Anonymous Web Browsing
It seems to be an increasing interest for anonymous web surfing lately, so hopefully this section will help a couple of people.
The EFF has developed an application named Tor
Tor is a toolset for a wide range of organizations and people that want to improve their safety and security on the Internet. Using Tor can help you anonymize web browsing and publishing, instant messaging, IRC, SSH, and other applications that use the TCP protocol. Tor also provides a platform on which software developers can build new applications with built-in anonymity, safety, and privacy features.
Tor aims to defend against traffic analysis, a form of network surveillance that threatens personal anonymity and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security. Communications are bounced around a distributed network of servers called onion routers, protecting you from websites that build profiles of your interests, local eavesdroppers that read your data or learn what sites you visit, and even the onion routers themselves.
The following was commented in a blog at YourBlogIN, a blogging community sponsored by KF Webs:
Anonymity is typically going to appeal to people that are doing bad things.
However, there can be advantages to the average person trying to protect their identity from being stolen.
If you want to surf a competitor’s website, you may not want to be known.
If you want to surf without getting bombarded with ads targeted to you, you may not want to be known.
If you want to window shop, you may not want to be know.
When a merchant or advertiser knows who you are, they are receiving valuable information. They get this information for free. Ergo we just tell them who we are by default. If you go to a store or market etc, do you walk up to the first clerk or salesperson or shop keeper you see and say, Hi my name is John Smith, I live at such and such address, my IP address is this?
When you walk around the store, do you list every single item that you looked at, and then drop the list off with the store manager?
The answer is no. However, when we surf the web, we all freely give this information away today.
If more people started to surf anonymously, then the advertisers would have to go back to square one, or they might have to entice us to give them the information, potentially for something of value.
Money talks. :)
Thanks,
Brett
Hopefully this will get you started, and we will keep you updated on other anynomizers