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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."
... 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.
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".
And your OS should have no firewall and share the root directory to the world by default.
After all, it's not like you're hiding kiddie porn on your hard drive, eh?
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 is the magic number.
The Internet is a tool. Just like cars are tools, guns are tools, and Zyklon-B is a chemical tool. Tools have no moral status; They do neither right nor wrong. What people do with tools is what is right or wrong.
The solution to terrorists and pedophiles abusing the 'Net is to hunt down and kill the terrorists and pedophiles, not harm the 'Net.
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.
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.
I know this may be difficult to understand... but the internet CAN'T HARM ANYONE it's a bunch of interconnected computers... People on the other hand, can harm other people. People can use an item, be it the internet, a gun, a knife, a baseball bat, a stick, a heavy rock, a little rock, a bomb, a pen, a towel, a piece of rope, or a rotten egg to harm people... but the inanimate object can't harm someone.
Nephilium
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.
At my office it was the only way to get to the football pools.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
YOU JUST WANT TO BE ANONYMOUS.
The flaw is that you're assuming that a desire to be anonymous means you have a REASON to be anonymous.
Technology -- No Place For Wimps! Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Chatroom -- http://www.wemissjerry.org
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.
I don't think it's a flaw to assume that people have reasons for wanting whatever it is they want.
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
Some "tools" are inherently immoral. Chemical weapons such as nerve agents strke me as a unambigious example since there is no legitimate use of these kind of weapons. A weapons grade ebola virus would be another example. If you can't do anything "right" with a so-called "tool" then the creation, use and even the existance of said "tool" are all "wrong".
The "you don't need privacy if you have nothing to hide" fallacy again?
0 54219
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/10/2
...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.
Oh, I have a reason to desire anonymity. I don't like George W. Bush. In today's climate, that's enough reason.
The problem is while agreeing wholly with your sentiment, in practice drawing the line is very hard. Weaponized forms of super-bugs I think is an unambiguous no-no, but *research* along that line is quite necessary, at the least so that someone has a chance of countering a bio-weapon when one is let loose. How do you loosen the cork without letting the genie out? Even relatively small labs now have the potential ability to create their own customized bugs and knowledge is in general circulation, so it is already too late to entirely prevent a future problem. Only mitigation is left.
It is unfortunate because, in many cases, I think we do need to put the breaks on a bit. Our track record with many kinds of meddling is poor, and we are doing so at an increasing rate; so quickly we cannot adequately measure effects to better target our meddling. In practice, however, stopping the train is not easy.
I live in China. I can't see bbc, wikipedia, or blogspot without proxies.
/my reasons good enough for you?
Why anonymous? See the first sentence of my post.
I for one welcome our humor-impaired, meme-denying overlords.
man, I feel like mold.
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!
You also could cause yourself to fall under moral discrimination if your boss knew your interests without your providing them. Boss = anti-abortion, You = pro-abortion, and after searching for an abortion clinic, your progress reports mysteriously tank and you have no idea why. You could also run into problems if your boss knew you were searching Monster for "unix+system+administrator", which coincidently is your job title.
Camping on quad since 1996.
Did I really just read on
Just remember - if the world didn't suck, we would all fall off.