are still working as usual, it's just as if you installed the addons on top of them).
- Regular Firefox addons: AdBlock Plus, Bloody Vikings, Download Helper, Ghostery, HTTPS-Everywhere.
- Tor browser addons: Bloody Vikings, HTTPS-Everywhere, NoScript, Torbutton.
- Tor browser automatically launches Pidgin in OTR mode connected to the oftc.net server through Tor.
- Bitcoin client (both command line and graphical).
- Cwallet: My own program that lets you list the private keys associated with your addresses in your wallet.dat and make a paper backup of your wallet in QR code format. Also, it checks to make sure that the keys are not corrupted. There's both a command line and graphical version.
- Custom Google Homepage: Google SSL search & Pirate search, plus useful links on top.
- Piratepack modifications can be enabled and disabled through a GUI controller.
- You can launch the Liberte & Tails privacy enhanced distros from the boot menu.
- IMPORTANT: Any binaries that piratepack installs are compiled from source automatically on installation. You don't have to trust my binaries. Of course the dependencies (such as libz1g or firefox, etc...) will not be compiled, but by default come from the standard Ubuntu/Debian repositories. Piratepack also produces a binary version of piratepack and puts it in /opt/piratepack/bin-pack. You can share this binary version with a friend or use it for yourself for installation on another machine. Of course you can also choose to install the binary version of piratepack if you don't want to wait for the compilation and you trust my signed binaries. Also, when doing updates to piratepack, you may want to read the source code first. In this case you can simply download piratepack from the piratelinux.org website instead of using the update manager. Or you can install it from the update manager and then read the source code from the cache directory /var/cache/apt/archives in order to make sure that the code is not malicious.

The Pirate Party's stance on bitcoin is currently unclear, so I'm not promoting it with this distro. I'm just placing it there in case someone wants to use it. Also, note that the current ISO has Bitcoin 0.5.1. The current latest version is 0.5.2. Soon I'll update piratepack to install 0.5.2, so if you do the update from your update manager (or website), you'll get the latest version.

I'm taking a break from this now to focus on other things. But, Ill try to get some small updates done from time to time and I'm keeping an eye out for the release of Ubuntu 12, and that's when the next major update will probably happen.

Cheers

IMPORTANT UPDATES

(piratepack_1.4-4):
- Fixed cwallet-gui to work properly (the 1.4-3 update caused an issue)

(piratepack_1.4-3):
- Tor Browser: I fixed a Torbutton setting to prevent a leak of your IP through FTP. I know, it's a really stupid mistake.
- Bitcoin 0.5.2: This version fixes bugs, especially a Tor IP leak bug (this time it's not my fault).
- qrencode now compiles from source.

After installing Pirate Linux from the ISO, please go to Update Manager and install all updates (especially Ubuntu Security Updates and piratepack). You can of course install the latest piratepack by downloading the DEB from the piratelinux.org website if you want to read the source code first.

Please note that I am not guaranteeing any form of security for my software. I'm trying my best to make it as secure as possible (I use it for myself, so I do care about it's security), but it still needs a lot more testing. Of course since it automatically compiles on your machine, anyone is free to assess the source code and it is easy for you to not have to trust me and run a transparent system.

You can test your browser anonymity on websites such as http://ip-check.info and http://panopticlick.eff.org

Brilliant! May I suggest a few additions:

• Namecoin
• A .bit script that works well with FoxyProxy
• Thunderbird + Enigmail
• Seeks?
• i2p
• Wuala (not open source, but client side encryption of cloud storage)

Very impressive package! It will be my default Linux for the future.

Does it work well with xubuntu?

Thanks for your input.

I have some planned features written in the features section of the home page.
I'm especially giving priority to working on I2P and Chromium addons.

I was gonna add I2P before, but I got stuck when I wanted to compile it from source. My main rule is that I must be able to completely compile any binaries from source, and there were some java .class files I couldn't find the exact source of. But, Ill look again.

Namecoin is a good idea, and I will have to familiarize myself more with it.

I tried having PGP features in email before, but I don't think many people would use it, because it's really hard to beat the features you get in gmail. But ya, it's easy to add, so I'll probably add it to the next PiratePack.

Yes, I heard of Wuala and I will also test that out.

What's Seeks? Is that the search engine seeks.fr?

I haven't tested it on xubuntu, but it should work...if I try I'll let you know.

Sounds cool. Just a couple of questions. Can it be run as a Live-CD, and can you import private keys with Cwallet?

