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Web-based Anonymizer Discontinued
RobertB-DC writes "With no fanfare, and apparently no outcry from the privacy community, Anonymizer Inc. discontinued its web-based Private Surfing service effective June 20, 2007. No reason was given, either on the Anonymizer web site or on founder Lance Cottrell's privacy blog. Private Surfing customers are now required to download a anonymizing client that handles all TCP traffic, but the program is Windows-only (with Vista support still a work-in-progress). And of course it's closed-source, which means it has few advantages over several other alternatives."
First Post!!!
fUCK all of you!
All they needed to do was connect to Internet2 and replace the ads on MySpace with their own and they would have been set...
-nick
... to say that this really sucks. I used Anonymizer all the time....
Shut down, closed source and windows only. It's a trifecta!
I have blocked anoymizer access to my BBS for several years. It was only used by abusive posters to block their identity.
I'm sure pedophiles and "Freedom Fighters" use anonymous internet applications like this one. So I guess there is some good news here.
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
With the other posts here about the FBI spyware, the possibility of government back doors in the various AV products, etc, maybe they decided to fold and close the doors instead of open mandated holes? Pure guessing but if the NSA/FBI/whoever went to them and said open this up for us, aplace like Anonymizer, founded on privacy, might not be able to be as morally flexible as the AV vendors who are looking for "viruses" and "spyware".
I for one welcome our new windows-only Anonymizer overlords.
Anyone relying on a one hop proxy to be anonymous is fooling themselves. You need an anonymity network that doesn't rely on trusting any host and that cannot be blocked without finding out who every host is. What if everyone who used anonymity services also provided such service? Think of how much better the whole system would work if it were p2p! Please install your tor server today.
------ Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government.
One potential advantage is that I can't get TOR to work with the ISA proxy where I work. Proper configuration is scanty, and help resources have been non-existant. Perhaps this will work more easily in such a setup.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
God, give it a fucking rest - it's just a private service.
Fucking Slashdot editors - got your fucking advertising revenue? Huh? Jesus Motherfucking Christ! Talk about Ad (Karama) Whores.....
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
Fold and close the door? The summary says they are requiring the use of a client. From the sound of it, a proxy that funnels your traffic. Frankly I don't see how this would protect their customers. What it does do is exclude non-Windows users (their previous version provided a web-based service that only required a browser with SSL support).
If the NSA/FBI/etc wants to broker/enforce a court order/etc this does nothing to slow that down.
Quack, quack.
There are many different proxies available at JTAN.
As someone who actually paid money for the full Anonymizer service, I'm quite disappointed with the web interface going away and I have missed it dearly. The anonproxy.exe POS that they use crashes pretty much daily for me, something the web proxy never did. I'm upset that I've paid money for a service that lost a significant amount of its value after I purchased it.
haple3s *BSD
All I can think of is...
- Whistle blowing: but, that could be done by pay phone or snail mail
- Police informant: but, that would be abused by false reports, plus police usually have less faith in anonymous reports, although anonymous child abuse reports are taken seriously
- Political message: ok, I understand that if you're living in a restricted country.
- Embarrassing stuff: sex diseases, sexual assault support, teen pregnancy, GLBT
- Illegal stuff: lots of potential for that
OK. So, do any of you have any reasons not on my list?Camping on quad since 1996.
We have not stopped providing privacy services. They are all now client based. It is the only way to ensure the security of our users. While the basic service is currently windows only (which is sad since I am a Mac person myself) our TNS product is completely functional from Mac or Linux (or Windows).
We are in no way downsizing our services. There were so few active users of our Private Surfing service, compared to our other services; it made no sense to try to keep a broken product limping along.
As far as security goes, since I see a few posts about that, it is simply a matter of personal choice. We deliver the best performance available. In almost 12 years of service no user has ever had his surfing activities compromised in any way. If we had some kind of law enforcement back door, it would hardly be a secret at this point. Alternatives require you to trust some exit point of unknown trustworthiness that may be actively modifying or monitoring content. There are advantages and disadvantages to all security models. In the real world and for most users, I think Anonymizer provides the best solution. Make up your own mind for your own circumstances.
...all nations are restricted now, and all governments are in the big brother business. That's the overall general trend and it shows *no* signs of slowing down any.
If anyone doubts that, just think about a few things-are any nations going out of their way to pull monitoring cameras, or is the trend to keep installing more and more, even in the so called "free" nations? How about official eavesdropping and data retention laws for ISPs and so on? Are you feeling lucky with corporate data mining from anyplace, or are all of them complete fucktards about gobbling up all the data they can scrounge? And then "sharing" with the local regime/council/government/ruling class overlords? Are there any nations which haven't jumped on the "terrorism" bandwagon to excuse passing more restrictive laws and for increasing their so called "security" budgets?
The bottom line is, it doesn't matter where you live, if you aren't concerned over voicing your opinion, you aren't paying attention or you have a hidden suicidal death wish you are in psychological denial over or you have never read one history book.
Sure, a lot of places you still can talk or write-within some restrictions, but eventually your words may come back to haunt you.
You look back in history it's the same story over and over again, no matter how "cool" governments are, or started out as, no matter how "popular" with "the people", eventually ALL of them have gone through a dictatorial stage and either totally collapsed, or partially collapsed then went through a series of (usually worse) dictatorships. And, again speaking historically, events can change "your" local reality in the space of one day. One single day,. one event is all it takes to completely change things. Some archduke gets whacked. A big legislature building burns down, and a patsy is blamed for it. A very popular young president, then his brother, same thing, whacked, patsies picked up. Some planes hit some ships in a tropical island port. Some other planes hit some buildings. Some subway cars and buses explode. Some insane and too brave for reality idealist stands in front of a tank. A few colonels one night decide to "regime change" locally. A dictator gets sick, leaves the nation to get medical care, a firebrand cleric flies in and takes over. A ruler and his advisors decides to lie about attacks on destroyers, the big lie stands for fourty years.
