Somebody is Watching You

How would you feel if there were someone following your every move and keeping a written record of everywhere you go? Would it concern you that someone knew you were at the book store this morning for 2 hours and 13 minutes and that you bought 2 books and a large coffee? How about if they knew that after you left the book store you saw a movie, where you had a large popcorn, and then you went home to watch Seinfeld reruns and eat cold leftovers from your refrigerator?

None of those things is particularly suspicious or damning. You have nothing to hide. Yet, it would probably concern you to think that someone was monitoring and logging everything you did. Well, when you surf the Web, that is what generally happens. All of your activity is tied to your IP address and can be can be captured and retained for future reference.

Hiding Your IP Address

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a defender of democratic freedoms for private citizens, has worked to develop a free 2-part solution you can use to hide your IP address and obscure the ability for any individual or organization to track your Web activity.

By using the Privoxy software application to connect to the Tor network, you can reduce the possibility that your activity is being tracked. Once connected, your network traffic is bounced across various Tor servers called “onion routers”. The data traverses servers and routers around the world leaving a trail of decoy connections and making it much more difficult to determine your true IP address.

There are also commercial applications and services available. Anonymizer.com provides a variety of products designed to hide your IP address, protect your identity and ensure that your activities are not monitored or tracked. Unlike the Privoxy / Tor solution, products such as these cost money. The benefit to some people may be in having a support department to contact if problems arise.

There Is No Guarantee

As you set out to hide your IP address and surf the Web anonymously, keep in mind that none of the solutions are fool-proof. There is no 100% guarantee that your IP address and Web-surfing activity will be completely untraceable.

These solutions can be valuable tools for those who are performing legitimate, legal activities on the Web and simply value their privacy and want to protect their identity. If you are engaged in unethical or illegal activities though, anonymous Web surfing solutions will not necessarily protect you from being caught and prosecuted.

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