Internet Anonymity & General Security Tools

[Forest Wolf]

Is there a way to make browsing anonymous?

 

[High Fidelity]

Is there a way to make browsing anonymous?

Not entirely.

TOR isn't safe, so if you've seen that it is mentioned, it was likely an article that pre-dates the period where people thought it was safe.

You could always use a VPN to help, but it's not 100% and if people want to find you, they will find you.

 

[OGM]

I am not sure where that leaves you.

 

[Forest Wolf]

Nor am I.
I was hoping to be able to secure my online connection to prevent security breaches, etc...
I had a coworker just recently, before Christmas, who's system was fried by what he said was a backtrack? I hope that's the right term. Someone on a dating chat site that he frequents found a way to locate his machine and sent a packet in an email, and this was someone he was friends with on that forum for over a year, that fried his system.

I had no idea that was possible and that's what got me to asking about protecting the connection.

 

[FreedByte]

Nor am I.
I was hoping to be able to secure my online connection to prevent security breaches, etc...

This is very different from anonymity. You don't have to be anonymous to have a secure connection. There are a number of things you can do to prevent security breaches. I posted a bit back with a list, too. Ultimately there is never a guarantee of security with computers, but you can put up a lot of safeguards.

I had a coworker just recently, before Christmas, who's system was fried by what he said was a backtrack? I hope that's the right term. Someone on a dating chat site that he frequents found a way to locate his machine and sent a packet in an email, and this was someone he was friends with on that forum for over a year, that fried his system.

Yea, I imagine his IP Address was visible to others on the chat site. This is almost always true (if not always true) of Internet Relay Chat and cannot be avoided without a cloak or a proxy.

I had no idea that was possible and that's what got me to asking about protecting the connection.

There are a number of things you can do, but it depends on what you're connecting to. If you're writing emails, you can check to make sure your email client is using the strongest encryption ciphers possible. You can also do the same for web browsing. But these things would not have helped your friend, since IP addresses I believe are exposed by default on IRC.

 

[Forest Wolf]

This is very different from anonymity. You don't have to be anonymous to have a secure connection. There are a number of things you can do to prevent security breaches. I posted a bit back with a list, too. Ultimately there is never a guarantee of security with computers, but you can put up a lot of safeguards.

Yes, I read the information here about the links to safeguards. That offers some hope for sure.

Yea, I imagine his IP Address was visible to others on the chat site. This is almost always true (if not always true) of Internet Relay Chat and cannot be avoided without a cloak or a proxy.

It's shocking to realize how vulnerable we all are when hearing about the loss of a machine like that. Hundreds of dollars in one fell swoop.

There are a number of things you can do, but it depends on what you're connecting to. If you're writing emails, you can check to make sure your email client is using the strongest encryption ciphers possible. You can also do the same for web browsing. But these things would not have helped your friend, since IP addresses I believe are exposed by default on IRC.

In our area there's cable and there's FIOS as the most popular ISP's. He uses the local cable supplier just as I do. FIOS, because it's rather new to our part of the state, is absurdly high for a package deal. (TV, phone, net).

So he would have still been able to be hit like this even if he'd had something to disguise his presence online?

I think he's sworn off chats for life. Poor guy. He's looking to upgrade to an Apple computer now since it's said they're virus proof.
He had a Dell until the email encounter.

 

[High Fidelity]

Yes, I read the information here about the links to safeguards. That offers some hope for sure.




It's shocking to realize how vulnerable we all are when hearing about the loss of a machine like that. Hundreds of dollars in one fell swoop.



In our area there's cable and there's FIOS as the most popular ISP's. He uses the local cable supplier just as I do. FIOS, because it's rather new to our part of the state, is absurdly high for a package deal. (TV, phone, net).

So he would have still been able to be hit like this even if he'd had something to disguise his presence online?

I think he's sworn off chats for life. Poor guy. He's looking to upgrade to an Apple computer now since it's said they're virus proof.
He had a Dell until the email encounter.

Macs aren't virus proof, that was made evident not too long ago.

Where there's a will, there's a way.

There are hackers sat at their PC 18 hours a day trying to crack software, manufacture malware and reverse engineer programs in order to cause harm.

There's absolutely no way to be completely anonymous online.

I'd even say that using a VPN/VPS is too far for the average consumer. It's highly unlikely that someone would target you personally.

It's typically a botnet (A master computer that 'enslaves' other PC's using viruses in order to gain control) that can be used to mass spam emails and DDOS(Distributed denial of service attack) to spread malware and take sites and services offline.

Botnet owners harvest email addresses and spam emails from them with viruses in them. To most people they look fine and safe, but a lot of people know no different.

If you use online banking through your bank then they almost always give you a good anti-virus for free. The banks here do and I use Kaspersky, which I believe to be the best one on the market commercially available.

 

[FreedByte]

It's shocking to realize how vulnerable we all are when hearing about the loss of a machine like that. Hundreds of dollars in one fell swoop.

I don't consider myself too vulnerable; it depends on whether you know how to secure yourself, whether you know what you're doing, and whether you're careful. I don't use Windows (linux ftw) so I don't get viruses (not a guarantee, but I haven't yet), I don't have automatic admin privileges (like in Windows) which hackers can take advantage of, I use Firefox which is a solid browser, I use HTTPS Everywhere to encrypt my connection whenever possible, and I typically use a cloak if I go on IRC.

In our area there's cable and there's FIOS as the most popular ISP's. He uses the local cable supplier just as I do. FIOS, because it's rather new to our part of the state, is absurdly high for a package deal. (TV, phone, net).

I'm not sure what this has to do with it, I was talking about IRC (Internet Relay Chat) not ISPs.

So he would have still been able to be hit like this even if he'd had something to disguise his presence online?

Depends on what you mean. My point was that encrypting your web browser's connections doesn't prevent an IRC server from viewing your IP address, because the server uses your IP address to send data back to you. What encrypting your connection does is it prevents anyone from reading the data while it is sent to the server and while it is sent back (even though it is displayed in the channel anyways), but the server still needs your IP address, and in the case of IRC, it displays it publicly unless it is cloaked.

Assuming your friend was using IRC and not a different method of chatting online, some servers do offer cloaks that hide your IP to other users, but some don't.

 

[Forest Wolf]

OK. Thanks for all your help everyone.