Anonymity posts

A trio of practical anonymous torrenting options have arrived

by Lee Mathews Jun 16th 2009

It was only a matter of time before the P2P community came up with some workable options for anonymizing our activities. Sure, Tor has been able to do it for quite some time, but torrenting is very taxing on the network and transfers can be painfully slow. Recently, however, three new services have appeared that could provide the privacy protection we've been waiting for.

iPredator VPN - We've known this one was coming for a while. The beta launch date got pushed back quite a bit, but that little courtroom skirmish may have slowed things down a little. In a blog post yesterday, the iPredator team announced that the first 3,000 beta invites have been sent out. If you're in the queue, don't start drooling just yet. There are 179,999 others names lined up.

Furk (pictured) - Find a torrent, paste it into Furk, and you're provided a direct download link. Even with the free account, I still averaged about 275k/s, which isn't much slower than what I typically manage on a straight torrent download (thanks to my ISP). Download links are also passed to you with SSL encryption. Just don't use it to download stuff like what's in the capture - it's there for illustration purposes only, of course...

Paid accounts are just under 10 Euros a month or 24/three months.

BitBlinder - Jay posted about this service the other day. The open source project aims to anonymize not only torrent downloads but also your web browsing. How does it work? Think of your Internet traffic as the fruit in a smoothie. Now take all your friends' fruit, chuck it all into a blender, and press 'liquify'. Pour it into a glass, and all you see is smoothie - you can't tell what's your fruit and what belongs to your friends.

As with iPredator you may be waiting a while to get your invite and download link.

Tags: anonymity, anonymous, furk, ipred, ipredator, pirate-bay, privacy, torrent

Filed under: Fun, Internet, Web services, Social Software, Web

Omegle lets you have unfulfilling chats with strangers

by Jason Clarke Apr 7th 2009

There was a time, long ago, when chatting with strangers was one of the more impressive things you could do online. Things have changed since the days of 14.4 baud modems ... or have they?

Now, rather than using IRC to meet new friends that you can actually stay in contact with if you so choose, a recently released site called Omegle created by an 18 year-old high school senior named Leif K-Brooks offers the opportunity to chat with anonymous random strangers.

Given the general level of discourse online, and how much it improves when people have a shroud of anonymity, it should come as no surprise that chats on Omegle rarely turn out to be fulfilling experiences. Omegle is plagued by spammers and trolls, and though K-Brooks claims he is taking the issue seriously and attempting to do something about it, a perusal through his first-and-only blog post's comments shows that he has a long, long way to go.

Still, there's something mildly compelling about Omegle. If you have sensitive sensibilities, you're probably best to steer clear until some level of control is exerted over user behavior, but if you're immune to the ugliest your online brethren have to offer, have at it.

[via Switched]

Tags: anonymity, chats, discourse, irc, omegle, trolls

Filed under: Internet, Security, P2P

PirateBay's IPREDATOR VPN service to debut on April 1

by Lee Mathews Mar 24th 2009

It's no April Fools' prank. On April 1st - the same day that Sweden's Draconian new intellectual property legislation (IPRED) goes into effect - the Pirate Bay will debut their new IPREDATOR VPN service.

Where IPRED aims to make it easier for copyright holders to get their hands on ISP log files to investigate suspected transgressors. With IPREDATOR, a user can give "the man" a swift kick in his digital groin and sneak away unscathed while he's doubled over in agony.

No log files are maintained, and all traffic is tunneled, making it more difficult to track activity to a specific user.

Initially, the service will be opened to a select group of 500 testers. Once the kinks have been worked out, IPREDATOR will be available world-wide for a modest 5 Euro monthly fee.

Those who are interested and want to roll the dice in hopes of getting in early can register for the beta at ipredator.se.

[via TorrentFreak]

Tags: anonymity, ipredator, pirate-bay, privacy, torrent, vpn

Filed under: Internet, Security, Utilities, Windows, Freeware, Windows x64

PortableTor is an easy way to anonymize to your browsing

by Lee Mathews Jan 14th 2009

There are plenty of ways to utilize the Tor network for a little added browsing privacy - like OperaTor, for example.

