Hiding your identity on the web

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TonyWarrington

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Recently had brief a conversation with a computer enthusiast.
He made the statement "There are very simple way to avoid being tracked by anyone including your ISP"

When questioned he refused to expand on this subject

At the time my reaction was that this would not be possible for the vast majority of the general public. My thinking was:
Using an ISP requires that said company knows about all systems during connection therefore they are able to track.
Information about an IP address can only be traced as far as the ISP that owns it.
ISP will not reveal to whom they've allocated the address unless it is for legal reasons via the proper agency.

I am aware that it is possible to hide your IP address while surfing and there may be valid reasons for doing so, however I had assumed that ISP would still be aware of activity and the allocated IP address.

Who is correct?
 
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I would have thought, as a layman, that as your ISP is your first connecting point, then unless you are a super duper hacker or the like, your IP address would always be visible to them. :confused:
 
Yes! Your ISP allocates you your IP address. Without one you wouldn't be able to receive any data back from them and the net, so you can't hide your IP from them!
 
The only way that I know is;

Set up a shell account with a secure shell provider, preferably in another country that doesnt have any kind of agreement with the UK.

Set up an SSH tunnel with port forwarding.

Connect to you shell account and browse the web from there.

All your ISP would know is that you are connected to a secure shell provider, the data within your tunnel is heavily encrypted.
 
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Its not all about hiding your IP address though is it?

Using the method that I describe above, your ISP would know that you connected to a shell server on port 22

There is nothing illegal about a shell server, and they would have no way of knowing what was going on after the point where you had connected to such a server.

All ports used are sent through the tunnel and so remain visible as port 22 to the ISP only.
 
Thanks guys you have confirmed my opinion that it is not possible to completely hide your tracks and activity as this guy stated. Had not thought about shell server and encryption.

Therefore my assumption that this is not as simple as stated and unlikely that the average joe would have the knowledge or will to attempt this seems justified
 
Going wireless & using mcdonalds etc you can hide who you are easily ;)
 
mattylad said:
Going wireless & using mcdonalds etc you can hide who you are easily ;)
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Ahh...I bet that was what he was getting at - he was a fat bastard and did look a little like this :LOL:
o_verdadeiro_ronald_macdonald.jpg
 
Or use Anonymiser all your ISP knows is that you have an SSL encrypted link to their server, from where you go from there they cannot tell. If you want to anonymise your emails, you can go a fair way with mixmaster, which makes them almost untraceable to the point where unless it was very serious no one would bother.
 
Copy below from a previous post.

"Ive just downloaded and I'm using "ultrasurf8" its allows anonymous browsing and hides your ip address.

http://www.ultrareach.com/

It has definitely changed my ip address and has slowed the connection speed by about 1.3% according to the ultrasurf monitor.

Any comments from the software experts would be most interesting."
 
TonyWarrington said:
Recently had brief a conversation with a computer enthusiast.
Click to expand...
Oh dear.

He made the statement "There are very simple way to avoid being tracked by anyone including your ISP"
Click to expand...
That's a thoroughly vague statement, whose meaning depends wholly on the meaning of "being tracked".

When questioned he refused to expand on this subject
Click to expand...
:rolleyes:

At the time my reaction was that this would not be possible for the vast majority of the general public. My thinking was:
Using an ISP requires that said company knows about all systems during connection therefore they are able to track.
Click to expand...
Again, whether or not you're correct depends on what you mean by "able to track".

Information about an IP address can only be traced as far as the ISP that owns it.
Click to expand...
This is not universally correct.

ISP will not reveal to whom they've allocated the address unless it is for legal reasons via the proper agency.
Click to expand...
That is correct - the Data Protection Act prohibits disclosure of information other than to authorised parties.

I am aware that it is possible to hide your IP address while surfing and there may be valid reasons for doing so, however I had assumed that ISP would still be aware of activity and the allocated IP address.
Click to expand...
That's a bit tautological - the ISP is indeed aware of the the IP address that the ISP allocates to your public-facing network connection.

Who is correct?
Click to expand...
I am. ;)
 
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