Re: Anonymize internet access

["Jeffrey F. Bloss" <jbloss () tampabay rr com>]

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On Wednesday 28 September 2005 02:42 am, Michael Painter wrote:

> I was unable to find that thread and I'd really like to read it.  What do I
> do with: Message-ID: <9f464ef2.0409060652.7b0113ee () posting google com> (?)

http://tinyurl.com/7po7f

> Some years back, I tested a beta program from Zero Knowledge Freedom which
> (I think) chained together their servers such that it was supposedly
> impossible to trace from the endpoint, even with logs.  For whatever
> reasons, they folded up but I've always wondered if it was it was really
> true or if a hole was discovered.

It's true. The philosophy is that you transfer data inside nested "packages". 
The outer package is encrypted to the first node in the chain. Inside that 
package, the first node finds another package that's encrypted to the second 
node in the chain, and that nodes address. It strips off its own layer of 
encryption and sends the package on to node two. Node two opens its package 
to find another one, encrypted to node three (and node three's address). The 
minimum is three.

If you visualize this, you might begin to see that the first node can only 
know two things... where the original package came from, and the address of 
the second node.  But not the ultimate contents of the packages.

The second node can only know that an encrypted package came from the first 
node, and another one was sent to the third node. But not the origin, 
ultimate destination, or the package contents.

The third node can only see an encrypted package coming from the second, the 
final destination., and of course the package contents, but not the origin.

That's mix and onion routing protocols in a nutshell. :)

> I'm all ears...can you point me to how/where to get started?

My suggestion would be to start here...

http://tor.eff.org/

Read. Read again. Read a third time. ;)

Download tor and Privoxy, set them up per the instructions you've read three 
times now (it's really not all that tough), and once you think you have all 
the software configured properly, point your browser here...

http://www.geobytes.com/IpLocator.htm

If an IP address other than your own shows up, you should be in business. 
Browser wise anyway.  You should still visit this site though...

http://www.stilllistener.com/checkpoint1/

It should point out any leaks you might have in your setup. If you pass all 
these tests, you're definitely in business for anonymous surfing.

There's other options out there too, like JAP, but the fact that tor is a 
SOCKS proxy makes it useful for a lot of other things. Most IRC and IM 
clients for instance, can be configured to use tor natively an give you 
anonymous chat and messaging. Most file sharing software can be anonymized 
too, as well as the Azerus (sic) bit torrent client.

When you get comfortable with tor and its SOCKS proxy interface, you might 
want to get all serious about it and try tunneling an SSL encrypted session 
through tor, and bounce it off an SSH port forwarding account... and be so 
anonymous even YOU won't know who you are. <grin>

That's a bit of an exaggeration of course, but in my and a lot of other 
people's opinions, this is the best privacy/anonymity available today, and 
the price is definitely right.
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