Get a censor-proof completely anonymous web service on the dark web in 15 minutes or your money back!

Your very own .onion address.

Why would you want this? Well, the New York Times has one, (good for getting around that pesky NYTimes paywall). Also handy if you want to publish information that is vulnerable to censorship.

What you need:

1. An Internet connection.
2. A Linux server.
3. The Tor browser (for testing).

What to do:

1. Follow the instructions at Tor Project: Set up your Onion service.
2. OK that's pretty much it. Keep the server running and your .onion service will be routed through the Tor network.

Basically it's:

# In Ubuntu Server as root

apt install tor
apt install nginx # Web server
vim /etc/tor/torrc # Uncomment HiddenServiceDir and HiddenServicePort
systemctl restart tor
cat /var/lib/tor/hidden_service/hostname # Your .onion address

# Visit your .onion address in the Tor browser

And one more thing...

You can brute-force a vanity Onion address using mkp224o.

I wonder who decided it might be a good idea to put Bluetooth and WiFi on the same 2.4 gigahertz spectrum?

It was relatively easy to enable Bluetooth and connect my wireless headphones in Arch Linux. I noticed however that afterwards my internet connection would inexplicably slow to a crawl whenever I connected. Disconnect, and it would be fine again. Connect, and again, virtually nothing — especially if sound was playing through the headset.

The easy solution was to connect my WiFi on the 5 Ghz band. Done. It worked. No interference. And that could have been that. But it was still bugging me. I still wanted to know why. I still wanted to fix it.

(2.4 Ghz gets better range than 5 Ghz because it's a lower frequency so sometimes it actually gives me a more stable connection from further away.)

I found a few possible solutions. I tried changing the WiFi channel on my router, and that helped a little bit, but not quite enough.

In the Arch Wiki they have a small section about Intel combined WiFi and Bluetooth cards and playing with the coexistence setting and I thought I was onto something.

They suggested adding the following to /etc/modprobe.d/iwlwifi.conf:

options iwlwifi bt_coex_active=0

But nope. Nothing. No difference.

After some searching, a post in the Arch Forums put me on the right track.

In the end, adding this to /etc/modprobe.d/iwlwifi.conf fixed it for me:

options iwlmvm power_scheme=1

Reboot and you're all good.

Seems to be the same fix as described here, but for a different symptom.

Anyway, hope this helps someone else. Happy hacking!

ps.

• Jim Mussared put me on to this page about iwlwifi and platform noise which gives a bit more information about why this works.