How to Keep Your Data Private and Browse the Internet Anonymously Posted Tuesday, April 10th, 2012 (5:00 am) by Mark Jackson (Score 15622) It’s because you have something to hide. Internet anonymity is a bitterly conflicted subject that, on the one hand, safely masks our private lives from view or abuse, while on the other it can be manipulated by unscrupulous individuals for often criminal purposes. But just how do you go about keeping your private life.. private? In recent years the issue of online privacy has become ever more important. Commercial firms increasingly seek to know more about our buying habits and even the government often appears to be almost equally interested in what we’re all doing online. Those ignorant of the dangers often like to say, “If you have nothing to hide then you shouldn’t have anything to fear,” a perhaps popular phrase among many past and present dictatorships, communist states and those whom simply overlook the one most obvious and simple truth of all. Yes, we all have something to hide. From the fact that we wear clothes, shut our curtains, lock our doors and choose not to live in completely transparent houses; to the fact that we shop online, read online, explore our understanding of the world online, experiment with relationships, discuss our illnesses and research matters of a deeply personal nature. People most certainly do have things to hide. In this article ISPreview.co.uk explores what methods exist to help keep your private information secure and why growing efforts to monitor what people do online could ultimately prove fruitless. The Technical Truth of Internet Anonymity Generally speaking a communication conduit should always be secure and private, unless the police have a legitimate reason to suspect that it is being abused or you chose to make the content public (i.e. Twitter, Facebook etc.). In reality if an individual chooses to hide their internet connection or personal details from prying eyes then, short of physically cutting the connection off, there’s not a lot that anybody, not even your ISP, can do about it. Ofcom’s Web Blocking Review Statement “Circumvention of a block is technically a relatively trivial matter irrespective of which of the techniques used. Knowledge of how site operators and end users From www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2012/04/how-to-keep-your-data-private-and-browse-the-internet- anonymously.html/2 31 December 2012 can work around blocks is widely distributed and easily accessible on the internet … It is not technically challenging and does not require a particularly high level of skill or expertise. Ofcom was also asked to consider whether the site-blocking provisions in the Digital Economy Act would work in practice. The Act contains reserve powers to allow courts to order that websites dedicated to copyright infringement are blocked. The regulator concluded the provisions as they stand would not be effective.” The reason this is even possible stems from how the internet allows information to flow relatively freely, much like a river. With a river you can change the flow of water, check it for impurities (errors) and generally fiddle around but the only real way to stop it would be to kill the entire flow (i.e. physically cut the cable); short of that some of the water will almost always make it through, often by masking itself to look like something else (i.e. a different kind of internet traffic). In essence, Internet Service Providers (ISP) can control your connection but only up to a point. As a result practically all ISP-imposed internet censorship (filtering) systems are merely skin deep in their effect and thus easy to circumvent. It’s a worryingly common misconception that ISPs, which merely manage “access“, can also control “content“; these are two very different things. ISPs can only delete content that exists within their own servers (e.g. a member’s ISP hosted webpage) and cannot physically remove content from the wider (external / remote) internet. Circumvention Solutions From www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2012/04/how-to-keep-your-data-private-and-browse-the-internet- anonymously.html/2 31 December 2012 Thankfully there are a number of methods by which you can retain tighter control over your personal information and privacy, many of which we’ve summarised (albeit only in the most basic of ways) below. Crucially none of these methods represent any kind of previously unknown voodoo art or underworld secret. All are common knowledge and the vast majority exist for legitimate and or essential purposes. Indeed Ofcom recently covered them all as part of their public review into the viability of website blocking measures (linked above). Web Browser Privacy Mode(s) This is perhaps the most basic of online privacy masks, albeit one of the least effective; assuming your goal is to fully obscure an internet connection. Most modern website browsers now come with a Privacy Mode (e.g. ‘InPrivate’ for Microsoft’s Internet Explorer), which effectively prevents your computer from storing data about your browsing session (e.g. cookies, temporary Internet files, history and other information). This is good if you don’t want advertisers or friends/colleagues to know which sites you’ve been visiting. It can also help to protect against some Spyware methods. But remember that enabling a privacy mode will also prevent some website features from working, such as the ability to keep you logged into a chat room or discussion forum, and won’t stop your connection (e.g. IP address) details from leaking out. Accessing Websites via an IP Address It might surprise people to learn that one of the easiest ways to defeat some internet filtering systems, such as those used by ISPs to block access to specific websites (sometimes in error) and or adult content, is to try accessing the site via its numerical Internet Protocol (IP) address. Every website starts out with an IP address, which is later converted by the Domain Name System (DNS) into a more human readable form. For example, at the time of writing http://www.ISPreview.co.uk runs off an IP (IPv4) address of 87.106.143.49, which means that you could access the site just by visiting “http://87.106.143.49” (could of changed by the time you read this). Failing that you could attempt to access the site via a Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure connection, which really just means typing HTTPS instead of HTTP, followed by the IP address (note: not all servers enable or use https). These are often encrypted and as a result some systems do not block them. Advanced users can simplify this process and avoid repetition by adding the website to their computer hosts file (e.g. c:/windows/system32/drivers/etc/host – for Microsoft Windows XP 32Bit). For example, adding the following additional line to that file (at the bottom) would bypass your ISPs DNS server every time the related website (in this case “ISPreview.co.uk”) is called and use the sites manually entered IP details instead (just make sure to keep the IP address current/updated as otherwise the site won’t load). From www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2012/04/how-to-keep-your-data-private-and-browse-the-internet- anonymously.html/2 31 December 2012 87.106.143.49 ispreview.co.uk Take note that ISPs often suffer from DNS problems and thus this can also become a useful method for accessing ordinary sites until any related problems have been resolve. However it is by no means foolproof, many filters will also block IP addresses and related https connections. Change your ISPs DNS Server (OpenDNS, Google Public DNS) Another method for getting around your ISPs Domain Name System (DNS) servers and related filtering system is to use a free third party solution, such as one from OpenDNS or Google Public DNS. Both represent free alternative DNS solutions that are often faster than your ISPs own DNS servers, give you more control over the process and can also be more secure (e.g. OpenDNS has its own OPTION for adult content filtering that can effectively work at the network level). Google Public DNS http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/ OpenDNS http://www.opendns.com BlockAid http://www.blockaid.me Swapping to a free DNS solution is usually just a simple matter of adding two IP address numbers (Primary/Preferred DNS Server and Secondary/Alternate DNS Server) into your software’s network connection profile (usually requires an admin account) or, more directly, from within your router. The latter method is best if you want the DNS change to benefit your whole network instead of just one device/computer (fyi – some pre-configured ISP supplied routers do not provide an option to change the DNS). From www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2012/04/how-to-keep-your-data-private-and-browse-the-internet- anonymously.html/2 31 December 2012 It should be noted that most free DNS solutions are ad-supported, which only shows up when you miss-type a web address. At that point the free solution will often display its own search engine with a list of close matches for your search term (unobtrusive adverts will also be shown alongside). In reality this is little different from a normal search engine. Sadly switching DNS servers isn’t enough to avoid the more sophisticated ISP-level web blocks but you should consider swapping anyway as the free solutions tend to be of a generally better quality than the one provided by your ISP.