Tools

Why Would Anyone need Anonymity Online ?

It’s definitely one of the first concerns people express to me regarding anonymous web surfing – “what exactly are you trying to keep quiet ?“
Although I always find it’s easily countered with –
“Well why do you want to know what I’m doing ?“
Then the coughing and spluttering will start followed by excuses about how there are many criminal activities online.  So if I am able to keep my anonymity online, well so can all the terorists, hate groups and online criminals – so anonymity protects these people.
I think this is a very weak argument, it begins on the premise that you have no idea where to look.  What are you likely to find when snooping on someone online – mostly nothing, occasionally something you may not approve of but something more dangerous, extremely unlikely using such a broad surveillance tactic.
One of the problems with surveillance is that there are so many personal and hidden agendas.  Just look at places like China, where people want to tell you how to act, how to think.
If I’m surfing anonymously, I’m not doing anything bad, but there are plenty of people who might think normal things are terrible.  I don’t follow a religion, so my watching atheist lectures online or reading articles debunking creationism could be offensive to many devout people.   If I’m in the wrong country such behaviour could even threaten my liberty!

We really have to have Anonymity Online

The reason we need to protect our right to anonymity online is not always to protect against the legitimate authorities but also the snoop who will be also spying on you.
The principle is that everyone should be entitled to some privacy.  I close the door when I got to the bathroom not to hide what I’d doing, but merely I don’t want to be watched !   If you ask I’ll tell you why I went to the bathroom, but I’m worried about why you need to know!
anonymity online
It’s just the same with the internet, sometimes you are happy to be open, but sometimes you want privacy.   I might not mind my friends at the rugby club knowing I watch online porn, but might be slightly more reluctant to admit to membership of a knitting forum.
In many countries it’s even more important to keep some online privacy,  Turkey is a pretty free country  overall, yet it actively bans gay websites.  Is visiting a gay website a criminal thing to do, incredibly in many countries it could end up costing you dear, sometimes anonymity online is a desire, sometimes it’s essential.

myspace Profile Tracker Demo


See my other video for the Facebook Profile Tracker demonstration. This vid shows a quick installation of the profile tracker at www.profiletracker.us. The comments are made by current subscribers, this is a sort of testimonials page. I don’t mind questions, but here’s a couple things: 1. Make sure I can message you back, and that you aren’t set that only friends can message you. 2. No, it’s not free. That’s why it can do so much more than others. Our tracker is the most accurate tracker you can get, and yes it really works. The site also offers the ability to block people from viewing your page based on their IP address, even if your page is viewable to everyone else. It has a high speed proxy server for surfing anonymously, and shows you how to prevent being tracked.

Keep your Identity and IP Address Secure

Why do you guess that people go to the trouble of utilizing software that hides your IP address? Whenever you investigate, you’ll find there’s lots of reasons but here are a few.

  1. There are plenty of countries where you risk your safety should you speak freely online
  2. Using the internet means you’ll be routinely monitored and have little privacy
  3. The web is full of information and identity thieves
  4. Some people just don’t like our every move online being logged

Obviously the internet has it’s fair share of criminals who wish to hide their IP address aswell. Just as they use other forms of communication like telephones, faxes and the mail! The irony is the evil doers always protect their connections so you inevitably end up with governments, agencies and hackers all spying on the innocent majority.

This is what so annoys me about the ‘if you’ve got nothing to hide’ argument, the majority who do are hidden. The rest of us are subject to surveillance, spying and intrusion by even the most democratic western governments. The European Directive instructs ISPS to log all the web sites, emails and electronic communications of it’s citizens for up to 2 years.

However it is also worth reminding people that using a simple piece of hide your ip software, or some super elite proxy you found listed on a web site is going to help your privacy. Most of this software doesn’t do much at all, remember HTTP is clear text protocol and that’s where most of your browsing happens through. These Hide your IP programs simply obscure your IP address from the website that you visit and that’s all. But every other details of your browsing is in the clear and traceable to your IP address, sitting in your ISP is a list of virtually everything you’ve ever done online over the last two years or so.

Beware most of all thought the software that simply routes your connection through free proxies found on the internet. They then route all your web browsing through the fastest, free proxy that they find available. It wouldn’t matter if the proxy was being run by a gang of identity thieves (which many of them are) purely to harvest user details, the software would still send you there. You would be much more secure using nothing than one of these, see one of the best and most secure programs here.

Simply staying secure online actually does take some work, too many people are misled by tales of free proxies and they actually put themselves at huge risk. You need to use secure private proxies, you should know who is responsible for them and ensure that the logs are deleted instantly. Any proper security product will also ensure that all your browsing is encrypted as otherwise your details and IP will be visible all along it’s route.

Surf securely and protect yourself online

Internet Filtering Increases Across the World

There have been lots of surveys and research into the growing menace of internet filtering. I say menace because although there are obviously web sites that nobody should encourage or even allow – filtering does very little to tackle the real issues behind these web sites.

Casually blocking and pretending these sites don’t exist is not the way problems are solved, and the huge irony is that the people who do wish to access criminal sites will almost certainly be able to use the various work arounds that are available. In effect Internet filtering usually ends up filtering people who have no intention of visiting these sites in the first place – in essence an exercise of futility. Whilst the filtered site grow and flourish away from the eyes of governments and states who are best placed to make more direct action against them.

What has also somewhat lagged behind the increases of filtering our internet access is awareness of the practices. The internet is increasingly part of all our lives and the idea that what we are allowed to access is being decided on by our governments is not very popular.

At the very core of this change, is what is specifically monitored, our internet identity if you like – the IP address of our connection. This is linked specifically to our location, and is what is used to track, monitor and filter what we see, and who keeps a record. Obviously it’s not unique to an individual, but it is linked to the person who pays the ISP or cable bill – if you pay the bills then it’s linked to you. Which is why all across the world, people are being incorrectly sued, jailed or monitored because someone else is using their IP address either legitimately or via other means.

Your IP address is your identity online and if you value your privacy it’s essential that you take steps from it being recorded and logged by every site you visit and by which ever intelligence agency wants access to it – that’s most of them. Here’s one way to hide your IP address from all these people.

This can effectively change the way you use the internet. Not only will you stop an entire list of everything you do online being created at your ISP (yes everything!), but you will also be able to bypass the various commercial based filtering that blocks you from accessing sites based on your location. So you can then watch the BBC from outside the UK, Hulu from outside the US and lots of other fun sites that your location might stop you viewing.