Be Completely Anonymous Online

by Jason Faulkner on Jul 29, 2009 | 19 comments

If online privacy is important to you, the ability to be anonymous on the Internet should be one of the items on your list. If this is the case, a tool you should look at is Tor:

Tor protects you by bouncing your communications around a distributed network of relays run by volunteers all around the world: it prevents somebody watching your Internet connection from learning what sites you visit, and it prevents the sites you visit from learning your physical location. Tor works with many of your existing applications, including web browsers, instant messaging clients, remote login, and other applications based on the TCP protocol.

Basically, all your Internet traffic is bounced through several nodes on the Tor network so it is practically impossible to track where the request originated. Even nodes relaying the traffic do not know the source since they cannot determine if the traffic is from the requesting machine or another Tor node which makes this an incredibly effective tool.

Of course something like this is probably going to impact performance since all your requests are bounced around before (both on the way and back) data is received by your machine.

I’m curious if anyone out there uses Tor and if so, what is the impact on performance?

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Peter D
I having using tor in the past. I did use tor the portable one, with firefox integrated. In the start everything was ok, but after a while when using it, google search told mee i have virus on the computer and i could not search there until I remove it. Another thing was that the firefox browser was surfing soo sloooooow, so I did try to install it several times with no luck. Bad luck for mee I know others are surfing with no problem with tor, but I cannot use it :O( —–Google search on the normal firefox(without tor), there it is no problem
See ya
bkilinski
I used Tor a few years ago. A friend turned me onto it. It was slow as molasses. There were some Tor nodes that were real fast, however; I was warned that some of the fast nodes were run “without the best interest of the user in mind.” I never got a better explanation than that. Look into it for what it is worth (I am no expert and I only used it for 3-4 months a few years ago). Great concept though!
Tramontana
There are two sides to this coin. Most people who use IP spoofing or other techniques to remain hidden perhaps do so because of a fear of being targetted by the sites they visit. I reckon in most cases that’s just paranoia. But there are some who hide in order to attack without being detected and brought to justice. I’ve been suffering the attentions of one such for over a year; attempts to corrupt or bring down my websites, emails to my clients claiming that I’m the subject of tax investigations or trading illegally; it’s quite a list. There’s no legal way he can be stopped because the only people who can provide any evidence are his ISP, and they’ll only respond to a court order. And in this case he’s not even doing it from the same country. Makes you want to try the non-legal ways, usually involving baseball bats.
So I’m not wholly enthusiastic about the whole anonymity bit, and I long for the day IPV6 gets rolled out and stops thieves and other forms of low life using IP addresses belonging to someone else.
MrDravenX
I am looking at trying to find something like this but I would want a reliable application.
R
To me this sounds like a problem waitng to happen, whos to say that one of these nodes don’t capture vital information ( Not that I would send such info) But some folks may get a false sense of Security.
David
Try UltraSurf.
http://www.ultrareach.com/
They do a Firefox add-on as well. Works well for me. Also enables me to surf certain “forbidden” sites, about which I will say no more, apart from the fact that there is nothing sinister about them – just normally unobtainable for IP addresses outside of their own country.
MartYn
I used TOR for using tvants to watch football matches not being broadcast on regular (english) tv and it worked really well for that. Never used it for web browsing.
Romeo
This program ‘Tor’ much like ‘UltraSurf’ is a very interesting program and may be very useful (not that I’ve used it!) if only it could shed off its (as cited as in the responses on the the site) reported problems of 1) making the system sluggish 2) failing access to some servers 3) lack of user control i.e. in the control of the designer: read – sense of insecurity on the part of the user.
A program of this nature (not necessarily itself) that has been well developed is a must in this day and age of technological advancement with accompanying security risks. If any of the existing browsers , IE, Firefox, etc. were to have as part of the program or add-on an absolute (save Governments for obvious reasons) anonymous browsing feature, that browser would be the best (in my opinion). Firefox add-ons like UltraSurf, Distrust and Stealthier and of course the currently attached ‘Private Browsing’ session, do not address the real security issue on-line, instead they only hide ‘from parents or spouses or partners what one is up to when browsing on-line’. To me that is not the real danger. The real danger lies in information theft, personal or business or even classified state/government info by who and what is beyond the user’s local system. This is where we need a solution. The best browser in my opinion is one that will attach a highly developed and efficient program for REAL anonymous surfing on-line. Check – the trend today is to go mobile with internet connectivity hence the popularity of cellphones, net-books etc. The main intended feature of these gadgets and others still to be developed is managing information, seeking information, sharing information and communication. All of these depend on internet connectivity and going on-line. This where such a browser as the one I am talking about would be KING because of its security features – the main being ‘STAYING REALLY ANONYMOUS ON-LINE’.
This topic should cover articles such as the one PC Mech released on ‘Make your network safer and more reliable’.
http://mind-body-spirit-central.com marc
I’ve been using Tor for at least five years now, and am very happy with it. Over time the Tor network has gotten faster too.
If you configure Firefox with Tor and NoScript (disables Javascript) add-ons, you are pretty well protected from privacy threats.
The Vidalia software bundle conveniently installs and configures Tor, Privoxy and the Tor Button add-on for Firefox.
Tor doesn’t only give you web browser anonyminity. The Vuze (formerly Azureus) bit torrent client can be configured to run through the Tor network, making file sharing anonymous as well. Vuze will even check your external IP address, so you can verify you are, in fact, behind a proxy. I get download speeds close to 400 Kbs running Vuze through Tor on a 3Mbs connection. Nothing to complain about there.
Nothing is completely anonymous. If you want to make monitoring your activities so expensive it’s probably not worth it, Tor could be the answer.

