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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.

 

Why Can You Never find Working Anonymous Proxies

I get asked this quite a lot, but my answer is quite simply – it’s easy of course you can find working anonymous proxies they are everywhere ! But there is a single word missing here, a subtext to the question and that word is ‘free’

Free Working Anonymous Proxies

Now this is altogether a slightly different problem, the reason of course it’s so difficult is cost. Running a free anonymous proxy for everyone who wants, privacy, anonymity or simply to bypass restrictions based on their local firewalls and proxies – costs an awful lot of money. As anyone who has run a heavy bandwidth using web site knows it can get extremely expensive.

So the question is why would anyone supply anonymous proxies for free to total strangers? The answer may surprise you but it is that they don’t, I mean they don’t on purpose. Makes sense when you think about it, most people have other more fun ways to spend their money than supplying free anonymous proxies.

So where do these working proxies come from, well they’re either left open accidentally, or hacked and made into proxies and used and abused by the internet freeloaders society. The reason it’s difficult to find working proxies like this is that they usually fall over fairly soon or their owner realise what’s happen and pull the plug before they get even bigger bills from people surfing.

Ironically when they do pull the plug they actually have one of the most extensive logs of web searching about. Yes these servers have huge logs of everyone who has surfed through them, their IP addresses and every web site they visit. Enough to easily send bills out to each person although I don’t know of anyone doing it. It would make those people thing about their working anonymous proxies though if the surfers got a bandwidth bill from a systems administrator of a hacked server somewhere!

Alas, it’s the old story – the free stuff is more trouble than they’re worth (actually a lot more in this instance) so to find good working proxies, that are fast, secure and reliable you’re going to have to pay something.  It makes sense really, after all to be fast and secure they need skilled technical staff to keep them running, who would normally expect to be paid something.  Here’s a useful video which can help you start the process though as there are a lot of options,

Surf anonymous – a dictionary and some technology

I get quite a few emails from one of my other sites asking me how I can surf anonymous. You’d be surprised both how many people search for this information – and how many people misspell anonymous! But enough of this brevity, the reason people are worried is that our information is not safe, it’s not secure.

You might need a search warrant or a crowbar to gain access to your home PC and information. But unfortunately there’s much easier ways to gain access to your personal browsing history, your emails, your banking logons and well just about everything else you do online.

In fact despite what you read your PC is a much safer place for your information. When it hits the net, you are no longer in control. This is the problem when people ask me how to surf annonymous, they don’t realise that the first step out on to the internet is their ISP. Sitting happily on the ISP logs is a complete record of absolutely everything you do online. Every web site you visit, every file and picture you download and every video you watch is associated with your account and stored at your ISP.

If you’re in the US the police or NSA can access this information at will, in Europe Governments are planning legislation to access this information centrally. Who knows how many hackers and identity thieves have access to this information, how much do you know about security at your ISP?

So my friends – if you want to ahem – surf anoynmous then check out how to encrypt your connection and protect yourself – try this video to start.

Why Are Email Privacy Laws Important?

If you’re looking to keep your information private, then you need to know the importance of email privacy laws. Privacy laws for email accounts protect, children, adults, and businesses, from potential fraud or identity theft. It is imperative to understand how you can keep yourself, your children, and your business safe.

Do you know anyone that doesn’t have at least one email account? Do you realize just how many children around the United States use the computer and consistently communicate to one another through email? Email carriers provide privacy protection for children because it is important to keep kids just as safe on the internet as they are at home. Although, children are covered under the Email Privacy Protection Laws, some email carriers require an adults permission for children to create an account under the age of 13. Now that we have covered how the Email Privacy Laws protect children, we need to touch base on how we, as adults, are protected through these laws.

It is crucial to protect your information in email accounts, just as it is important to protect your information in your bank account. Email Privacy Laws were implemented to save your identity and the identities of your contacts associated with your email account. Your email account stores crucial information such as passwords and user names to other sites, along with financial information, or updates on account balances. In the wrong hands, your email account can be free range to a potential identity thief. We’re not finished yet, email laws protect businesses from potential harm.

Why would a business have any concern whether or not they are protected by email privacy laws? Large Corporations rely on email as their main source of communication between employees. An invasion of email privacy could prove to be crucial in daily business operations. Without email privacy laws, information could be stolen and profits could be lost, thus potentially crippling a business. Email privacy laws play an intricate role in day to day business, without them, anyone with the right knowledge could devastate businesses.

Take the information about Email Privacy Laws, and run with the idea that you and your contacts are protected. Without the Email Privacy Laws, how would you protect yourself, your children, or your business. So, the next time you open up your email, think about how much you would lose if there were no Email Privacy Laws.