holymaceralTsF493 | Internet Anonymity

Tor – Is it really anonymous?

Question: I have started using Tor to browse Deep Web sites, I’m now anonymous right?
Answer: Unfortunately, it’s not really that simple.

Using Tor to mask the sites you view on the internet is a great step forward on the road to anonymity. However, because of one major player in the internet game, you’re still not completely free from eavesdroppers. That player is your ISP, your internet service provider.

So what does your ISP know about you? I’ll explain with this commonly-used analogy: Think of your ISP as a virtual mailman. They know the addresses of everything that’s both sent and received by your computer. Now what this means is that your ISP can track every site that you view on the internet. Depending on where you live, they may also be required to store this information. For example, in the EU, ISPs must keep all their data logs for two years.

Most importantly however, your ISP knows your IP address. When you use Tor to mask whatever sites you are visiting, your ISP can see that someone is using Tor to browse anonymously, and because they know you IP address, they can tell that it’s you who’s trying to mask what sites they view. Also, if you’re not using a HTTPS connection within Tor, they still know your data usage. This can arouse further suspicion.

There’s nothing technically illegal about using Tor. However, some companies such as Comcast have decided to ban its use under their fair usage policy, due to the strong links between its use and the viewing of illegal sites as published on DeepDotWeb. This shows that peoples Tor usage is being monitored and logged. While I don’t endorse censorship of the internet, and while I believe that everyone has the right to privacy, including not having multinational companies store their personal internet histories, a lot of pressure is being placed on ISPs at the moment to crack down on internet piracy as well the use of illegal Deep Web sites.

So the question remains, can you actually obtain anonymity on the internet? I believe that the answer is yes – you just need to have the right tools at your disposal. A good VPN (Virtual Private Network) is one such tool. A VPN allows computers that are connected over a public network to form a private connection between each other. Many businesses use them so that employees can access sensitive material, even when not on site. The same technology can be used to protect your anonymity online. When using a VPN correctly, all your ISP can see is encrypted data. This approach, coupled with using Tor to mask the sites that you’re viewing, is probably as close as you can get to total anonymity.

In reality, using the Tor browser should be enough to protect your privacy in most cases if you don’t care that your ISP and law enforcement suspects you are using the Darknet Market sites like Agora and BlackBank. However, if you wish to really achieve anonymity so that absolutely no one knows you are using the DeepWeb, the use of a good VPN that keeps no logs is a very wise choice to make.

TopVPNSoftware.com is a pretty good site I found that compares the best VPN’s. It goes into pretty deep detail and it looks like they actually tested them themselves instead of just making it up.

Hack Attacks Are Growing

Every time that you are connected to the Internet, you are potentially exposing yourself to a wide plethora of Internet security risks for your devices and the information that you share via them. These days, Internet security is a growing concern as the number of cyber-attacks keeps on increasing. More and more malicious attackers are out there and target all kinds of people. From the ordinary Internet user to huge corporations, these attackers will stop at nothing that gets in their way. Their aim is usually to steal important data that they can later use for other crimes such as impersonation and bank fraud. In some cases, the attackers may make compromise your device and use it to launch attacks on other suitable targets. This may get you into even greater trouble as you may be the subject of a criminal investigation for cyber-attacks that were carried out using your compromised device.

Internet security attacks happen every day at all times. Even as you are reading this, there is an attack taking place near you. Given the anonymity that cyber attackers have when perpetrating their attacks, it is very important that you stay safe at all times. There are several things that you can do in order to ensure that you stay safe when browsing the Internet. For starters, always make sure that you are connected to a secured network. Most free networks are usually the target of cyber criminals who use the weak Internet security of these networks to steal data from the people using the network. The number of attacks is increasing each day and as a general rule of thumb, you should not perform sensitive transactions over unsecured Wi-Fi networks. You should also install a trusted firewall or antivirus software on your devices or the router in order to keep all incidental attacks at bay.

How Safe Is Your Online Anonymity

Tor web browsing is a group of servers that enables users to improve their online anonymity. The volunteer-operated servers allow users to use their servers by connecting via a series of tunnels instead of performing a direct connection. Individuals and organizations can as a result share important information over open networks while maintaining their online anonymity.

