Re: How safe are those "Free" Anonymous SSL,HTTPS Proxies?

[flurdoing <flur () flurnet org>]

An added layer of security never hurt anyone. Having that said, you must
question whether you trust the proxy provider because they will have a
comprehensive record of the sites you are visiting. Whereas if you do
not use any proxy, only your ISP will have access to such information.
Anonymous might simply mean that they won't disclose information they
collect about you- a scary prospect considering current legislation. You
may want to find proxies in countries with/without certain laws...

You must ask yourself what exactly it is you wish to protect, and who
you wish to protect this information from before you can start to
consider potential solutions.

To address your question directly:

If you trust the proxy's host, and are sure that the proxy does not leak
your IP address (you can check it with proxyjudge scripts- google.) Then
you may consider using the proxy. I think SSL wrapping is not as
important as making sure the proxy is trusted and doesnt leak your
information.

Also I think it is a good idea to refrain from using such a system
except when absolutely essential. How difficult it is for someone to
intercept your digital communication depends on your computing
practises. your data is more likely to be compromised in a hostile
environment (say, while wardriving). If you are at home with no other
users on your local network and you trust your ISP, trust that your ISP
has not been compromised, and trust that your machine is also secure,
then you can assume yourself to be reasonably safe from data
interception.

Breaking encryption is not something that can be realistically measured
in time.. What might take hundreds of hours of dedicated computing time
on a supercomputer today might take a few minutes on a home PC if a new
weakness is discovered. Known attacks to modern crypto systems generally
require cpu power unfeasible to most individuals. To address your
concerns directly, I would be more worried about keyloggers/trojans/etc
then of people sniffing and breaking your encrypted communication.


Hope this helped.
flurdoing

On Tue, 2004-04-20 at 15:46, Jon S. wrote:
> How safe is it for someone to use one of those Anonymous SSL, HTTP proxy 
> servers
> that can be found from the internet (after searching for "free proxy 
> servers")?
>
> 1) Is it just plain stupid to use the "free" Anonymous proxy servers that we 
> found from the net,
> when we're thinking of securing the communication via "SSL, HTTPS"?
>
> Or would you say "it's still better than revealing your source IP
> and jeapordizing your anonymity, use it if you can".
>
> 2) Is any part of "Anonymous SSL,HTTPS Proxy" ever sent unencrypted (or 
> otherwise abnormally vulnerable form), aside from header packets?
>
> 3) How difficult is it for someone to intercept AND decipher the messages, 
> (in terms of average time assuming typical ssl/https encryption strength)?
>
> Thanks in advance...
>
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