Can you make yourself truly anonymous on the net?

[jimkis]

I am wondering if anyone has tried the so-called "anonymizer" software. Does it really work...so that you can prevent people knowing who you are and where you are when you're on the net? Is this the same as spyware and pop-up killing software?
So...if you had this anonymizer software, would you be "invisible" when you dl from various places on the net?
I am not advocating anything illegal...I just want my privacy back!

[g_shocker182]

If you really want total security you can install a good firewall (ZoneAlarm), block cookies altogether (IE option), and delete spyware (Ad-Aware) that has inadvertantly been placed on your computer.

All can be d/l'ed @ http://www.downloads.com

[pixel]

I think your PC always shows your IP address online, so you are not truly anonymous.

(Some ISPs use dynamic IP addresses eg. it gets changed every now and again by the ISP).

[g_shocker182]

There are ways to change your IP address...

[pixel]

There are ways to change your IP address...

OK. I don't really know much about IP addresses.

[ChrisX]

The only ID I got on the Net is my IP address. So, you never be truly anonymous.

My IP address changes all the time as I am using dial-up.

[Roundabout]

AFAIK, there are only a couple of ways to accomplish this. One is to dial up a free internet provider (not many left, but one around here is SoCalFree net, still 100% free for all-you-can-eat access! ) or by using Access4free, Juno, etc. for the few free hours they give you. As long as you don't give them real reg. info when you sign up, you could, theoretically have pretty anonymous access (and block your caller ID from their service too, making it harder to locate you). Also, you could use a free service like Anonymization.Net - totally free and works through your browser. In this case, you are using a proxy server (theirs) and going through that in order to reach the website you want. Not compatible with Kazaa or eMule, however, it only uses port 80. But you can surf the web anonymously with it, just not d/l with it.
Of course, there are other services such as Earthstation 5 that offer a service similar to Kazaa, while using a proxy (theirs) and they promise that you'll remain anonymous. Freenet is another one. There'll be more because of all the crackdowns on downloading. I'm sure the makers of the popular P2P programs are working on this right now. The future will be interesting, for sure.

[The village idiot]

There are a few ways to become anon while surfing. All of them use a proxy server of somekind. Be it an http proxy or ftp proxy, IRC bouncer, Socks proxy, what have you. If you chain enough of them together, you might provide enough confusion to truly become anon.

[holistic]

There is no way to be anonymous on the web, short of gaining a fake ID, using it to get a VISA card then using that to obtain intenet service.

Someone (someones computer) knows who you are. Or how would it get the infomation to you!!! .

Doing the above mention things (firewall,proxy server) will help as well as ....

For win9x machines replace the product code with zeros 00000-oem-0000000-00000 .If everyone did that there would be no unique ID to tie a cookie too.
Don't use your name / address in the windows reg field. It can be easily retreived from the registry.

Of note : Every networking card has a unique code .There are no secrets

][

[The village idiot]

OK, you are correct. If logs are kept at each proxy, then things can get tracked back to you. As far as cookies go, any good proxy software will handle the cookies. And for best protection learn how to build up a Socks chain of multiple proxies. Many of the proxies do not keep logs, as they are set up to provide freedom of speach for countries that do not allow freedom of speech. The data can still be sniffed at any point along the path, which brings up proxies that support SSL connections. Then someone can sniff all they want, but they will have to break the encryption to find out what you are doing. There are sites that are dedicated to finding proxies for different protocols like http://www.samair.ru/proxy/. But the proxy could also be setup to sniff your data to grab passwords or for other nefarious purposes.

If you really want info on this subject, a google search should bring lots of it to you.

Proxies range from basic things like http://www.surfola.com to software like proxomitron on the low end, to very complex Socks chain proxy software. While in theory, you can never be truly a ghost, in practice it can very close!

[holistic]

Boo :P

[The village idiot]

Let's play a game.

It's called where in the world is this idiot posting from.

Sorry but it can only be played by those people that can see my IP. Please tell me where I am, because I really don't know. I do know that this forum is prohibited from some server that errors come back in Spanish I hate when proxies block things!

[The village idiot]

And how about from here?

[The village idiot]

Some are fast, some are brutily slow. And some don't work at all, those get deleted.

[rallynavvie]

They don't put those signposts in DC hubs telling law enforcement to get bent just to make the hub users feel better. DC hubs are already anonymous and are a pain in the ass to track through. So as far as filesharing goes we're pretty much anonymous already.

[Solarjetman]

There is always, always, always a way to find out who you are. The only anonymity on the net is how hard you make it for someone to find that out.

As for IP addresses, there is no way you can create a two way connection (like loading a webpage, downloading files, etc) with another computer without providing a return address. Just like the snail mail service. They can't respond to your letter without an address.

There are services that will "hide" your address by replacing it with their own. They become a middle man of sorts. So in essence, you mail the letter to your friend, who then repacks the letter in his own envelope so the receiver thinks the letter is from your friend. Then the receiver replies to your friend and your friend forwards the letter to you. But even this method you leave traces on the middle man computer.

As with any security, the goal is not to make it unbreakable (that is impossible), but to make the effort involved in getting the information outweigh the value of the information.