The use of Tor Network

The free software helps you protect against traffic analysis, a kind of surveillance that threatens individual privacy and freedom, state security, and relationships. Traffic analysis is used to find out who is communicating to whom over an open network. Discovering the destination and source of internet traffic enables others track your interests and behavior.

The reason for online anonymity

Traffic analysis works as follows; Internet data packets contain two main parts: a header that is normally used for routing and a data payload. Data payload is the information being sent, whether it’s a webpage, an audio file or an email message. Even if you try to encrypt all your communications, a great deal of what you are doing or possibly saying is disclosed by traffic analysis. The reason for the above being that it remains focused on the header that reveals destination, source, timing, size and so on.

A fundamental problem for those who want to maintain their online anonymity is that the receiver of your information can know that you sent some communication by checking the headers. Intermediaries with legal authority like service providers of the internet or sometimes unauthorized intermediaries too can therefore, access such information. The simplest kind of traffic analysis involves sitting somewhere between the recipient and sender on the network checking for headers.

There are more powerful types of traffic analysis. The majority of attackers spy on some areas on the internet and employ advanced techniques to track patterns of communication of many individuals and different organizations. Encryption does not protect against these hackers since it only masks the internet traffic content and not the headers.

The Best Solution: A distributed anonymous network

Tor assists in the reduction of both sophisticated and simple traffic analysis risks by spreading your online transactions in various areas on the internet, preventing any single point from linking you to your specific destination.

Maintaining online anonymity

Tor can’t solve all your anonymity problems. It only focuses on protecting the transport of your data. You have to use protocol-specific software such as Tor Browser to hide your identifying information to the websites you visit. Be smart in protecting your anonymity. Avoid providing your name in web forms and other revealing information for more privacy and security.

Here is the bottom line; data encryption may not be enough in the maintenance of your online anonymity. Tor network offers you a great help but needs to be backed up by other techniques for the best results.

Technology And Internet Anonymity

In recent years, the revelation came out that the United States government was closely monitoring internet usage all across the world. This prompted a massive backlash both in the country and abroad. With the revelations made by Edward Snowden, who is still being hunted for releasing the information, more than a third of Americans are now taking precautions to protect themselves from internet surveillance. Users have taken extra measures to protect their online information as they are now more conscious that their online activities may not be private.

Technology and internet anonymity have now become a huge concern in daily life for the public. People are aware of the dangers they face with regards to surveillance, either by the government or third parties. They know that their webcam can be, and probably is watched. They know that Facebook sends their location on messenger if they don’t turn off the default settings on the device they use. Some online users have changed their privacy settings and others have reduced on their use of social media platforms. They became more cautious of the apps they installed on their computers. Now, even corporations and foreign governments are up in arms regarding the widespread surveillance.

Everyone is worried about their privacy and internet anonymity, and they have good reason. Nobody wants somebody watching them when they are at their computers. With the rise of mobile technology, you can gain as much information as you want from a person. People might find out anything from your personal information to the things you browse online. Technology and internet anonymity is part of a basic human right to privacy. It may be an impossible thing to gain considering the fact that the backbone of the internet itself is based on tracking people whether by the government or corporations.

Freak: Latest Internet Security Threat

“Freak” is a new and potentially dangerous Internet security threat which researchers say can copy anything that you transfer via the net, including credit card details, passwords, social security numbers and files transferred between a computer and website. Such data can easily be accessed by hackers who use this program. Experts say that it affects a number of platforms including Google’s Android OS, Apple’s iOS, Mac & Windows PCs. Anyone who uses the internet to search for information or buy goods is at risk of this malicious program.

The Internet security threat was first discovered by Microsoft Company and the French Institute for Research. Programmers say that it mainly depends on SSL systems and its successor the TLS to run; there are both common cryptography protocols that are used in securing sites where online users often put sensitive personal data. The system allows attackers to seize an HTTPS link between clients and their primary server, consequently forcing the platform to adopt a weaker version of 512bit encryption which is easy to break.

