Anonymity complete GUIDE By Theraider & Dangerous R.

Anonymity on the web


[ t a b l e o f c o n t e n t s ]
01 - table of contents
02 - introduction
03 - first tips
04 - about proxies
05 - cookies
06 - ftp transfers
07 - secure transactions
08 - SSL tunelling
09 - anonymity on irc
10 - mail crypto (and pgp usage)
11 - icq privacy
12 - spyware
13 - cleaning tracks
14 - ending words

[ introduction ]
Nowadays, everyone wants privacy on the web, because no matter where you go,
someone could be watching you. Someone like your employer, someone trying to hack
your system, companies gathering all your info to sell to yet other companies, or even the
government, may be on your track while you peacefully surf the web. Thus, anonymity
on the web means being able tu use all of its services with no concern about someone
snooping on your data.
Your computer being connected to the net has an IP [Internet Protocol] address. If you
have a dial-up connection, then your IP changes every time you connect to the internet
(this is not always true, though. There are dialup isps, specially for university students,

that do have static ips). Cable modems and DSL connections have a static IP, which
means that the IP address does not change. One of the goals of getting anonymous is to
make sure your ip, either static or dynamic) isn't revealed to other users of the internet, or
to server administrators of the servers you roam around when using internet services.
This text tries to give you some hints on how to maintain your anonimity on the web.
Some of the hints may sound banal, but think of, if you really abide them in every
situation.

[ first tips ]
When chatting on IRC, ICQ, AIM (etc..), do not give out personal information about
yourself, where you live, work, etc.
Do not use your primary email address (the one your ISP gave you) anywhere except to
family members, close friends or trusted people. Instead create for yourself a web-based
email account such as yahoo, hotmail, dynamitemail, mail.com, etc. and use this e-mail
address to signing up for services, when in the need to give your mail to download
something, or to publish on your homepage.
When signing up for services on the web, don't give your real information like address,
phone number and such unless you really need to do so. This is the kind of information
that information gathering companies like to get, so that they can sell out and fill your
mailbox with spam.
Use an anonymous proxy to surf the web. This makes sure your ip doesn't get stored on
the webserver logs. (Webservers log every GET request made, together with date, hour,
and IP. This is where the proxy comes in. They get the ip from the proxy, not yours)
Use a bouncer to connect to IRC networks, in case you don't trust the administrators, or
the other users. A bouncer is a program that sits on a permanently connected machine that
allows you to connect there, and from there to the irc server, just like a proxy works for
webservers.
Use anonymous remailers to send out your e-mails.
Cryptography can also help you by making sure the material you send out the web, like
by email, etc, is cyphered, not allowing anyone that doesn't have your key to read it (in

key-based cryptography). Programs like PGP (pretty good privacy) are toolkits with all
you need to cypher and uncypher your stuff.
Delete traces of your work with the computer including history files, cache or backup
files.
[ about proxies ]
Proxies are caches that relay data. When you configure your web browser to use a proxy,
it never connects to the URL. Instead it always connects to the proxy server, and asks it
to get the URL for you. It works similarly with other type of services such as IRC, ICQ
etc. There'll won't be direct connection between you and the server, so your real IP
address won't be revealed to the server. When you view a website on the server, the
server won't see your IP. Some of web proxies do not support forwarding of the cookies
whose support is required by some of the websites (for ex. Hotmail).
Here are some anonymous proxies that you can use to surf anonymously (notice that
some of these may be a payed service):
Aixs -
Rewebber -
Anonymizer -
The Cloak -
You'll highly probably find many websites that provide the lists of unauthorised proxies
and remailers . Such lists are being compiled usually with the help of port scanners or
exploit scanners, scanning for computers with wingate or other proxies' backdoors. Using
these proxies is illegal, and is being considered as unauthorized access of computer. If
you get such list to your hands, check if the info is legal or compiled by script kiddie, and
act acordingly.
If you anyhow decide not to use proxy, at least do not forget to remove your personal
information from your browser. After you remove details like your name and e-mail
address from your browser, the only info a Web site can sniff out is your ISP's address
and geographical location. Also Java and JavaScript applets can take control of your
browser unexpectedly, and if you are surfing to unknown and potentially dangerous
places you should be aware of that. There are exploitable browser bugs (mainly Internet

explorer ones) reported ever week.

[ cookies ]
Maybe you're not aware of the fact that if you have the "allow cookies" feature in your
browser on, websites can store all sorts of information on your harddrive. Cookies are
small files that contain various kind of information that can be read bt websites when you
visit them. The usual usage is to track demographics for advertising agencies that want to
see just what kinds of consumers a certain site is attracting. Web sites also use cookies to
keep your account information up-to-date. Then for instance when you visit your e-mail
webbased account without being unlogged some hours later, you find yourself being
logged on, even if you turn off your computer. Your login and password was simply
stored on your harddrive in cookie file. This is security threat, in case that there is more
persons who have the access to your computer.
Most of the browsers offer the possiblity to turn off the cookies, but some of sites like
Hotmail.com require them to be turned on. In case you decided to allow cookies, at least
never forget to log off from the websites when you're finishing visiting them.

[ ftp transfers ]
When using an FTP client program to download files, assure yourself, that it's giving a
bogus password, like , not your real one. If your browser lets you,
turn off the feature that sends your e-mail address as a password for anonymous FTP
sessions.

