Anonymity online: has it finally arrived?

Dara Robinson

If anyone of you download from something along the lines of uTorrent and use some kind of protection like PeerGuardian you will be aware of how many computers, organisations and companies are out there monitoring your every click, stroke and download. Its frightening to think that PeerGuardian does not have all the IP's listed of the people who monitor others and yet my list of IP's is over 2.5 Billion

Anyways, PeerGuardian is a bandaid for a gunshot wound and while I knew this there was nothing really I could do about it up until recently.

I found Tor Network, this may be something that some of you are already aware of but I did not find any threads about this specifically so I figured I would start one.

Tor Network is basically a network of computers that you use to mask your true IP address. So like a massive IP Tunnel with random and multiple exits.

Read more here:
http://www.torproject.org/index.html.en

It can be set up to rout any of your Web browsers through it (Guide to Chrome) and it works like a treat.

Note: this is not a fix for impunity for downloading movies and music through torrents, plus it does not work even if you tired, but it does afford you the comfort of knowing that your every online move is not being watched any more

Overheal

...until IPv6....

Dara Robinson

Unless I am missing something I dont get it mate. Can you elaborate? How is IPv6 going to prevent Tor Network from hiding my IP addy?

Iv tested Tor, by god its slow. Only .onion sites will actually allow you to have full anonymity, the Urls look like this, http:/itjd1ff5d7.onion.

You will be lucky to get more than 5kbs transfer speed, also there is a concern about Exit nodes where your information becomes unencrpted and can be snooped by fake exit nodes.

RoadKillTs

Not a chance would I use it for torrents but its great for watching BBCi player and things like that.

Dermot Illogical

Dara Robinson wrote: »

Tor Network is basically a network of computers that you use to mask your true IP address. So like a massive IP Tunnel with random and multiple exits.

TOR is slooooow. And whoever owns the exit node owns you. And can watch everything you do. And record it for their own purposes.
For all you know, some exit nodes might be owned by the very people you're trying to avoid.

StopNotWorking

Those are all ancient, if anything anonymity is dieing quite a rapid death considering how much more data network infrastructure can store on its clients. If someone wanted to try hard enough they could track near enough anything down, there is always a footprint left behind from a computer

wolfric

StopNotWorking wrote: »

Those are all ancient, if anything anonymity is dieing quite a rapid death considering how much more data network infrastructure can store on its clients. If someone wanted to try hard enough they could track near enough anything down, there is always a footprint left behind from a computer

completely agree. Anonymity nearly completely disappeared. Data mining is higher than ever. More websites than ever require you to register. Details are taken emails are noted. Ip and just plain cookies and even your user-agent make it trivial to track you. There are flaws in all these sorts of technologys that are being found that make them considerably less reliable than you'd like.

For a simple example (which i'm not sure still exists) but a java app run in your browser is parsed by java which doesn't run through whatever local browser proxy you've set up. Which basically means they can send a unique id to the java applet and the java applet sends a request back (or any sort of connection) with the id attached. For example www.website.com/?q=unique_id and they have your ip. There are many many more and fixes and vulnerabilities are coming out all the time.

The problem is all this is for the most part transparent. I still get a small kick every time i see a signature that has "hi you're running this browser with this details and this operating system" etc even though by default every page can see that data anyway. Any browser by default sends what operating system you're running, what page brought you there, your browser and version number, your resolution, ip etc to every webpage you visit.

And that's just basic browser to browser. Then there's phones and all sorts of devices that keep logs as well as your hard drive your phone logs your bills signups to gyms that have sign in cards that people can figure out when you come and go.

This isn't all to say you should be paranoid but for whatever reason every one of these parties were in compliance with each other (kidnapped etc) there's no question how easy you can be tracked.

RolandIRL

for you, wolfric

The_B_Man

Anyone that uses Google Analytics will see how much data is taken every visit. From screen resolution, to what ISP you're using. If you're on an iPhone, or using Firefox, IE6, IE7, or whatever. Also, if ur browser has flash installed.

Then theres the locations, down to your city! And possibly in some places, you're district.

Nichololas

Tor has been around for ages, it's not like it's just finally arrived.

It's also not particularly anonymous any more.



P.S. Don't use it for downloading torrents..

Dude111

TOR has been around awhile but its SO SLOW sometimes its not even worth the privacy!!

And with this IPv6 coming,who knows if we will be able to get anywhere anymore!! (I am on IPv4)

I DONT SEE ANY REASON TO CHANGE THIS!!!!!

Overheal

In a nutshell Dara ipv6 will mean there are enough addresses floating around that devices will in theory be assigned permanent IP addresses. Meaning that you would have a unique traceable IP on your iphone wherever you went, regardless of your connection, and the same for your laptop, pc, etc.

at least thats my understanding.

wolfric

Speaking of ipv6 i'm reading a book that had this interesting comparison in it... I knew ipv6 was big but not this big...

If each address were a grain of sand yo ucould fit all ipv5 address into a small moving truck. To fit all ipv6 addresses you would need a container the size of 1.3 million earths or the entire sun.


now THAT is amazing...