If a computer hacker is successful, they can spy on your device and even install viral software files which can destroy hardware systems. The exploit allows Internet security attackers to unencrypt and gather all data transferred between server and client, even though at first glance your link may seem secured with https.

Nevertheless, there’s still hope for those who are in need of an immediate solution for “Freak”. It can be activated through the group policy found on Microsoft domain networks, or individual PCs on interconnected Internet networks by disabling all at-risk encryption codes. Most browsers also have specific workarounds and Internet security updates which are available to users. In addition, there’s a website that has been setup containing self-test tools that can be helpful in determining whether your computer is prone to an attack or not.

Different Ways To Browse The Web Anonymously

Online Anonymity: How to browse the web anonymously:

I. Hide your IP address

The IP address is a unique digital code that’s assigned to every web browser and can be used to track down a person’s exact location. To prevent this from happening, you can always link it to a proxy server so that the websites you’re visiting shall only have information about this proxy and not yours.

Another viable method is installing a VPN (Virtual Private Network), though one will require administrator access on their PC for the program to be activated. All in all most VPNs require prior subscription, but in return the beneficiary will gain access to 1000s of anonymous IPs which they can use. These online anonymity systems provide higher levels of encryption than web-based proxies. VPNs have the ability to hide both inbound/outbound traffic emanating from a computer including messages and attached files, compared to their counterparts which only work through the tab browser.

II. Delete Cookies

Cookies refer to tiny text files that are saved on your browser when visiting certain websites. They hold information such as login details, user preferences, online shopping cart content and other related identifiers. To delete them, just click to the part written “History” then you’ll see a tag labeled “Cookies and other site and plug-in data”. Click on it for all the cookies to be removed instantly. Alternatively, you can adjust the Browser settings on your computer so that these text files are blocked from accessing your PC in the first place.

III. USB Sticks

This is an emerging trend in online anonymity that’s already proving to be very successful. Here, the software used to encrypt your web-connection is stored inside a USB port so that you can remain safe even while using public PCs. The USB key is small and can easily fit in your wallet when not in use, but once activated it shall launch its own pass-protected browser for maximum online anonymity.

Internet Anonymity: How To Hide Your IP Address

Each computer that is hooked to the Internet has its own unique IP address. This address provides a means of determining the exact location of the computer using that address. However, there are times when you may want to conceal your IP. If you want to enjoy internet anonymity and you want to learn how to hide your IP, read on.

Hiding an IP address does a few things. First of all, it allows you to visit different sites without disclosing your identity. Secondly, if your IP belongs to a certain region and that region cannot access certain websites, then by concealing it you can visit all the sites that were otherwise unavailable to your location. You can also use internet anonymity to safeguard your identity from possible hackers.

Internet Anonymity: Here is how to hide IP address

• Use a VPN Proxy

By making use of a trusted VPN service, you be able to conceal your identity easily. There are a number of VPN services available to choose from.

• Use a website-based Proxy Server

This is another effective and helpful means of hiding IP address. Since you will be using a website-based service you will not be required to install any software. Some popular websites also offer no-cost services.

• Make use of proxy servers that are configured to your browser

There are plenty of open proxies that you can locate by searching the Internet. These free proxy servers will provide you with an IP address which you be able to use to conceal your real IP. However, since these proxy servers are readily available to everyone, many (if not all) of them are dead or they perform too slowly to be of any use.

If you really wish to maintain your internet anonymity, then you should use one or more of the above-mentioned methods of hiding IP address.

Online Anonymity: Using Proxy server

When surfing the internet, your IP address is usually exposed to cyber hackers who can track it down and access private details that are found in your computer. To avoid such things from happening it’s advisable to install a proxy server for online anonymity. This program acts as an intermediate for incoming requests from clients looking for data resources from other computer servers.

Generally, a user connects to the proxy system requesting for specific services such as access to a file, web page or connection to various apps. The server will then evaluate these requests in order to determine their legitimacy, it would also try to simplify and regulate complexity levels based on the level of web access that one is allowed. Note that proxies can be programmed to either block web browsers permanently or partially, of course depending on the administrator’s online anonymity preferences.

