In todays world of globalization and wide spread of computers, Internet has
become increasingly popular way for communication, for expressing yourself, for
sharing your mind with everybody. Popular types of resources include web blogs,
instant messaging, chats, forums and many others. Just a few clicks and
everybody in the world knows about your point of view on politics, culture,
science, relationships, whatever, since quickly evolving technologies bring
Internet to millions of people around the world.
But no good comes without bad. The worst thing to consider about many modern
technologies such as Internet is a complete lack of privacy. Sitting at
the front of your computer screen and surfing the net you are being watched
constantly, by many people and organizations, interested or not. How is it
possible? Lets see.
Internet is based on IP - Internet Protocol - special network protocol
designed at the beginning of 70s for U.S. defense purposes, but has become
widely used solution today (take a look at
http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.shtml for more information).
Basically, most todays computers are connected by IP, and its extension,
TCP/IP. We will not dive into details of TCP/IP here, but rather give a short
explanation and point to major privacy concerns. Main idea of IP protocol is a
set of independent nodes (computers) connected somehow between themselves, each
node has unique identifier assigned to it, and special rules exists which help
computers exchange data with each other through intermediate computers, called
"IP routers". The unique identifier is called IP address, and every
networked computer must have it in order communicate to others. To view your
current IP address, run "ipconfig" from command line under Windows, or
open web site like www.netconceal.com or www.showmyip.com.
Ok, but whats wrong with my IP address? Like a regular address (e.g.
your postal address), IP address identifies your location, no matter how
you are connected to the Internet. For example, DSL connection from your home is
managed by ISP (remember, you have to sign agreement with ISP, and your actual
and billing addresses are there). Wireless connections, such as GPRS or WiFi are
being tracked as well (GPRS stations are able to determine your position with a
mile precision, WiFi are even more location-bound), and service providers always
register and identify you as a subscriber. Try web sites like
www.ip2location.com to see this in practice (the information is not exactly
precise in all cases, but remember, technology improves daily!).
Every time you surf the Internet, your IP address is publicly visible to
everyone on target network resources, therefore, your actual location and even
name and age can be tracked as well. Of course, this costs something (they need
to contact web site owner or hosting provider, and ISP or WiFi access point
owner), but interested parties can implement this fairly easy. This is very
serious point to consider. For example, you submit blog article, and express
your opinion about politics, criticize something or make really controversial
statements. Thats was just an opinion, relax, everybody. But someone, being,
for example, a religious fanatic or simply paranoid, can find you and shoot you
right at your home. Whats the hell, why? Thats true, simply because he knows
EVERYTHING about you, your IP address, and thus your name and physical location,
since all web sites keep logs of IP addresses accessing them (once you submit
your post, web site records a number of entries in its log file, putting
together your post and your IP address).
Just for demonstration, 4 simple steps to know everything about specific
person:
1. Retrieve web site logs (not a problem for site owners, they already
have them). How can these logs be retrieved by anyone? Simply by contacting web
site owner, and many of them will give theirs logs away with easyness, dont
worry. Just send e-mail using published contact information (click link like
"Contact Us"), write words like: "Some guy who is using your site is suspected
in credit card fraud, he has stolen my money already!", or "The person with
nickname blackjack from your site is promoting child porn, we need your web
site logs for investigation, thank you." and 99% - youll receive desired
logs.
2. Analyze logs. For example, get timestamp of specific blog post and
search for records matching this timestamp, then compare URLs of web site
request and extract IP address from log entries.
3. Obtain IP address owner (the Internet Service Provider, ISP). Use
www.ip2location.com, it displays ISP. For well-known ISPs like Verizon - youre
almost done. Otherwise try looking it up in Google and find their web site. Half
an hour and youll surely find it.
4. Contact ISP, supply IP address, and say something like you did in
step (1), and theyll easily reveal user of their IP address, because they dont
want problems with that user. Thats it.
Is there any way to protect you against this? Relax, really good solution
exist and the rest of this article will point you right there.
Basic idea of all privacy solutions is faking of your real IP address. How is
it accomplished? Solution is based on intermediary computers, which are placed
between you (the person who wishes to hide himself from everyone) and target web
sites (and other network resources - such as instant messaging, file sharing
etc). Those computers are called Proxy Servers. How does Proxy Server work?
Very simple: its just like a very simple tunnel between you and web site, all
data sent by you to web site or received by you from web site are passed through
proxy server as is, using special SOCKS protocol (dont mess with foot socks,
its just a coincidence :). Whats the difference? Exactly, target web site sees
Proxy Server IP address, but not your real IP. And web site logs keep Proxy
Server IP but not your real one as well. Sound great, but how to use this?
Anonymous Proxy Server lists are published throughout the web on special web
sites, for example www.proxyblind.org. Actually, proxy server list looks like a
simple sequence of IP address : port number pairs, for example:
123.43.12.96 : 1080
98.15.13.17 : 1080
150.19.87.31 : 1080
Choosing proper Proxy Server from such lists can be a tedious task, some of
them may be valid, and some are not. You just test them one by one, select valid
ones and save them for further usage. This work must be repeated each time you
want to use proxy, since Proxy Servers get closed very often. After choosing
proper Proxy Server, you have to connect your application (web browser, instant
messenger, whatever) to it and work. Try configuring your application for use
with proxy server. For example, MSN, Yahoo! and ICQ support SOCKS proxies, but
some programs do not. Microsoft Internet Explorer and Firefox web browsers also
support this, but you must select another kind of Proxy Server - HTTP proxy (in
opposite to SOCKS proxy).
Special software was developed to address the issues listed above -
NetConceal Anonymizer download now (http://www.netconceal.com/download.php)
and try it.