[ secure transaction ]
Everything being sent from the web server to your browser is usually in plain text format.
That means, all transferred information can be easily sniffed on the route. Some of the
web servers support SSL (which stands for Secure Socket Layer). To view and use these
websites you'll need SSL support in your browser as well. You recognize, that the
connection is encrypted, if URL starts with https:// instead of usual http://. Never use web
server without SSL for sending or receiving sensitive private or business information

(credit card numbers, passwords etc.)

[ SSL tunelling ]
What is SSL?
SSL stands for Secure Socket Layer. The ?Secure? implies an encryption, while Socket
Layer denotes an addition to the Window Socket system, Winsock. For those that don?t
know, a Socket is an attachment to a port on a system. You can have many sockets on
one port, providing they are non-blocking (allowing control to pass through to another
socket aware application which wishes to connect to that port).
A Secure Socket Layer means that any sockets under it, are both secure and safe. The
idea behind SSL was to provide an encrypted, and thus, secure route for traffic along a
socket based system, such as TCP/IP (the internet protocol). Doing this allows security in
credit card transactions on the Internet, encrypted and protected communiqué along a
data line, and overall peace of mind.
The SSL uses an encryption standard developed by RSA. RSA are a world respected
American organisation that specializes in encryption and data security. Initially, they
developed a cipher length of only 40 bits, for use with the Secure Socket Layer, this was
considered weak and therefore a longer much more complicated encryption cipher was
created, 128 bits. The reasoning behind it was simple: it needs to be secure.
The RSA site puts the advantage of a longer encryption length pretty clearly: because 40-
bit encryption is considered to be relatively weak. 128-bits is about 309 septillion times (
309,485,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 ) larger than 40-bits. This would mean it would
take that many times longer to crack or break 128-bit encryption than it would 40-bit.
If you want more information on the technicalities or RSA?s SSL encryption engine, visit
their site:
But what does all this encryption and security have to do with you?
Well, that?s a simple question. No matter how hard you try, at times your privacy will
need to be knowingly invaded so you can make use of the product offered for doing so. If
you think about food, for example, one cannot eat without swallowing. When we wish to
make a transaction or view a site on the internet, where we have to give enough

information away so that it happens, we also want to be assured no one else along the line
gathers that data. An encrypted session would mean our data is not at the hands of any
privacy perpetrators unless they knew how to decode it ? and the only ones in the know,
are those you specifically wish. SSL uses public key encryption as explained in the PGP
section.
To put this at a head: if you use an encrypted connection or session, you can be relatively
assured that there are no prying eyes along the way.
And how do I implement SSL with SSL Tunnelling?
We know that a Secure Socket Layer is safe, but what we don?t know is what a Tunnel is.
In the most simplistic form, a tunnel is a proxy. Like proxy voting in general elections, a
tunnel will relay your data back and forth for you. You may be aware though, that there
are already ?proxies? out there, and yes, that is true. Tunnelling is done via proxies, but it
is not considered to be the same as a standard proxy relaying simply because it isn?t.
Tunnelling is very special kind of proxy relay, in that it can, and does relay data without
interfering. It does this transparently and without grievance or any care for what is
passing its way.
Now, if we add this ability to ?tunnel? data, any data, in a pipe, to the Secure Sockets
Layer, we have a closed connection that is independent of the software carrying it; and
something that is also encrypted. For those of you wanting to know a little more about the
technicalities, the SSL layer is also classless in the sense it does not interferer with the
data passed back and forth ? after all, it is encrypted and impossible to tamper with. That
attribute means an SSL capable proxy is able to transfer data out of its ?proxied?
connection to the destination required.
So to sum up, we have both a secure connection that does the job and relays things in the
right direction; and we have direct tunnel that doesn?t care what we pass through it. Two
very useful, and almost blind entities. All we need now is a secure proxy that we can use
as the tunnel.
Proxies:
Secure proxies are alike standard proxies. We can either use an HTTP base SSL equipped
proxy - one specifically designed for security HTTP traffic, but because of the ignorant

nature of SSL communication, it can be bent to any needs ? or we can use a proper SSL
service designed for our connection ? like you would use a secure NNTP (news) program
with a secure proxy on port 563 instead of taking our long way - which would probably
work as well.
A secure HTTP proxy operates on port 443. Host proxies are not public, that means they
operate for, and allow only traffic from their subnet or the ISP that operates them ? but,
there are many badly configured HTTP proxies and some public ones out there. The use
of a program called HTTrack (available on Neworder) will aid you in scanning and
searching for proxies on your network or anywhere on the Internet if your ISP does not
provide you with one.
Neworder also features a number of sites dedicated to listing public proxies in the
Anonymity section. While it?s often hard to find a suitable fast proxy, it?s worth the
effort when you get one.
So how can I secure my connections with SSL Tunnelling?
That?s a big question, and beyond the scope out this tuition as it must come to and end. I
can however, point you in the right direction of two resources that will aid you in
tunnelling both IRC, and most other connections via a HTTP proxy.
For Windows, the first stop would be ?s Socks2HTTP. This is an
SSL tunnelling program that turns a normal socks proxy connection into a tunnelled SSL
connection.