dotslash, Author at How to Stay Anonymous Online

Here’s An Identity Cloaker Coupon for You

OK further down the page you’ll find and Identity Cloaker Coupon, basically I get quite a lot of requests for cracks, serials and downloads for copies of my favorite security software Identity Cloaker. Ironically there has been a big upsurge in the use of these products, not particularly for the anonymity but because an IP cloaker is needed to bypass lots of geotargeting restrictions.

That is people want programs that can hide their IP address so that they can access stuff like BBC Iplayer, Hulu and Pandora no matter which country they’re in. One thing you instantly notice is that you can forget using free products for streaming video down – although for just audio like Pandora it’s probably ok.

Which brings me back to the title and these requests for a cracks for Identity Cloaker, I haven’t got one because it’s a subscription – it has to be every MB downloaded has a cost to it – they’re called bandwidth charges. So you either use advertising to recoup your costs and enter the security nightmare of something like AnchorFree or Hola which then riddles your computer with adware, spamware and goodness knows what or you have to pay for the service. Which is why you need an account to logon to these services, the software is free but access to servers can never be.

So please stop looking for cracks, serials or gens for any of the commercial VPN services because you won’t find any. But I appreciate everything in the world worth having now seems to cost a fortune as my children’s christmas lists are a horrifying example of.

So I’ve nagged the Identity Cloaker guys and they let me have an Identity Cloaker coupon thing that gives you 15% off . It works on everything but the trial subscription (the ten day one).

Here’s the Code – 3E9E264B you just add it to the coupon section to get the discount – .

And just so everyone knows – it is a security product, the best available in my opinion. But it can be used to access all the media sites like BBC Iplayer, Hulu, NBC etc using either a proxy or the VPN function, although it’s not advertised on their site as they don’t wish to be the target of legal letters from those companies.

So if you’re feeling fed up on arriving at this page and not finding a free version I’m sorry. But there is a purpose to the subscription, not only does it pay for the many servers across the world – it also allows the company to invest.

There is a new version which will be released soon which is the result of several years of development work – from a security side it introduces some amazing features but there’s more…….The new version of Identity Cloaker is speed optimized and will actually boost the speed of your internet connection for many people!

Try out the 10 Day Trial of Identity Cloaker.

Catch the Criminals – Not the Innocent

One of the problems I have with all the monitoring, filtering and surveillance that goes on online it that it rarely works. For a start surveillance, 99.999% of the time all you are doing is monitoring the innocent. Anyone who has anything to hide can easily takes steps to bypass the monitoring. So in the end all the online big brother stuff does is invade our privacy – it rarely picks up anything from the guilty as they cover their tracks.

It’s the same with blocking and filtering access to sites that we decide are no appropriate. You may argue that it’s right to filter websites with dangerous and criminal content – I would argue back it’s also normally just a huge waste of time. Any site that contains for instance illegal pornography can be copied and rehosted on a thousand other sites with ease. They can be encrypted, sent on usb keys or DVDs or hosted on darknet sites. In effect it’s a great big fat waste of time, the URL filtering slows down our surfing and the only thing you achieve is this

A completely false feeling that you’ve dealt with the problem, when of course you haven’t.
You’ve Blocked access to websites to people who weren’t going to use them anyway
Driven the criminals responsible for this further underground.

Let’s get this straight blocking the website of a paedophile ring does little to help the victim, other than pretending they don’t exist. What we need to do is cooperate and catch the criminals involved.

This is a perfect example of what should be happening – http://www.cps.gov.uk/news/press_releases/140_10/
, a racist uploading videos onto Youtube, don’t put resources into monitoring access, or filtering the web site out. Simply catch the people responsible and bring them to justice.

Facebook Email – Anyone Else Worried ?

Now I’ve never been a big fan of all the free email accounts like hotmail and gmail, having all your email stored by one single central provider is just to much to trust someone with. But predictions are that these are going to be dwarfed by the new email accounts provided by Facebook. After all they have over 500 million members and so much information on each and every user that it is truly scary. We’ve already heard the stories of thieves and burglars using Facebook updates to pick their victims – what could be easier than selecting a user who is updating their status from a bar in Hawaii.

There are of course some huge benefits of using systems like Facebook to communicate if you ignore the security risks. For one a decent world wide spam filter would make email much easier to use. I don’t know about you but even my most prized accounts are starting to get more and more spam, which also entails tightening up filters – inevitably leading to genuine messages getting lost too. To the extent that email is becoming less of the reliable method of communication it once was, you’re never quite sure if an email has been delivered any more.

