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Ask Slashdot: Choosing Anonymous Proxies?

Posted by timothy on from the you-will-be-my-avatar dept.

bradley13 writes "There are lots of anonymous proxies out there, and anyone concerned about their privacy probably uses one for at least some of their web browsing. The Megaupload story highlights the fact that having servers in the USA is not a great idea. There are also other countries one may not want to trust. Oddly, very few proxy services mention where their equipment is located. What anonymous proxy services do you use? What criteria do you use to select them? How paranoid are you, and for what types of Internet usage?"

9 of 211 comments (clear)

  1. Bitcoin, yes, seriously by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Google for "vpn services accepting bitcoin". Done. We learned from the spectacular failure of HideMyAss that you cannot pay for you proxy with credit card when the FBI comes looking.

    1. Re:Bitcoin, yes, seriously by JWSmythe · · Score: 3, Interesting

          That's not very hard. Plenty of people travel a lot. If I had been so inclined, I could have collected cards from multiple locations in about 12 states. Since you can buy them in most gas stations, you can get them anywhere, regardless of if it's on your route or not. If you're really dedicated, a nice 4 hour drive away can put you in another state to make the purchase.

          From what I have seen of the prepaid credit cards is, you are expected to provide personal information, and have the card with your name on it sent via USPS.

          Use of the temporary card is limited. You'll get funny looks using it at a point of sale. You'll have a hard time using it online if they ask for *any* identifiable information. You don't have even a name and zip code, which are the bare minimum that most ask for. Depending on the merchant account, they may let it slide, but it's a big risk for the vendor.

          Getting something less traceable, like a Starbucks gift card, isn't quite as usable for this purpose.

         

      --
      Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
  2. Coffee shop? by hawguy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How about a coffee shop's free Wifi using a spoofed MAC address while I'm sitting at the restaurant next door?

  3. Re:I do not trust Anonymous proxies. by v1 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How do you figure that's "anonymous"? You are paying for the Internet connection so SOMEBODY knows who you are.

    I think that falls under the "I'm behind seven proxies, good luck!" meme. Granted, you get more and more latency each hop, but if you can give someone enough busywork trying to follow the breadcrumbs, you're likely to either (A) make them decide it's not worth the effort to get a 5th, 6th, and 7th court order, or by the time they get to the last proxy they have wiped your session data and simply have nothing to give anyone with a badge on their letterhead.

    Good proxy providers make a point to not retain session data for any longer than is absolutely necessary. Or if they don't, you've made a bad selection of providers. I know if I were working in Anonymous, I sure as hell would be using a proxy chain paid for using prepaid visa cards.

    --
    I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
  4. Re:I have servers in the USA by kiwimate · · Score: 2, Interesting

    1. People want to do illegal stuff and not get caught; and/or
    2. People are overly paranoid.

    Modern life is complicated enough without trying to get into trouble. Why bother? (Answer: people have a raging sense of entitlement. "Whine, I don't want to pay for stuff.")

  5. Never trusted them either by AlienSexist · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Being paranoid, I cannot resolve the chain-of-trust for anonymous proxies. For all I know Big Brother, with his infinite budget, owns and operates all of these so called proxies anyway. Honeypots if you will. Not only are they well-positioned to see what you are trying to conceal but even collaborate among other owned nodes to see just how far you're willing to take it. So in the worst case you are drawing even more attention upon yourself. You cannot really know. Is it safer than not using a proxy at all? Possibly.

  6. Recommended by Anonymous by IronHalik · · Score: 3, Interesting

    IPpredator.se and anonine.se. Both from the freedom loving land of Sweden. You get SSL and PPTP with 2048kb or 128kb encryption (IPredator supports PPTP only IIRC).

  7. PRQ by dissy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    http://prq.se/?p=tunnel&intl=1

    PRQ is based in Sweden, and has their own ASN (read: they are their own network, connected to multiple upstream backbones)
    They offer all types of services in addition to VPNs: colo, dedicated hosting, and shared hosting.

    Their tunnels offer a static IP and no ports blocked (for running servers if that's your thing), so you'll want to provide your own firewalling. They use straight OpenVPN too.
    They have a strict privacy policy and appear to follow it.

    This is the same ISP that hosts the pirate bay too, which should give you an idea how they handle requests from certain other countries due to the whining of certain media cartels...

    I've been a customer for awhile now and quite happy.
    I am even planning to colo with them in the next couple of months if all goes well. (Previous data center I've been with has changed company names like three times now in the past six months, and now plans to jack their pricing up)

  8. Re:The best anonymouse proxy is an open wifi by Defenestrar · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Go for something like 01:23:45:67:89:AB. That way even if the logs get nabbed it'll save a lot of headache for both the open network admin and others involved. It makes it obvious that further tracking is pointless (good for you) and does a nice turn for anyone kind enough to leave open bandwidth for public use by (presumably) ending their harassment by investigators.

    The other way to do it is to leave your home router's wireless open to the public (regulating bandwidth as you see fit), control the logs yourself, and then make any connection to a proxy via (registry/OS footprint free) utilities on a hidden volume or usb drive. Thus even if all of the proxies, anonymizers, and etc. are compromised you'll still have enough reasonable doubt. Of course reasonable doubt is only good in some locations. The places or circumstances these tools are often invented for (i.e. Arab Spring) may not care enough about western due process in the middle of a civil revolution.