Skip to Content

Massively explains Warhammer Online to the dedicated WoW player
AOL Tech

Posts with tag anonymizer

Filed under: Internet, Security

Tor IP anonymitity compromised

TorA 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]

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

TrackMeNot search history obfuscator

TrackMeNotTrackMeNot 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]

Filed under: Security, Windows, Mozilla, Open Source

TorPark: Anonymous browsing on a USB drive

TorParkIf 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.

Filed under: Security, Open Source

Self-contained anonymizing OS

TorWired 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.

Featured Time Waster

Forumwarz - a potentially offensive time waster

I pwn UAfter spending the better part of an hour on Forumwarz I still can't decide if it's just sick or if it's kind of fun. It's a bit like a car wreck on the highway. I know I shouldn't be looking but I can't quite turn away.

It's sick, it's twisted, it's the internet on it's worst level and darn it, it's kind of fun. At least for a little while.

Forumwarz is a parody role-playing game that takes place on the internet - or at least the Forumwarz version of it. Your goal is to complete missions that are given to you through a mock up of GoogleTalk called Sentrillion.

Your first "friend" is ShallowEsophagus who begins giving you missions to pwn various forums by being a troll. Depending on the character type you are assigned at start up, you have tools like drooling on the keyboard or bashing your head on the keyboard that you can use to destroy forum threads and eventually, pwn a forum.

Future missions involve buying illegal software from the Russians, pwning more difficult forums and other internet oddness.

Completing missions gives you cash, called Flezz in game, and items that you can pawn or use in other missions. The game is NOT for those easily offended. It's crass, coarse and there are frequent f-bombs in the fake chat sessions.

This is also a game for a more mature audience as it requires you to shop at the Drugs R Fun store to get various concoctions to improve your playing, engage in certain cyber activities to get more Flezz and just generally use a more adult perspective.

If you can get past that, here are the more enjoyable and time-wasting aspects.

View more Time Wasters

Featured Galleries

Defective by Design, London: Protest Pictures
Cooking Mama: Mama Kills Animals
Android First-look: Amazon.com MP3 Store
Android First-look: Twitroid
Google Reader Android
Android Hands-On
Twine 1.0
Photoshop Express Beta
SXSWi 2008 Schwag Unboxing
SXSWi 2008 Day 1
Mozilla Birthday Cake
Palm stuff
Adobe Lightroom 1.1

 


Follow us on Twitter!

Flickr Pool

www.flickr.com

BloggingStocks Tech Coverage

More Tech Coverage

Joystiq

TUAW

BloggingStocks

Autoblog

Xbox 360 Fanboy

Engadget

WOW Insider

Switched.com

FanHouse