If you'd prefer a single anonymity solution that can handle any browser, portable or not, give PortableTor a try.

It's Tor, Vidalia (a GUI frontend for Tor), and Privoxy in a single, portable package. All you need to do is launch PortableTor and edit your browser's proxy settings to point at 127.0.0.1:8118 (the port can be changed).

Even if you're not going to run it from a USB flash drive, this is still an uncomplicated way to anonymize your desktop browsing as well. All three apps use a combined total of about 26mb of memory, the bulk of which is consumed by Vidalia.

The Sourceforge project page also list several Firefox addons that you may want to add for extra browsing security, like NoScript and No-Referrer.

PortableTor is a free download for Windows only.

Tags: anonymity, anonymous, browsing, pirvacy, portable, tor

Filed under: Internet, Windows, Google, Freeware, Browsers

UnChrome removes the unique ID from Google Chrome

by Lee Mathews Dec 16th 2008

Concerns about what Google Chrome does with user data already spawned Iron, a browser based on the Chromium source code that strips various features like error and crash reporting, as well as the unique user identifier assigned to each install.

If you'd prefer to run Google's version of the browser but are still concerned about your privacy, you can also download and run UnChrome. It's a free application that checks to see if you've got Chrome installed and then replaces the unique ID assigned to you with a null value.

After you run it, there is a single pop-up advertisement for another of the developer's applications. Since UnChrome-ing is a one-time thing, it's only a minor annoyance.

[ via Freeware World Team ]

Tags: anonymity, google-chrome, privacy

Filed under: Internet, Security, Web services, Lists

5 disposable email services with RSS support

by Lee Mathews Nov 24th 2008

If you're looking for a little anonymity and security when signing up for download links or invite codes, a disposable email service is a good option. Instead of providing one of your working email addresses, just grab a meaningless temporary one from any of these sites and keep your identity hidden.

These five sites all provide RSS feeds for your address, which is handy. No need to return to the site after registration, just subcribe with your favorite newsreader.

MailCatch - Choose your own address or roll the dice. MailCatch also provides an iGoogle gadget and creates a subdomain (using your address) for quick access to your web inbox. MailCatch also provides temporary forwards, and they've got an FAQ and forums.

MyTrashMail - Offers password protected temporary accounts in addition to the traditional public variety. Note that the Firefox "toolbar" they offer requires you have the Google toolbar installed first. FAQ and about links are prominently displayed.

Tags: anonymity, anonymous, disposable, mail, privacy

Filed under: Mozilla, Beta, Browsers

Firefox 3.1 To Add Private Browsing?

by Lee Mathews Sep 11th 2008

With similar features already built in to Safari, IE8, and Google Chrome, the Mozilla gang is once again looking to add private browsing to Firefox.

While the Stealther addon can already provide this functionality, FIrefox is looking to implement it in the 3.1 release before year's end.

The goal will be to store as much data from private browsing sessions as possible in memory to avoid writing to the hard drive. Information that users save explicitly - bookmarks, for example - will still be written to the disk. Subtlty appears to be a goal as well, since IE's Inprivate mode notification "is fail," according to developer Mike Connor. I'll assume he's not a fan of Chrome's tiny Spy Guy either.

Why add the feature? There are a number of reasons given at the wiki, including planning a surprise party, viewing porn, or cheating on your spouse. I believe I see a pattern forming. Others - like me - probably just want the assurance of being able to browse without leaving traces of activity on a local machine.

Specifics about Mozilla's goals for private browsing can be viewed at the wiki.

[via Mozilla Links]

Tags: anonymity, firefox, private-browsing

Filed under: Fun, Internet, web 2.0

Fake Name Generator Creates Your Alter Ego

by Lee Mathews Jul 2nd 2008

Anyone who has gained super powers through radiation exposure, cosmic rays, or scientific experimentation gone wrong knows how painfully difficult it can be to conceal your identity after the fact. Fortunately, there's a web site that will help you make the process much, much simpler.

