If surfing anonymously is essential to you, then to protect your identity you will want to use a secure proxy. Just opening your web browser and going online means you’ll automatically leave a huge trail and details of everything you do online. Now it may not sound a problem for some people – ‘so what’ they say, ‘what’s the problem unless you have something to hide’ but it actually represents a huge risk to my identity which I would rather keep private online.
Lets be absolutely clear although the internet is wonderful invention, there are some seriously big security flaws with it. For instance the majority of information that it sent and received for your computer is completely insecure and visible, it is transmitted in clear text and isvisible to anyone with a mind to intercept. In fact a recent European directive has stated that all logs of your web browsing, emails and communication should be kept by the ISPs for two years. The UK Government actually want to store this data on a central database, of course it is all done in the causes of catching criminals, terrorists and the like. We sacrifice our freedom and privacy for the small chance of catching a terrorist who has been surfing extremist websites – personally I’m not overly keen on this.
If we move on from Governments and Agencies spying on us there is another incentive to surf anonymously – their is a another huge sector out to monitor our web browsing habits. The spammers, hackers and data and identity thieves are also just as interested and keen to intercept our information and it is not that hard to do on most occasions as each and every web site you visit will leave your IP address on it’s server logs. The IP address can actually be tied down to your physical location quite easily.
So how may you surf anonymously and protect your identity on the internet? An often suggested option is quite a simple one, simply surf by using a proxy server to obscure your IP address. The proxy is only a server that forwards your requests to a website thereby keeping yours private – the only address left in the logs is that of the proxy server thereis no connection to you.
Hereby lies one other issue with the thousands of people who have searched the online world for anonymous proxy lists and used one. This can actually be an even greater threat to your privacy – a great number of anonymous proxies are instead traps setup by hackers or identity thieves. A server is compromised and a proxy service is installed and advertised on lists and forums – then all the information can easily be logged, that is your information passing through that proxy server.
How do you fancy utilizing an ISP run by a bunch of Russian hackers and Identity thieves ? That’s doubtful but that is certainly what you are doing unless you are 100% certain of the integrity of the proxy server. Remember if something is free of charge and also the owners have gone to the trouble and expense of advertising it somewhere there is probably a big catch.
Personally I pay a little fee for a secure encrypted service where I surf anonymously and all my communication is encrypted to US military levels. The software generates for me as near total anonymous surfing as is possible – I also use it on my work PC as it prevents all my on-line traffic being monitored by sites I visit, wireless hotspots I use etc. It even sits on my USB keyring so I can use it on any PC I care to use, the added bonus is that I can also bypass all country based restrictions as well – watching BBC Iplayer abroad or Hulu anywhere in the world.