There are three types of proxy servers which include:

a) Normal. It’s designed to track/listen incoming information from a separate port and web users are configured to relay connectivity requests towards that particular port.

b) Transparent. Also known as anintercepting server, this server is designed to eliminate the client’s side configuration settings by residing on the gateway and intercepting all WWW requests from browsers. It subsequently fetches the content afresh and replies using a local cache for maximum online anonymity.

c) Reverse. This application works slightly differently from the others since it benefits web servers rather than the clients. A reverse proxy will cache all static answers from an online server, then reply to clients via its own cache so as to reduce oncoming traffic load.

When web users want their identities to remain undisclosed while visiting other sites they can easily download an anonymous proxy server onto their PCs. To do this, you first have to identify the unsigned server then write down the specific address that you’re looking for. It will establish a connection and retrieve the pages that are being searched before they appear on other proxy server’s database. Consequently, the IP address which the owner of the site you’re visiting shall see will not be yours but that of the anonymous proxy server. This online anonymity strategy allows users to visit any website without leaving behind traces of their footprints.

Internet Security Tips For Online Protection

Nowadays, the internet has become part and parcel of our everyday lives whether it’s socializing with friends, applying to join a college or searching for a new career. With the ever increasing numbers of web users, it has become imperative to take proper steps towards ensuring internet security so that you don’t become a victim of hackers and fraudsters. Here are some internet security tips that can help you to protect yourself and your personal information online

I. Install a powerful Firewall/Antivirus program on your PC. These applications can help block malicious websites and software from accessing your computer, note that some of these viruses have the potential of stealing vital data or even damaging CPU peripherals if left to run unchecked.

II. Use HTTPS when sending or receiving messages through the net. The term HTTPS stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure, it’s a communications protocol that only allows authorized individuals to read information that’s being exchanged between two or more parties. This is done with the help of secret keys which encrypt data flow between the user and his server. The program is very effective in preventing wiretapping and active eavesdropping by uncouth characters.

III. Keep your OS and browser systems updated with the latest Internet Security features. These are called “service packs” or “patches” and should be installed as soon as they become available to the public. Likewise, do not open dubious attachments or mount free software apps from anonymous sources. Such activities badly expose your PC and the data found within to unauthorized personnel.

IV. When adding passwords, avoid using your personal Social Security number as it can easily be hacked by unscrupulous people. Furthermore, ensure that the password has 8 or more characters which combine letters, symbols and numerals. This way hacker would not be able to crack the code.

Don’t give hackers and fraudsters a chance to ruin your life, follow these simple internet security tips and all will be well with you.

Internet Anonymity VS. Pseudonymity

Most individuals tend to use different names or choose to not to use them on the internet. Any choice can have a negative or positive opinion. Most people conceal their identity for the purpose of online privacy and security. Internet anonymity is a state at which person chooses not to use any name while pseudonymity is a state where one disguises his or her true identity by using a false name. Many people confuse the two thinking they are the same, but there are significant differences in them. Below is the apparent disparity between internet anonymity and pseudonymity.

Internet Anonymity

Internet anonymity pertains to users’ interaction on the internet that protects their identities from being shared with another user.Anonymity is often used to protect the privacy of individuals.It requires an individual to deal with other entity that does not need any personal identification profile. Even at the time of dealing, the entity should not identify the individual at all. The users remain anonymous in their accounts. Anonymity lacks individuality in it. It can be termed as being without a name or with an unknown name. To gain greater protection of anonymity, some online users utilize several methods to make identification more difficult such as using VPN and Tor.

Pseudonymity

Pseudonymity is a state of disguised identity.It is a state where an individual hides his/ her real identity by using a false name or “pseudonym”.Some examples of pseudonyms include pen names, nicknames, screen name, and others. Pseudonyms are widely used in social networks and other virtual communication.Unlike in anonymity, your own information can be assessed even if it might not be having the true information about you in it.Pseudonymity does not guarantee you full concealment of your identity but just a mask to cover yourself.