Making an IP hidden/anonymous surfing

Doublespresso

Is it possible to hide your own IP from the net?
Is anonymous surfing possible at all?

My mate thinks it is theoretically possible, I say that it's not.

Can the experts here enlighten us?

Thanks.

fwor

Your mate is right (sort of). The simplest way is to choose a Web Proxy, as described here:

http://tools.rosinstrument.com/proxy/howto.htm

I don't have any experience of that specific How-to - it was just the first thing that came up in Google.

~However~ if you choose a proxy badly (e.g. if what you are doing is illegal in the UK and you choose a proxy that's based in the UK) then in theory the UK law enforcement agencies could force the operator of the proxy to hand over their logs and thus reveal the real source IP address.

Also, your mate should note that using an anonymiser can be a serious security risk if the person running the server wants to be dishonest.

turbobob

There are anonymous proxy servers you can use which will hide your true IP address from any sites visited. Don't know if these are any good (don't use them myself..) but here is a list of sites I found - http://www.stayinvisible.com/web_proxy_list.html

MercilessKiller

Obviously there are risks. When using a web proxy you are trusting another source.... (Unless you have your own server acting as a proxy somewhere).

So if you connect to a proxy to surf illegal things for example, the proxy may specifically be a dummy proxy from the police which records everything you go on. Or it could be a hacker setting up his own proxy, or it could even be a straight forward proxy.. but if they get involved in criminal activity, you're ip address and everything you have been on is recorded.

My advice? don't hide your ip. There's no need to give yourself risk in life for nothing

masterthief

I used anonymisers in school and uni simply because their silly internet-regulation programmes would prevent searching for legit stuff for my courses (e.g. searching for info on 'breast cancer' didn't work once), just google IP anonymisers. But there's no point on your own computer for this sort of thing. You could possibly use such sites/tools to submit multiple entries to competitions where only one entry per IP address is allowed, but not for anything involving downloading because the proxy IP doesn't match your computer IP so it wont work (my uni banned intranet or internet file sharing, so we tried this to avoid CD burning costs, etc, for lost uni-related files, etc., and it didn't work).

buglawton

When traveling in certain countries I want to be able to use the BBC news and radio website. I know in advance that the BBC will be blocked. A decent proxy server would solve this. If I were to emigrate to such a country I'd even be willing to pay for a reliable service like this.

fwor

The security risk that I referred to relates to the use of SSL (e.g. when you access an online banking site with an HTTPS address).

It's not commonly known that your secure session has to terminate on the proxy server, and a new one has to be established on the far side of the server. The result is that everything sent and received during what seems to be an encrypted session can actually be "sniffed" on the proxy server. A guy in Sweden was arrested for doing this recently - he apparently had an impressive list of usernames and passwords...

MercilessKiller

Thats the danger. These free anonymous web proxy sites are recording everything that passes thorugh

sco0ter

Remember as well... You may hide your IP but if something happens and someone wants to find you all they have to do is contact the PROXY and they will STILL be able to tell them your IP address anyway...

I remember reading about this because someone was using a proxy to send abusive web mail (Hotmail account) and when complained to Microsoft contacted the proxy and got the persons details anyway.. It made it worse as doing this showed a clear sign of intent on the abusers part..

And as others have said.. Secure connections will not be as secure or may not be possible at all.

unrich

If you use a server in the US or perform illegal activities in the US would you face a possible extradition to the US without a court hearing in the UK?

Is it possible to intercept ip activity before it reaches an anonymous server?

Doublespresso

MercilessKiller wrote: »

My advice? don't hide your ip. There's no need to give yourself risk in life for nothing

I'd like to keep any moral issues out of this. The question was intended for academic value on purely technical considerations.

From what I read here it seems that I was right all along, i.e. there is no such thing as total anonymous surfing and ultimately any surfing can be traced back to a single PC.

Am I right?