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How can I get persistent USB to properly work? (self.techsupport)

submitted 8 months ago by Moshpirit to c/techsupport

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Context: I need to have installed a a program called Smowl, which is a closed-source app that records EVERYTHING to make sure you don't do weird stuff while doing an online exam. To avoid installing such monstrosity on my laptop, and since virtualbox is probably banned, I wanted to use a persistent bootable device to have the program installed and know that everything works well in a few days.

Tails and booting software: I tried with Tails, but the software doesn't work there because it's too private. I also tried using other tools other than ImageWriter or dd to make other distros persistent, but if I use Unetbootin the distro doesn't get recognized when booting the laptop, and I the other tool that I found to have similar powers is mkusb, but it's no longer maintained and it cannot be installed on Arch (there's a compiling issue).

MX Linux: I also tried MX Linux, but I don't know how to make it persistent in the first place because I followed all the steps but I don't get it to show me the last session to boot to or the "text menu" option of this guide. I tried this several times, with two pen drives (8GiB both), but I got no luck, even when using MX Linux live USB tool to make the other pen drive bootable. What am I missing?

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

You could dualboot with two efi partitions. That way one os does not touch anything from the other. You'd need two drives for that but a USB drive should also work (no guarantee, I am using two m.2 SSDs)

I'm currently doing it with manjaro and windows.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

It's been a few years since I used it, but I'm pretty sure Rufus has an easy to find persistent option. Just choose the live distro of your choice, make sure you set a partition to be persistent and go. Edit: I just realized Rufus was windows only. BalenaEtcher should be able to on linux, I've just never used that option.

If you need windows, you can use something like this: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/windows-11-live-disk-live11-released

[–] muntedcrocodile 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Bypassing vm check is easy just need to spoof devices i suspect they will only have a windows build.

I havnt tested but i found https://github.com/d4rksystem/VBoxCloak and for linux i found https://github.com/xmmword/x0

Should allow u to do hardware spoofing then just do mic and camera usb passthrough.

If u want to cheat u can probably take a page out of the valorant cheaters handbook and use image2text screencapture so u can copy out of the vm and maybe a usb emulation flashed onto a rasberry pi to type out a paste (hell a autohotkey to intercept ctr+v and type out ur clipboard and ctr+c to copy selextdd text might also work). Can also probably do whats called gohsting by modifying virtualbox guest addons configs and compiling so the vm detection doesnt recognise it as a vm driver. Actually it might honestly just work with the guest addon loaded in memory and then deleted from disk then make a snapahot of this state u can roleback to as needed.

Most of these proctoring solutions and shittilly implemented and steal code from viruses i found one the other day that just recompiled an opensource rat but left out half of it.

Also if u could provide me a download link for said software id love to decompile it.

[–] Moshpirit 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Wow! Thank you so much for such complete answer, although I don't want to cheat, I just don't want to feel abused when doing my exams. And TBH, I really appreciate all the effort you made to reply me, I love it, but I can't afford risking they recognizing the virtual machine, even when it's by far the best choice IMO.

[–] muntedcrocodile 1 points 8 months ago

Totally fair. Guess live usb is the best option then i did it omce cant remeber how tho so idk. Ik tails has a way to install persistent software tho but i remeber it being a pain in the ass.