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Going dark: online privacy and anonymity for normal people

troyhunt.com

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Re: Going dark: online privacy and anonymity for normal people

#31

Post by frontendthing »

Very important also: avoid webmasters that put lots of trackers on their websites - for a few bucks they are selling your identity and make you trackable, these guys have no morality and are thiefs. Some of them even go so far to fabricate postings about how to use the web "anon" and still put lots of trackers on their website to make you identifiable!

Also some of these webmasters allow discussion only via a centralized service that again wants to identify you - also that centralized service is great to track your activity. Even more: these centralized discussion services will censor your comment when you are using any kind of vpn or tor or a mailinator address - you can identify collaborateurs of the privacy-destroying industry very easy by this alone.

All these webmasters and centralized services are the real scum of the web and must be avoided.

Re: Going dark: online privacy and anonymity for normal people

#32

Post by apecat »

Great article.

The only real omission I noticed is the lack of mention of advanced browser fingerprinting techniques that can be used against browsers, even if caches are emptied, 'porn modes' activated, VPNs opnened. As demonstrated here by the EFF's Panopticlick initiative. https://panopticlick.eff.org/

One of the most important points about the anonymity provied by the Tor project to remember is that the Tor Browser is painstakingly hand crafted to avoid many of these problems. In other discussions about TOR it is worryingly common to see other ways to route browser traffic through TOR, without mentions of the implications.

For those interested, here's a recent look into the Tor Browser system by one of the developers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rq5Qbj2Aouo

Re: Going dark: online privacy and anonymity for normal people

#33

Post by tiatia »

apecat wrote: post #32

Great article. The only real omission I noticed is the lack of mention of advanced browser fingerprinting techniques that can be used against browsers, even if caches are emptied, 'porn modes' activated, VPNs opnened. As demonstrated here by the EFF's Panopticlick initiative. https://panopticlick.eff.org/ One of the most important points about the anonymity provied by the Tor project to remember is that the Tor Brows…

What do you mean with "VPNs opnened"?

The article is wrong about Tor being an alternative option to a VPN. If anonymity is your concern, you should use TOR to connect to a VPN (paid with Bitcoins).

Re: Going dark: online privacy and anonymity for normal people

#34

Post by mbrock »

Kiro wrote: post #27
mbrock wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you're not receptive to any reasoning about future values, which seems sad.

Why is it sad? I live in the moment and I'm very happy. I'm not saying everyone should be like me though.

It's sad because it seems to treat the entire future as a kind of lost cause, which to me is primally saddening, like nihilism or solipsism.

Re: Going dark: online privacy and anonymity for normal people

#35

Post by htns »

rkrzr wrote: post #20

TLDR: Use a VPN + Incognito mode + fake email and info The VPN hides your IP. Incognito mode prevents your cookies from giving away your identity. And the fake info helps with things like sites being hacked and the data being dumped online.

And you really should try to use a reputable VPN, like the one they recommend in the article. Plenty of VPN services are in the business of injecting ads and malware, logging your traffic, stealing passwords and credit card numbers, etc.

Re: Going dark: online privacy and anonymity for normal people

#36

Post by auganov »

tiatia wrote: post #33
apecat wrote: post #32

Great article. The only real omission I noticed is the lack of mention of advanced browser fingerprinting techniques that can be used against browsers, even if caches are emptied, 'porn modes' activated, VPNs opnened. As demonstrated here by the EFF's Panopticlick initiative. https://panopticlick.eff.org/ One of the most important points about the anonymity provied by the Tor project to remember is that the Tor Brows…

What do you mean with "VPNs opnened"? The article is wrong about Tor being an alternative option to a VPN. If anonymity is your concern, you should use TOR to connect to a VPN (paid with Bitcoins).

With a properly setup TORbrowser it will use a different tor circuit for every host. Using a [single] VPN "centralizes" your exit connections. For HTTPS enabled sites TOR is perhaps a better choice, just have to be careful of sslstrip.

Re: Going dark: online privacy and anonymity for normal people

#37

Post by astrobe_ »

jrcii wrote: post #2

I really object to the language of "dark" to describe privacy or anonymity, which are thereby painted with a sinister connotation.

I suggest the german "Geist" which means spirit or ghost (as in Poltergeist). It sounds a bit like "Guest" and Ghostery uses this metaphor already. Plus, german is cool.

Re: Going dark: online privacy and anonymity for normal people

#38

Post by geocar »

sixhobbits wrote: post #26

I'm surprised he doesn't mention NoScript, Privacy Badger, etc. "Normal people" should be more concerned about about the highly detailed profiles that companies are building based on browsing habits. "Normal people" read about data breaches and embarrassing leaks that force politicians to resign. "Normal people" know nothing about the behind the scenes tracking that goes on when you google medical symptoms[0] or visi…

> think about whether you'd rather have your bank statement made public or a large, visualizable data set representing most of your browsing history.

If someone got access to my banking details, they could do far more damage than just make my bank statements public.

Now I've dealt with identity theft and credit card fraud, and I work in digital marketing, so I know which one I'd choose: Nobody is going to visualise my individual browsing history, and even if they did (for what reason I can't imagine), I can't imagine what they'd do with it! I can imagine someone might try to build a demographic profile about me to sell me stuff that I'd like, but that's good because it would be stuff that I would like.

Re: Going dark: online privacy and anonymity for normal people

#39

Post by etiam »

stephengillie wrote: post #3
jrcii wrote: post #2

I really object to the language of "dark" to describe privacy or anonymity, which are thereby painted with a sinister connotation.

Similar to /s/blacklist/blocklist, maybe we can replace this with "Going Transparent" to describe privacy or anonymity.

"Going Clear"?

Re: Going dark: online privacy and anonymity for normal people

#40

Post by tiatia »

auganov wrote: post #36
tiatia wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean with "VPNs opnened"? The article is wrong about Tor being an alternative option to a VPN. If anonymity is your concern, you should use TOR to connect to a VPN (paid with Bitcoins).

With a properly setup TORbrowser it will use a different tor circuit for every host. Using a [single] VPN "centralizes" your exit connections. For HTTPS enabled sites TOR is perhaps a better choice, just have to be careful of sslstrip.

I even vaguely remember that in one of Snowdens released documents, the NSA wrote in a powerpoint presentation that this setup causes head aches. Will try to find it again.
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