http://Mydarktower.com Darko
I am also using Vuze. I remember that tor was in the older version (Azureus). How do you set up Vuze to run through the tor network? I have Vidalia/tor for web surfing, but I dont know how to set up Vuze. Any light you could shed would be appreciated. Thanx for your time.
Darko

marc
Darko:
Tools>Options>Connection:
Under “Networks” make sure ONLY the Onion Router (Tor) Network is checked.
Tools>Options>Connection>Proxy Options:
Check all these: 1) Enable proxying of tracker communications 2) I have a SOCKS proxy 3) Enable proxying of peer communications 4) Inform tracker of limitation 5) Use same proxy settings for tracker and peer 6) Check proxy status on startup.
Additional settings:
Host: 127.0.0.1
Port: 9050
SOCKS Version 4A
Tools>Options>Tracker>Server:
Under “Networks” make sure ONLY the Onion Router (Tor) Network is checked.
Save your settings and restart Vuze.
If Vidalia is running, Vuze should now be routed through the Tor network. If you get a Vuze proxy check error, check that Vidalia is running. If it is, restart Vuze.
You can also go to Tools>Options>Tracker>Server and do an “Auto-discover external IP address” and compare that IP with your real IP. If they’re different, you’re good to go.

http://mydarktower.com Darko Johnson
Great! thank you, It Works!!!. Thanx again for your help.

mick
thanks marc, worked perfectly!!! really appreciate the help —
paul
Thanks Marc – just tried this and it works great – nice one!

paul
Thanks Marc – you are a star!

http://www.vpnmessenger.com patrickholm
I am presently using http://www.vpnmessenger.com that will not only change your IP address it also provides a VPN messenger and VOIP service all within the software.
Highly recommended if your looking for this kind of service
Gastropod
Marc,
Thanks for the info but I have a problem, I followed your instructions to the letter but upon startup I get this message:
Socks proxy 127.0.0.1:9050 check failed. Connect failed. Connection refused, no further information.
Any suggestions? Also, is the I2P network safe to use?
Hidden
I received an email from my ISP informing me that NBC Universal wasn’t happy about people uploading a certain movie from my computer. I would like to continue to share with other users but don’t want to pay a $150,000 fine. Any ideas on how to continue without exposing myself to retribution?
Simon
IP address is no proof that you are sharing anything, you could have an open wifi network or someone could just break in to your network and upload from there. Just ignore your ISP. If you want a peace of mind, a) buy yourself a pay as to go mobile internet card (those USB modems), b) connect through TOR or some encrypted VPN service. Good luck.