Ask Slashdot: Choosing Anonymous Proxies?

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?"

Comments

Botnets and Seven Chains

[Christopher B. Linn]

It's the only way to stay truly anonymous and secure on the internet. You cannot trust companies to provide you true anonymity and proxies, especially if money is involved.

Never trust anyone, and never expose to anyone who you are. That is the only way to stay secure on the internet.

Re:Botnets and Seven Chains

[El Torico]

Agent Mulder, is that you?

Re:Botnets and Seven Chains

[Anonymous Coward]

No, he is Christopher B. Linn; but don't tell anyone, especially the internet! (he doesn't want to reveal who he is!

All jokes aside, this reminds me of an XKDC post... about anonymity

http://xkcd.com/834/

Re:Botnets and Seven Chains

[Hatta]

Or Tor. Which is the same thing as a bot net proxy, but consensual. Make sure you don't send any personally identifiable traffic through the tunnel, because the exit nodes are monitored.

Re:Botnets and Seven Chains

[GameboyRMH]

An anti-MITM browser plugin like Perspectives or Convergence is a good thing to use when browsing via a proxy.

Re:Botnets and Seven Chains

[Ethanol-fueled]

The point he's trying to make is that nobody knows that better than he does - Cisco gear is widely used to facilitate eavesdropping and contains multiple undocumented backdoors for the 3-letter agencies.

Your proxy could be 100% dedicated to customer privacy, but can be unwittingly monitored and its users exposed as long as the proxy utilizes Cisco gear.

He did not slip or contradict himself - he is doing you all a favor, and speaks with authority.

Re:Botnets and Seven Chains

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.forbes.com/2010/02/03/hackers-networking-equipment-technology-security-cisco.html

http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/57070

http://tools.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-20040407-username

Anonymouse

[Trepidity]

I use this thing.

Selection criteria:

1. First google hit for [anonymous proxy]
2. It's been around since forever and I remember its url (but when I don't, see #1)

Yeah, not that scientific.

The most venerable lineage in this space is probably The Anonymizer, which was once hosted by CMU researchers, but it seems to have been bought and turned into a commercial desktop application.

They're all the same.

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

See: http://xkcd.com/908/

Except it's all pointing to one gnarly Tor endpoint

Anonymous != secure

[mindcandy]

Many TOR nodes are run for malicious purposes (a few have resorted to 'wall of sheep' sort of tactics' to reinforce this fact). TOR gives you anonymity but NOT privacy.

I do not trust Anonymous proxies.

[Dareth]

I do not trust Anonymous proxies. So I always host my own "anonymous" proxies myself. That is what I call secure!

Re:I do not trust Anonymous proxies.

[v1]

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.

Re:I do not trust Anonymous proxies.

[kiwimate]

Pfft, amateur. I use a WGET to have my web pages e-mailed to me. That way anyone who's watching my activity thinks it's Richard Stallman.

Re:I do not trust Anonymous proxies.

[elsurexiste]

I finally understand the "Woosh" idiom! Thank you multimediavt!

Overplay

[fiannaFailMan]

I use Overplay for region-restricted web content. Very useful when watching British TV shows on the BBC iPlayer and Irish Gaelic sports like hurling and Gaelic football which saves me the trouble of having to go to a pub and pay $20 per game.

Bitcoin, yes, seriously

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Bitcoin, yes, seriously

[JWSmythe]

    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.

   

The best anonymouse proxy is an open wifi

[Anon-Admin]

I personally use open wifi connections, they are about as anonymous as you can get. I picked up a 10" google pad with GPS, installed the software and took a drive. They are all over the place, that is assuming you dont use the open one at the local bar, Denny's, McDonalds, Cigar club, Starbucks, etc, etc, etc.

If you look, you will find that open and available wifi connections are easy to find, completely anonymous, and fun. Fun because it is amazing what people will share on there local network with an open wifi connection ;)

Re:The best anonymouse proxy is an open wifi

[93 Escort Wagon]

I personally use open wifi connections, they are about as anonymous as you can get. I picked up a 10" google pad with GPS, installed the software and took a drive. They are all over the place, that is assuming you dont use the open one at the local bar, Denny's, McDonalds, Cigar club, Starbucks, etc, etc, etc.

Hmm... so "Anon-Admin" likes cigars, lattes, Big Macs and Grand Slam Breakfasts - that narrows things down considerably... I've almost got him!

Re:The best anonymouse proxy is an open wifi

[Crudely_Indecent]

Be sure to alter the MAC address of your wireless adapter, or the log files on the open wifi router could be used to identify your computer.

Re:The best anonymouse proxy is an open wifi

[Defenestrar]

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.

Coffee shop?

[hawguy]

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

Re:Coffee shop?

[parlancex]

Just make sure if you buy anything it's cash only. :)

Re:Coffee shop?

[GameboyRMH]

And more important than all of that, use a totally clean browser with geolocation and any other privacy-destroying features disabled, and locked down tightly to put scripts, flash, cookies (including flash cookies and HTML5 storage) and off-site requests on a whielist system.

panopticlick

[jginspace]

What degree of anonymity are you looking for? Exactly which of the HTTP request headers do you wish to be anonymized? Okay so your proxy is not passing on your IP address. So It's not passing on common proxy behaviours (like HTTP 1.0 requests). And there's no 'proxy' anywhere in the request. You're not even using TOR. Well done. Now check Panopticlick. You're not anonymous. Now exactly what kind of proxy where you looking for and what kind of anonymity were you looking for?

VTunnel has a proven track record

[diversiform]

of thwarting FBI requests: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/08/exclusive-how-the-fbi-investigates-the-activities-of-anonymous.ars

Never trusted them either

[AlienSexist]

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.

Recommended by Anonymous

[IronHalik]

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).

PRQ

[dissy]

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)

Re:Freenet

[Rennt]

Tried it. Learned my lesson. The place is choked with CP. I'm talking actual rape here - not merely the kind of naked kiddie pictures that get you sent to a federal prison these days. This is stuff you NEVER see on the internet. The real, horrific, deal. There may be "safe" areas, but I couldn't find any, and I didn't exactly want to hang around to find out.

I want something like Freenet to exist. I believe we have the right to unregulated communication, individuals should just suck it up when they are offended rather then resorting to censorship and control. But Freenet appears to be used by criminals exclusively. I couldn't see any evidence of the kind of crypto-hippy idealism I expected.

I'm not going back anywhere near that cess-pit, and I'm not helping to enable it.