There are a few widely-accepted ways to anonymize your browsing or torrent activity, but they all have their drawbacks. TOR is free, but it's poor etiquette to use it for torrents and put a strain on the bandwidth of the nice folks who run TOR servers. Not to mention that it's incredibly, stupefyingly slow. You could get a VPN, but that'll cost you. So, what's the solution to making your torrents free and anonymous, without a huge drag on your transfer speeds? A new open source project called BitBlinder might be the ticket.

BitBlinder is sort of like a private tracker for your anonymous data. A private tracker requires you to upload a certain percentage of data compared to what you download, in order to keep using it. BitBlinder works the same way, requiring each person on the network to anonymize a certain amount of data for others in order to have their own data anonymized for free. To keep your IP address safe, it's passed through several peers before it reaches your target website, but each computer only receives the address of the next peer in the chain, not the address the request is coming from. That way, you don't know who anyone else is, and nobody else knows who you are, which makes it difficult for anyone to track what each person on the network is doing.

BitBlinder isn't just good for torrents, though. It can also be used to hide your browsing activity and get around blocked sites at work or school. BitBlinder comes with an anonymous browser, built on Firefox. It's worth noting that BitBlinder will be a bit slower than browsing without anonymity, but still faster than TOR. It's planned as a cross-platform project, but the Mac version isn't ready quite yet. Registration is required, and there are currently a limited number of slots available.

[via TorrentFreak]

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.

I'm not a big Opera fan, but I have to say I'm pretty impressed with Operator - a portable version with built-in Tor (hence the semi-clever name) anonymous browsing.

Download the 7mb zip and extract it to your flash drive, and you've got an excellent way to keep your surfing on public and work computers safe and private. I was surprised with the speed at which pages loaded, having used TorPark to cure my insomnia back in the day. Part of the boost comes from integrating Polipo, a tiny caching web proxy that Operator bundles with the browser.

Our home page loaded in about 22 seconds, a little over twice as long as it took Firefox. Not bad, considering the added security and privacy.

As the author warns on the Operator home page, only HTTP and HTTPS are anonymized by Tor, so avoid Javascripts and Opera's IRC functions to play it safe. For road warriors - and the truly paranoid - Operator is well worth a test drive.

Operator is freeware, Windows only.

Whether you're trying to keep the feds off your trail or you just want to keep your mom from figuring out what naughty web sites you've been visiting, xB Browser can help. This web browser is based on Firefox, but adds a ton of security features that allow you to surf the web anonymously and quickly and easily clear all your private data.

The browser evolved from the now defunct Torpark and is capable of connecting to the Tor network of anonymous servers that let you obscure your location and identity. You can also use xB Browser to connect to the XeroBank network, which is a commercial alternative to Tor. You have to pay for access to the XeroBank network.

XeroBank also provides severla other programs for anonymous internet access including xB Mail for sending encrypted emails and xB VPN for connecting to the XeroBank network to anonymize all of your internet transactions.

[via Shell Extension City]

You're all intelligent people, so we probably don't have to tell you that your boss (or at least that guy in the IT department who always gives you the stink eye) not only can, but probably does keep track of your web browsing habits. While you might think that means you should just avoid job hunting sites and web pages you wouldn't want your mom to see you looking at, a recent New York court case upholds your boss's right to fire you for just spending too much time dawdling on sites that have nothing to do with your job.

In this case, an employee of the New York City school district was fired in 2006 for spending too much time checking out travel web sites like Lonely Planet, China Advisor, and Escape Artists. Apparently the guy was warned, and a few days later his boss had taken a look at some 300 web sites he had visited anyway.

The specifics might not apply wherever you are. But the message is pretty clear: find a way to anonymize your web surfing. Or umm, refrain from mixing business and pleasure.

[via Gothamist]

Psiphon is a new open source project from the University of Toronto that aims to give people unfettered access to censored web sites, particularly those blocked by oppressive governments. Basically it works by allowing people with uncensored internet access to act as proxies for those without. Unlike with Tor, the "psiphonite" (i.e. the person in the censored country--memo to U of T: this awful terminology is likely to scare away novices) doesn't need to install any software--they just connect to the psiphonode's unique address. Psiphon isn't based on a central server, and psiphonodes' addresses are distributed organically, i.e. by word of mouth. This means Psiphon isn't anonymous like Tor, but it is secure and encrypted. Currently the psiphonode server software is available for Windows and Linux, with Mac support promised soon. For more information check out the Psiphon FAQ.

[Thanks, Ramesh!]

A group called Packet Storm has published a paper detailing how the true IP addresses of Tor users can be discovered by the party that controls their traffic's exit node. In case all of that was Greek to you, let's back up: Tor is system that anonymizes internet traffic by routing it through a network of Tor nodes. The aim is to make it impossible to know where traffic originated, and Tor has become popular lately among the privacy minded, especially with the debut of Torpark, a version of Firefox with Tor's anonymizing features built in. Unfortunately, Packet Storm's paper shows that if you control the last node in the chain, it's possible to determine the traffic's originating IP using a combination Flash and cookie attack. The paper's author recommends turning off Flash, ActiveX, Java, and JavaScript if you use Tor and don't want your IP sniffed out. Tor's developers have yet to make an official statement about the exploit.

[Via Netscape]

The Onion Router (TOR) provides anonymous web-surfing and privacy online and is a free download. The German authorities seized several TOR servers in in effort to crack down on a child porn ring. While I despise and oppose anyone involved in the despicable practice of child porn, I do feel for those whose servers were taken, since it seems that they are not to blame for this, but others using the TOR-circuit to hide their identity. It should not be assumed that anyone trying to "hide" their identity is a criminal, which the German authorities haven't done...yet. We'll see how this case plays out, but it looks as if the police will not press charges to server owners and users, unless they find conclusive evidence against a certain person.

[Via Slashdot]

If you're serious about online privacy, you probably already anonymize your browsing sessions at home, but what about when you sit down at an Internet cafe or public terminal where your decidedly non-anonymous use could be tracked back to you? The solution, of course, is to take your privacy with you, and that's what TorPark is for. It's a portable app to be installed on a USB drive that combines Firefox and Tor, the anonymizing "onion router." Once you have it loaded on your USB drive there's no set-up: just plug it into any Windows PC with an Internet connection and you're off and anonymous.

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.