What is a good way for giving oneself internet privacy?

[Biggles]

What is a good way to obtain internet privacy?

I have read a few articles on tunnelling, proxy servers etc, but what is the best and/or easiest way to protect ones privacy online - i.e. web browsing privacy, email privacy etc etc. I for one would like to be able to chose to what and who I am sharing my information with.

[Guest]

What is the best way to obtain internet privacy? Please read and follow forum rules, specifically, rule 12: do not ask what's best. Thank you.

[Biggles]

Woops sorry please can my title be altered to what is 'a good way'

[Jack'n'xbox]

the title can be edited only by you. using the edit button at the bottom of your post.

do it qiuck before a mode ban's you.

P.S There is an app thats called hide IP.

good luck

[Guest]

do it qiuck before a mode ban's you. Please read the forum rules to understand the sanctions system. You are way off base with this comment.

[jggimi]

This has nothing to do with video processing. That said, there are a few things to consider about the subject of "online privacy" -- the first is that everyone's definition of those two words is different. You will have to be much more specific about your needs before you'll get meaningful answers.

Let me pick one simple form of communication as an example. My personal e-mail account, used from home.

I connect to to my ISP's e-mail server from this laptop. My connection to the ISP's mail server uses SSL encryption, and with certificates for authentication.

I can effectively guarantee that the data moving from that mail server to my PC is the data I am requesting, that I've reached the right sever, and that it knows who I am. I can also guarantee, effectively, that these encrypted packets prevent anyone who might be looking at packets between my laptop and the server, will not see unencrypted information.

This protects these packets from:
Someone sniffing packets on my local WiFi network
Someone sniffing packets on my local wired network
Someone sniffing packets on the cable broadband subnet
Someone sniffing packets inside the ISP
But....it does NOT prevent:
Any server administrator at the ISP from reading my mail
Any network administgrator at the ISP who wants to log packets arriving at their mail server
Anyone at any point in the "internet infrastructure" from logging packets between the sending and receiving mail servers
Anyone at the remote sender's ISP from doing the same
Anyone at the remote sender's network from doing the same
etc.
E-mail is sent through the Internet in clear text. The only way to ensure message privacy is to encrypt the message before sending. But that does not, in any way, prevent someone from looking at mail server logs (or the packets themselves) and determine that a message has been sent from the sender to the recipient.

That is just one example, of a commonly used application, specific to my environment.

You need to be much more specific about your needs on an application by application basis, and then, you'll need to do some research before you can know what steps to take.

For example, if you're interested in using encryption as one layer in your privacy protection schema -- ask yourself, "What information that I send or receive is sent in the clear?" Without knowing the subtleties of every networking application, you may not be able to answer that question on your own. (Example: do you use FTP? You may not be aware that FTP userids and passwords are sent in the clear.)

Once you have that application knowledge amassed, ask yourself, "Is there anything sent or received in the clear that should not be, that I can do something about?" In some cases, you can make a change to process or configuration at your end of a connection, such as using SSL rather than ununcrypted POP3 so that you don't send a userid and password in the clear to your local mail sever to get your mail.

You may have any number of applications that you can't do anything about. Your Doom9 Forum password, for example, that you use to connect here, can't be encrypted. Should you decide to use encrypted e-mail, rather than clear text, you must trust the sender's local network and physical security is sufficient to protect your message privacy.

Either end of a connection may also be using an insecure "security" technology under the assumption that a protection exists where there is none in fact. A good example of this false sense of security is using WEP encryption for WiFi networks. Wireless data is encrypted, but there are tools widely available that break the encryption relatively quickly.

[Shinigami-Sama]

well neuron is going to skin me for this, but, IMO the best way for internet privacy is to not use it :P

but seriously, like said above, use SSL as much as you can, https, SSH insted of ftp, you could even go farther and MD5 all of your online messages, but I doubt people will like that

[Leo 69]

Steganos software will meet your needz

http://www.steganos.com/

[Neo Neko]

Yeah SSL, SSH, GPG, TOR, etc are all good tools. Did I miss any aplicable 3 letter acronyms? At any rate having them is good. But knowing when and how to use them is better. And that all depends on your personal needs. For instance if you use IM alot that is something that is regularly ignored. I will admit to not using any official IM clients for quite a long time. But ICQ used to send user and password information in the clear. Easily packet sniffed. The actual messages were not that hard to get to either. AIM used basic encryption on the passwords IIRC. But the messages were total plaintext. So if you use IM alot and your privacy on it is important to you then that is something to check in on as well. I personally mainly use Jabber which has SSL logins and encryption. Not to mention that it is possible in some cases to further encapsulate it in SSH and/or TOR onion routing for the real paranoid. Not to mention there is not one central server to watch etc for Jabber. In fact you could run your own. :D Or just use well known or trusted servers. Some people like Google's jabber services.

Once just for fun a friend and I did some internet gaming via SSH forwarding. Some games actually benefitied with the compression and all etc. Others suffered due to latency issues with an already slow connection on one end and compression etc on top of it. :P But no one outside our networks could tell I was pwning him good :D

[Doobie]

I'm thinking the rule "Don't ask what's best" needs to go away. It has gotten a bit annoying when sincere people ask "what's best" just to be slapped with a poster telling him not to ask. Then it becomes comical when someone gets slapped for not asking "what's best" explicitly to avoid violating the rule.

Just because someone asks "what's best" doesn't mean any answer is the final word. Asking "what's best" is just human nature, and no one expects anyone to choose to give a 2nd-best answer, no matter how the question is asked.

Biggles, the only realistic (hence, "best") way to hide yourself is through anonymous proxies (but, you're only as secure as your proxy is trustworthy). The only realistic (hence, "best") way to prevent someone from eavesdropping on you is with end-to-end encryption (if you prevent the eavesdropper from getting your key).

So, maybe your question should be: "How do I set up an anonymous proxy?" Or, "How do I set up end-to-end encryption." (Per the eccentric prohibition against asking "what's best", this is just asking "how.")

--------------
"How can I turn on my computer?" You could remove the case, find the wires attched to the plug on the motherboard that says, "PWRSWT". Cut these wires, strip about a half-inch of insulation off of each one (of the wires attached to the motherboard) and then twist the exposed wires together. Viola, you've turned on your computer. It's not the best way. But, did you expect me to tell you the best way?