But the amount of data about each and everyone of us that Facebook will have is very worrying. The power of those Facebook ads you see on the side of your screen will soon overcome the Google adverts. Imagine advertisers being able to target ads so exactly in the case of peoples location, likes, dislikes, demographics and income levels to name just a few. I imagine if you looked at even all the publicly held data on an avid Facebook user you’d get an extremely accurate picture of that individual. Start cross referencing with all the private data like search phrases, fan pages and browsing history and you’ll know more about an individual than their partners.

I’m not saying that this is the intent of Facebook but the temptation in the face of profit potential will be huge. The threats to the privacy of our data grow by the month it seems, and there is little to stop the threat growing.

Internet Censorship – Online Anonymity Pros and Cons

To be honest the more I think of this subject, the more I keep filling in the cons category and see little for the Pros. For instance you may have read recently a survey commissioned by Google about the value of the internet economy to different countries. To the UK economy the internet was estimated to be worth over 100 billion dollars – a staggering amount of money I’m sure you’ll agree.

It is potentially one of the biggest benefits that the internet can give to the economies of the world, the chance to open up world markets to people, companies and countries across the world. Some investment in infrastructure could give people the chance to set up online businesses and engage with economies across the planet. Imagine the potential opportunities that are available in less developed countries, the chance to access these market irrespective of your location.

So what has this got to do with online anonymity? After all doing business online is partly about trust and being anonymous from your customers hardly helps this. Of course this is a perfectly fair opinion and a very valid point. Indeed if the internet was a huge global digital marketplace where we where all treated completely equal then there would be little reason to hide your identity online. Unfortunately it isn’t and there are many barriers of entry to even the simplest online business from many countries. Payment processors, geo targeting restrictions and

Considering the Online Anonymity Pros and Cons

This is one of the reasons why being anonymous is good, it gives you the chance to detach your online business persona from your personal one. If you live in a country where it’s difficult to operate online for whatever reason, then you can detach from this and operate virtually from another country. For instance I know loads of people who now make their living entirely online, from web designers, marketers, programmers you name it. An amazing chance to perhaps equalize the life chances of people across the planet.

Why are lots of people at a disadvantage? Well there’s a variety of reasons, from access to payment processors to simply credibility issues. The internet should really be a level playing field where we can all have exactly the same access irrespective of who we are and where we are located.

In reality of course this isn’t happening, the same backward, despotic governments that have created third world countries have spotted the internet and seen it as a threat rather than an opportunity. But of course they’re probably right it is certainly a threat to them, alas the opportunities for their people will be denied. I strongly believe there is no real argument, there is no internet censorship pros and cons discussion to be had.

You will see investment in internet technology, Saudi Arabia have spent a fortune in hardware to spy on their citizens, Syria force Cyber Cafe owners to monitor their customers – whilst they filter at a packet level every single web request from their country. Of course we know about China and Iran who live in fear of every web site that allows people to communicate and talk to each other.

There is no real ‘pro’ to internet censorship and blocking only excuses. Despite what people may argue regarding the ethics of online anonymity. The reality is that even if it was decided that online anonymity is bad and should be prevented then only ‘law abiding’ people would follow these restrictions. It is possible to be pretty much invisible online if you have some knowledge and the ability to fund a solution. So anyone who is involved in criminal acts is likely to take these options, the poor and innocent would be blocked from these solutions.

A Sad Song

I love this song, it’s actually quite inspirational, this version was posted in tribute to a father who was murdered. Read the introduction, and listen to the song ,it’s very sad but at the same time beautiful. My thoughts are with the family of Lance Del Goebel..

Evil Twin Spoofing – Bye Bye Passwords

Ever hear of this – Evil Twin Spoofing? Sounds quite weird but it’s a very simple way of stealing peoples accounts, passwords and basically their entire identity. So that you’re aware here’s a how it works. An identity Thief makes himself comfortable in an airline lounge or his local Starbucks and gets out his laptop. Instead of just then browsing like everyone else, he sets up his laptop as a wireless access point using some free software. He calls his Access Point something friendly and plausible – perhaps Starbuck-Free-Wifi for instance, they then sit and wait.

It won’t be long before people start connecting to this bogus access point and as long as it’s been set up correctly – IE to relay all connections through the legitimate wifi AP then noone will be any the wiser.

Why Would He do This ?

Hopefully you’re one step ahead of me by now, everyone who is using the bogus access point will be unaware that they’re sending every keystroke, every password and every account name they connect to through this computer. Checking their paypal account, buying something from the internet, online banking – anything vaguely like this and the identity thief has struck gold.

You’re not likely to find out straight away of course, depending on the skill of the online thief and what lengths he intends to go to. But likely when you visit the ATM and find your balance at zero or worse then you might find out. Be very careful when connecting to Public free Wifi anywhere if you do use it, either use a product like . or never check anything with a username or password.