And so on. Stuff happens. Politics is always chancy. And no, anyone "you", you don't live in a "free" country, although you might not live in one of the more restricted at this point in time countries. The *scale* is the only variable, and history shows us that variables are just that and can and often do change with no notice to you.
What you thought was safe and free political speech yesterday is now "terrorist hate speech" or some other boggey man phrase they come up with, and you're on the shitlist record for it. Several years ago did you donate some spare change, a few bucks, to some charity? Whoops, now you are on some watch list and could be arrested for aiding the enemy, whoops, merely "detained"...........
Reality is, politics and smugness shouldn't go together.
"Windows-only (with Vista support still a work-in-progress)"
how can it be windows only if it doesn't support vista!?!?
shouldn't it be XP only then?
I agree, Unipeak was used to post a threatening comment on my webpage about litigation I'm involved in, apparently by the other party in the lawsuit:
The details of multiple comments posted by Andrew Vilenchik anonymously are on my site, in many cases he used anoymizers (which I will probably start blocking, too).www.cgstock.com
Their traffic has been dropping for a while: http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details? url=anonymizer.com
who's gonna anonymize the anonymous cowards? Will this mean I'll have to start posting under the username cowboy neal?
Closed source is like a box of chocolates - You don't know what you're gonna get...
"To effectively deliver a web-based service, one must either disable all active content (which will break most major websites these days)"
Huh?
I rarely enable active content, and I rarely encounter web pages which require it.
Sure, if you're going to be using a few of the majors like YouTube or GoogleEarth, okay. But for the most part, the Internet experience is just fine without enabling insecurities like java scripting, Active X, and whatever.
"And of course it's closed-source, which means it has few advantages over several other alternatives." ... yea, like the advantage of getting the opportunity to figure out what someone else expects you to do in yet another complicated and confusing way. I mean really. I like open source stuff and all, but I waste so much time guessing at what settings are suppose to do what, or how to use the undefined API, or interpret the non-existant documentation.
Whoopie. Give me that nasty "closed" source stuff any day.
Anonymizer had too many restrictions on which sites you could browse.
We've had better web proxy alternatives with fewer restrictions for years... BlastProxy and ProxyStorm are two web based anonymous proxies that I often use.
Other networks, such as Tor allow users, who are willing to install additional software components, browse anonymously. Although, nothing really beats the convienence of the web proxies!
thanks.
IANAL, I'm just asking...
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Erm, I feel somewhat bad about saying this - but isn't people fully aware that using a commercial anonymising service simply means that your IP address is not visible to the end recipient, while every move you make is still logged and available to the police if required?
Try sending a dirty bomb threat using "Web Anonymiser v3.0" or even share child porn and laugh all the way to jail.
in democracies it is the people who elect their assholes. Don't blame Bush and his gang, blame the idiot US citizens who voted for him. And do not give me that argument about "restricted choice". It is also the idiots, ultimately, that are responsible for the choice because they have directly or indirectly voted for people who made the rules.
Granted, at some point a popular asshole might change your democracy back to dictatorship or at least autocracy, but still, blame your idiot fellow citizens for that.
And of course, this applies to all other democracies. No one forced the Italians to vote for the asshole Berlusconi, they did it out of their own dumb will.
Thanks for the clear and honest explanation.
Did I really just read on
Just remember - if the world didn't suck, we would all fall off.
So, what do you want, a fucking medal? Aren't you just the saviour putting their head above the parapet. Look, buddy. I don't care. There's plenty of shit on this side of the fence, I assure you. Most of what you see is commercial bullshit. For all the wealth and freedom there's plenty of people living in poverty and suffering from bad government. The West just hides it better. It's what some people call a con.
Read the Tao, marry a girl and have your one child family, and kiss Chairman Moa's ass and thank the Communist party for keeping you free of swindlers and liars. You think you're fucking special? You're not. Things are as they are. It could be no other way. You want more? You want freedom? Or is it that you're just another whiny selfish bastard who can't deal with reality? No, don't tell me. I already know the answer to that one.
I'll be found out for sure now.
--- The American Way of Life is not a birthright. Hell, it's not even sustainable.
"With ... no outcry from the privacy community, Anonymizer Inc. discontinued its web-based Private Surfing service"
No outcry?! A private company makes decisions well within its rights, and there's no outcry!? Wow, I almost feel young again.*
* If you're not "old", please ignore this seemingly incoherent post.**
** By "old", I mean, like, mid 30's and up.
Ridiculous!
"all telephone calls will also require biometric authentication"
This is pointless unless we also require long term retention policies. One year of recordings of all calls should suffice.
"Historically, many annonymous notes have been written on paper. We must institute a new system where paper is only available to authorised government agents; illegial possession of paper is also grounds for shippment to Gitmo."
This should not be necessary. It should suffice to put a code on the paper to indicate it's source. Something like yellow dots that would not be noticed by the paper users. Of course if we could require all paper to be registered at time of purchase, it would be helpful. We could use a secure method for identifying people. Might I suggest a 9 digit numbering system that the federal government can issue.
... by open wireless access points!
"And of course it's closed-source, which means it has few advantages over several other alternatives."
Oh, is that what closed-source means?
The next comment I write will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
good things must be ended
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