Yes you can run it as a Live CD. Just choose the option "Try Ubuntu" from the boot menu. It may take a few minutes to load if you run it from an actual DVD, but it should be faster from a USB.
Cwallet currently doesn't do importing...but I'll probably add that feature eventually. But the idea is that you use it to make paper backups, but still keep the encrypted wallet files in various places, so anytime you need a wallet, you can decrypt it, and if for some reason the wallet files are corrupted or lost, you have a more stable paper backup. Also, you can scan the QR code with a camera and import the resulting private key to places like Mt Gox whenever you need it, without needing to go through the client. For security, you should create and encrypt your private keys offline and distribute your money over many private keys that are independent of eachother (unique random seeds used to generate each). A simple way of doing this would be to just create multiple wallets and paper backup one key from each wallet (since the wallets are by default independent of one another, while the keys within a given wallet are not).

Why waste time with linux when you can have Pirated Windows :)

You serious?

I wouldn't touch closed source operating systems, even if it was completely legal. I want to be able to independently verify what's running on my system, instead of trusting some "professionals" to do the right thing.

I hope this was ironic. I had a good laugh.

Cool project

I'm very interested in using this as a live CD. To use it offline.
This would mean that all the source code and dependencies you need to compile the additional programs have to be on the CD/DVD.

There are 3 interesting Bitcoin clients that are worth to be included:
MultiBit (http://www.multibit.org)
Armory (http://bitcoinarmory.com/index.php/building-armory-from-source)
Electrum (http://ecdsa.org/electrum/)

Fantastic idea.

Sorry, I've been traveling, so didn't have much time.

IMPORTANT UPDATES (piratepack_1.4-3):
- Tor Browser: I fixed a Torbutton setting to prevent a leak of your IP through FTP. I know, it's a really stupid mistake.
- Bitcoin 0.5.2: This version fixes bugs, especially a Tor IP leak bug (this time it's not my fault).
- qrencode now compiles from source.

After installing Pirate Linux from the ISO, please go to Update Manager and install all updates (especially Ubuntu Security Updates and piratepack). You can of course install the latest piratepack by downloading the DEB from the piratelinux.org website if you want to read the source code first.

Please note that I am not guaranteeing any form of security for my software. I'm trying my best to make it as secure as possible (I use it for myself, so I do care about it's security), but it still needs a lot more testing. Of course since it automatically compiles on your machine, anyone is free to assess the source code and it is easy for you to not have to trust me and run a transparent system.

You can test your browser anonymity on websites such as http://ip-check.info and http://panopticlick.eff.org

Now to answer some questions...

The Live CD comes with binaries precompiled (otherwise it would take an unreasonable amount of resources and time to start up). Eventually I may allow for easy building of your own ISO with Live CD from source.

As for other clients, I'm not focusing on that too much, but yes it is an option. The intention however is not to make this a "Bitcoin Distro", so I'm just focusing on the essentials now. If someone wants, feel free to fork this distro into your own specialized project. I can give more details on how to build it, if you ask.

Since this has little to do with piracy (other than the link with the pirate party, which itself also has little to do with piracy), may I humbly suggest a different name: "Private Linux" ?

Pirate Linux 1.5 is out.

Try it out!

Guide to get you started: http://piratelinux.org/?page_id=275

Why waste time with Pirated shit when you can BE A PIRATE?

Good Job! Thanks for the hard work onlineproof!

good one.

do you have preinstalled virtual keyboard? you should rememebred that security means protection from spyies and spies install keylogger software or hardware. they also use software through netowork to spy what you do with PC, there should be some protection from it.

you should also include linux software for stenography, for example:
steghide+stegui, plover, etc.
to choose different types of encryption, good tool is: cryptomx-v1.58.tar.bz2
of course I don't say RC4 encryption can not be broken, I justs ay that people should have a choice what tools they will use. cryptomx contain many tools. gpg is still the best I think, but cryptomx bring to the people more choices.

I think next add-ons should be included:

Keylogger Beater 3.1
Cipherbox
BugMeNot
Map This
XSS Me

Keylogger Beater is the most important because it allows us to type password with hovering mouse over letter/number, no need to press button on keyboard and no need to click with mouse. Many keyloggers can record clicking with mouse and pressing buttons on keyboard.

Cipherbox allow to the people to include invisible text in their blog and only someone with cipherbox extension and password can decrypt message, demo video: https://www.pidder.com/blog/2011/05/cipherbox-org/?lang=en