Fake Name Generator does so much more than what its moniker implies. Not only will it create a (usually) convincing new name, but it'll also give you a corresponding address, phone number, mother's maiden name, phone number - even a social security and visa number. Though we're not entirely sure it's a good idea to go passing those around.

The clever engine will even piece together an email address and domain name for you AND check to see if they're available. Now that's useful. If you're going for a safe, secondary online identity you may as well have a convincing email to go along with it.

At last we're safe to use our powers for good without fear of being discovered by our nemeses!

Tags: anonymity, fun, privacy, web2.0, website

Filed under: Security, E-mail, Web services

2 Prong: Easy spam-fighting disposable e-mail addresses

by Jordan Running Nov 16th 2006

I'm a big fan of services that help me keep spam out of my inbox, and I'm an even bigger fan of services that make it dead easy like 2 Prong. Like many, many other services 2 Prong gives you disposable email addresses that you can use when registering for web sites that require a valid email address and clicking on an emailed validation link. What makes 2 Prong special is that it reduces this to a two-step process that's just as easy than using your own email address. All you do is visit 2prong.com and it will give you an email address (it even copies it to your clipboard for you, which may be an annoyance for some users). Then you fill out the registration form on the site you want access to and, by the power of ~~Grayskull~~ Ajax, the activation email will pop up on the 2 Prong page as soon as it's received. You don't even have to register with 2 Prong or give it your real email address, unlike similar services. On top of that, 2 Prong intends to provide continually changing domain names so that sites can't get wise to their game. Very cool, very easy.

[Via Lifehacker]

Tags: 2 prong, 2Prong, ajax, anonymity, anonymous, email, lifehacker, privacy, registration, security, web service, WebService

Filed under: Internet, Security, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Web services, Mozilla, Open Source, Browser Tips, Unix

TrackMeNot search history obfuscator

by Jay Savage Aug 21st 2006

TrackMeNot is a Firefox extension designed by two NYU computer science researchers to run in the background and periodically send search requests to popular search engines and portals like AOL, Yahoo!, Google, and MSN. Why would you want to do that? A couple of reasons. First, just for the fun of screwing with their heads. More importantly, though, when the companies release their search records to the public, it will be more difficult for anyone who's interested to figure out who you are from you search patterns.

At least that's the theory. The current version apparently doesn't draw from a large enough base of terms or combine them intelligently enough to truly obfuscate search histories--it's possible for a person to figure out which searches are from TrackMeNot and ignore them--but it's a neat idea, and future releases should provide some real security and anonymity. In the mean time, go ahead and install it. It may not protect you from a tenacious sleuth, but the bogus searches should make life interesting for the companies' profiling algorithms and eat up a little bandwidth. Who knows? Maybe it will make life just uncomfortable enough to convince an ISP or two that storing user data is a bad idea.

[via BoingBoing]

Tags: Anonymity, Anonymizer, AOL, FireFox, Google, MSN, Obfuscator, Privacy, Search History, SearchHistory, Security, TrackMeNot, Yahoo!

Filed under: Security, Open Source

Self-contained anonymizing OS

by Jordan Running Jan 16th 2006

Wired News is running an article about Anonym.OS, a project of kaos.theory security research that aims to bring an easy, anonymizing Internet experience to the masses. Anonym.OS is an OpenBSD live CD and when you put it into any PC, you're "presented with a text based wizard-style list of questions to answer, one at a time, with defaults that will work for most users. Within a few moments, a fairly naive user can be up and running and connected to an open Wi-Fi point, if one is available." Built from the inside out with privacy in mind, Anonym.OS appears to be Windows XP SP1 to anyone snooping and uses the Tor routing network to anonymize Internet use. The article says Anonym.OS has a long way to go before granny will really be able to use it, but it sounds like a worthwhile project.

Tags: anonymity, anonymizer, anonymous, freebsd, privacy, tor

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