Proxies

The Danger of Internet Proxies

I’m not sure how this happened but many people online seem to now equate, Internet Proxies with some sort of anonymity. As if the mere act of inserting a proxy into your browser connection settings covers you in some sort of cloaking device which protects your internet privacy.

Well I’m afraid it’s not exactly true. Sure proxies can help protecting your privacy, but then so can a blanket. Perhaps it’s best to think first about what a proxy server is actually doing. I’m world famous (well not actually true) for my completely crap real world analogies which make little sense but here goes…

A proxy server is no more than a middle man in your communication online, so here’s my promised analogies… Using a proxy server is the same as asking someone to deliver and receive all your postal mail.

If you pick an anonymous proxy from a list on the internet – it’s the equivalent to handing all your mail to someone you picked out on the street. Ask him to deliver all your mail and recieve all your post too (for nothing). Now you may get lucky and find someone who does just that, but then again you might also select someone who throws all your outgoing mail over a hedge, and opens all your incoming mail to steal any cheques and valuables.

It’s a pretty good parallel to an anonymous proxy on the internet, it’s pot luck you know nothing about it and you are not paying for a services so fingers crossed.

Of course you could pay for a service, which is the same as selecting perhaps a mail forwarding company who send and receive mail on your behalf. THey take care of you because you’re a customer and they want to keep you. A paid VPN service or a private proxy provide a service and they want you to remain.

The danger of internet proxies is that if you pick one run by hackers or the bad guys (and yes they do set many of these up) it’s incredibly dangerous to your privacy, it is in fact much worse than using no proxies at all. Do yourself a favour and either use a paid proxy service run properly and securely or save yourself the trouble and don’t bother with internet proxies at all.

Learn all about the issues across the world about online privacy protection.

Online Privacy Protection Software

We shouldn’t need it but I’m afraid we seem to live in a world where privacy is no longer guaranteed. It’s a lot to do how the internet has developed (of course it’s also the way society has developed too!) – in that I mean technically. HTTP is the core of internet communication. Unfortunately it’s also completely insecure and transports all our data in clear text.

That’s how it sits at your local ISP, in their logs – your internet diary, every move you have made online for the last two years. Governments, agencies routinely use this information in their various enquiries. Ask me again if you need something to maintain your privacy then !

Do we need online privacy protection software when we’re online ?

In case, you agree try this video.

Anonymous Web Proxies 2009

If you’re searching for anonymous proxies in 2009 be very careful how you use them. Sure there’s plenty of these proxies around but remember most of these servers are operating as open proxies without the knowledge of the network or systems administrators. For instance lots of them are running in corporate and educational networks on pcs, forgotten or misconfigured servers sitting in a corner somewhere.

Now if you’ve no problem with using the latest 2009 web proxies without the owners consent, then fine – I’m not here to moralise on this. What I do want you to be aware of is two main points –

1) Because these servers are rarely patched up to date or configured correctly – they are extremely insecure. It is likely that hackers will either take over or partly run these open proxies at some point.

2) HTTP – the protocol that you do the vast majority of your web browsing. Is a clear text protocol that is the whole data stream can be read easily. So anyone who logs the data passing through these proxies will see everything you are doing, downloading etc and your IP address.

I personally would never use a free anonymous proxy at all, I know how insecure they all are. If you do make sure you are very careful about what you browse through – never do anything which involves passing any personal information on them. Even something as trivial as logging into a forum or account will give away huge amounts of information about you. If you are unlucky enough to be on one of the many hacked 2009 open proxies it could cost you.