Do You Need to Surf Anonymously? 301
An anonymous reader writes "Computerworld has up an article entitled 'How to Surf Anonymously without a Trace'. It purports to offer tips on how to avoid detection by anyone attempting to monitor your internet access. 'If you don't like the limitations imposed on you by [proxy] sites like the Cloak or would simply prefer to configure anonymous surfing yourself, you can easily set up your browser to use an anonymous proxy server to sit between you and the sites you visit. To use an anonymous proxy server with your browser, first find an anonymous proxy server. Hundreds of free, public proxy servers are available, but many frequently go offline or are very slow. Many sites compile lists of these proxy servers, including Public Proxy Servers and the Atom InterSoft proxy server list.'"
Public Proxy != Anonymous (Score:5, Informative)
Not a whole lot of anonymous anything left on the internet these days with all the data mining that goes on. The best you can do is leech wireless and pretend to be someone else.
public proxies? (Score:4, Informative)
Anyway, public proxies are only haphazard and temporary solutions, and not very good ones at that. First of all, they're often unreachable, unusable or slow. Secondly, you never know WHICH proxy you actually use; I mean; who owns the damn thing? What does he log?
Ofcourse, with enough proxies to choose from, and trying out at randomn, it may be a small chance that you end up with someone that actually makes your privacy more in danger, but still... The systems mentionned above (include JAP to that) are much safer for anonymous browsing.
Re:Public Proxy != Anonymous (Score:4, Informative)
cite please (Score:5, Informative)
I say, you should be right, but you are completely wrong.
try this http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=fbi+library+
so, if you have a citation to back up your assertion, please, supply the citation.
I say, you are flat out wrong.
Re:Starting at the desktop (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Public Proxy != Anonymous (Score:4, Informative)
You never know who's monitoring you, especially on an open wifi network.
Also, if you're using Tor or JAP it's a good idea to also run Adblock+ (use easylist [adblockplus.org] and add the tracking filter), Flashblock, and Noscript to make sure you keep your anonymity.
A Guide For Windows (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Public Proxy != Anonymous (Score:5, Informative)
you are 1/2 way there. First use a OS that allows you to change your MAC address, BEFORE you ever go online and do things you dont want traced to you, CHANGE YOUR MAC ADDRESS. in fact I reccomend changing it every time you go online. That is what they are looking to trace because the data mining guys still think that it's a unique identifier. Second you need to use a browser that allows you to change it's identifier and allow you to destroy all cookies every session. Honestly changing your identifier on a regular basis a little bit and getting rid of cookies does help a LOT. last thing you need is having a doubleckick cookie ratting on you.
Do those and NEVER use a network that is tied to you. This is all really basic dont get caught hacker stuff guys.
Re:Starting at the desktop (Score:3, Informative)
Still, your employer probably keeps logs. If you really must visit sites that you don't want your employer to know about (ie, jobsearch), do it sparingly or just wait until you get home. You could also set up OpenVPN and run that over a proxy server and browse from your home network.
Re:It is illegal to ... (Score:4, Informative)
Anonymousity (Score:4, Informative)
Why do people do things anonymously that they wouldn't do if their name was stamped on it? I think the world would be a lot better place if everyone took responsibility for what they said and what they did.
I don't know about you but I don't want any government tracking me or monitoring what I say or where I go, online or offline. If a person is concerned about who's taking note of what they say then they won't exercise political speech freely.
FalconRe:cite please (Score:3, Informative)
Librarians learned in the 60s not to keep patron records like this. It turns us in to sleeper agents for a snooping government. Pre-9/11 this was the widespread sentiment [webjunction.org] too.
I guess that the 9/11 hijackers used library computers [firstmonday.org] doesn't help, nor does the current "Library 2.0" movement to offer customized [libraryjuicepress.com] services.
Re:Starting at the desktop (Score:4, Informative)
Ssh into your box at home and use freenx (or regular x-forwarding if your latency is low enough). Then just use it as if you were browsing at home.
Re:Public Proxy != Anonymous (Score:3, Informative)
Think of it this way. your computer's MAC address is like your fingerprint. when you touch something you leave your fingerprint.
If I use a phone to make long distance threats, my fingerprints dont transfer to the other side, but they are there on the phone that I used which is easily found.
understand now?
Re:Public Proxy != Anonymous (Score:5, Informative)
1. You are correct, the MAC address doesn't get any farther than the first router. That is how routers operate, by swapping the mac address in the packet with their own and the next hop while leaving the network address the same so it can be 'routed' there.
2. If you own the whole network you can eventually trace a mac back to an originating port on a switch, but that involves owning quite a bit of gear, and its not like its a logged thing, switches eventually allow mac entries to expire or things would break if you moved ports on the switch.
3. In the instance of home networking you are behind a router before you even get to your ISPs router, they never see your mac (unless you are directly connected to the modem, but we are talking leeching wireless).
4. MAC address ARE NOT UNIQUE! They are nearly unique, but if you operate under the idea that mac addresses are unique then your life will be hell when you have to track down a duplicate MAC on a large enterprise network because you believe it cannot happen. It does, although infrequently, and it makes networking very very 'interesting' when it happens.
The best they can do is rush down and grab that wireless access points within a few minutes of the last packet you sent and try and get the MAC before it gets flushed. Then they would have to go after the manufacturer to try and associate that MAC to YOU purchasing it. Now given that the manufacturer has likely made more than one device with that same MAC under the correct assumption they will likely never exist on the same network, and also that a MAC is not a hard thing to spoof, that information is completely worthless. Saying they can track you down based on your MAC is like saying I can identify an individual based on him using 192.168.100.15. Ultimately the best they can really do is determine that the traffic came from the IP the ISP assigned, and there is no real way to verify with any accuracy the traffic came from any specific hardware.
Re:Public Proxy != Anonymous (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Public Proxy != Anonymous (Score:4, Informative)
There are actually many good reasons for using an anonymous proxy.
1). You want to search for information regarding an embarrassing physical condition and don't want those URLs logged at your router.
2). You are worried about the site you are visiting trying to infect your machine. Most anonymous proxies will block most scripts (in addition to advertisements).
3). You are researching your competitions website and don't want to show up in their logs.
4). In the U.S. you have a right to privacy and you simply want to exercise that right.
5). You work in government and want to visit sites that might otherwise be logged or blocked. [webpronews.com]
There are many other legitimate uses for anonymous proxies.
As a disclaimer, my company does not keep any logs -- the logs are rotated nightly at which point a cron runs and deletes all of the previous days logs. Our URLs are obfuscated but not encrypted. A sysadmin on the clients end could log all of these connections at their router and be able to decipher the URLs someone is visiting.
We also offer an SSL encrypted (https://) version of the site. You do have to trust our certificate though
Re:Change MAC when renewing DHCP? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Public Proxy != Anonymous (Score:5, Informative)
Anonymous != illegal behavior (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Public Proxy != Anonymous (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Public Proxy != Anonymous (Score:3, Informative)
For Win XP, you can use FOSS macshift [natetrue.com] to set either a specific or random MAC address.
Re:Public Proxy != Anonymous (Score:1, Informative)