• You can either use some proxy gateways that will mask your actual IP address and use it own address. This is the most challenging solution to find as the list of proxies change so often.
• You can also use VPN servers. With such solution, you can chose the country where you want to land. Those solutions are especially very efficient for overcoming geolocation-limited services like Hulu, BBC iPlayer, …
• Then, for those who actually wants some “random/parallel” network that will hide them: ToR is one solution.
• For those who are more into browser-based solutions, you can find out addons that will allow you to achieve some kind of anonymity too

Except for ToR, most of those solutions expect you to connect you to one gateway, then this gateway will “mask” your connection before forwarding your request to any internet server that you want to see.

As I browsed the internet, I stumbled on one concept that seemed interesting (at least at first approach), it is called RiccoVPN and it is published by PrivacyProtector.

So I checked on their website and found out that they provide a privacy solution that requires you to install their proprietary client. What popped to my eyes is that it comes with a FREE solution that is called RiccoVPN FREE: while it is expected to be  a “bait” so that a potential user jumps into the paid version, the features can be of use for standard things like: connecting from a public Wi-Fi, from hotels or Airport. The caveat is that the bandwidth is limited to 512kbps and you can’t pretend to be somewhere else: though the free version isn’t a solution for bypassing geolocation-limited services.

As one would expect, most of the argument is stated in a way that you are pushed to opt for the RiccoVPN Plus solution instead of staying with the free solution. So I checked the Plus option and found out that RiccoVPN is implementing an encrypted P2P network instead of relying on a VPN gateway.

The idea is innovative, but yet has to prove how efficient it is. By leveraging on P2P network, internet connections are harder to track indeed (there’s no VPN gateway in the scheme). But since every user in the network is expected to run the RiccoVPN client, I would suspect that if I run the RiccoVPN client on my computer, then it would mean that my computer would also be used for encrypting other people’s traffic.

While this article isn’t a recommendation, I think there’s some potential in that no-gateway concept. With SOPA-like bills, there’s a tendancy to find some technical solutions that won’t allow you to be tracked from your ISP or VPN provider. From the “commercial ad”, RiccoVPN claims that “we do not need to know you“.  What do you think of that approach? Do you think it is something that you would try?

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RiccoVPN, a VPN Solution Without a Gateway

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But on the other hand, I always pride on trying to consider both sides of the fence, so although this blog is about showcasing different VPN and proxy solution to override geolocation limited services, or to hide your traces when you are surfing the internet, it’s always good to consider things that VPN and proxies can’t solve: and SOPA is one of them.

SOPA isn’t yet another technical jargon or protocol that the internet uses. It is an act that is being fiercly discussed at the U.S senate so as to allow a U.S attorney general to request the help of internet companies to identify and sue some pirates (you know, any internet user in the world who is doing illegal downloads and file sharing). I’ve written more details about this SOPA thing here.

So why did I put such a provocative title? Maybe because that’s the whole truth. Or maybe there’s some gray area there that won’t put you in a safe place if you are sued.

In fact, the whole point is simple: let’s suppose that someone does some file-sharing over the internet. Let’s not discuss if it’s a legitimate or not file-sharing. Let’s suppose that this file-sharer was smart enough to use a VPN or proxy for doing so.  For whatever reason, let’s suppose that the case comes under the SOPA act, so an attorney wants to know who the guy who did that file-sharing is. From the logs of the file-sharing server, there will be an IP address showing the computer that did the download/upload. So by going-up the line, the attorney would find that that IP address belongs to the VPN or Proxy service provider. He will then ask who that IP address belong to. SOPA allows him to do so.

At this stage, there may be some hot discussions about privacy and all those long political/legal debate so as to identify if the VPN provider would provide the information  or not. Should the SOPA become enacted, then there’s a legal argument that the VPN provider can’t deny, so he’ll be obliged to reveal the IP address corresponding to that specific connection.

Wait, wait, wait …

Aren’t VPN providers supposed not to log those kinds of things? Well, let’s just consider that if it isn’t clearly written on the contract that they don’t log your IP address, or anything private, then just assume they’re doing it – so I strongly advise you re-read your contract with the VPN or Proxy provider. From here, they have your actual IP address. Guess what, the SOPA enables the attorney to ask the ISP to reveal who used that IP at that time – guess what: the ISP would have to give the information he has about you on their files (or at least the data that are associated to the internet contract).

What’s your view? Am I being paranoid?

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When VPN and Proxies Won’t Protect You from SOPA

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On the other hand, the once called “The Pirate Bay” polled its users about their use of a hide-ip service, and it showed up that 70% of the users are using a VPN or a proxy service(or are planning to do so). The interesting thing is that out of this 70%, 51% are still in the planning phase to use a VPN or proxy service while 4.8% are already using a paid service. From that same study that the Pirate Bay has done, 12% have reported that they aren’t even aware of those concepts of hiding IP, VPN or proxies.

How-to-hide-ip readers, please do us a favor, help those people a bit, redirect them to the multitude of articles that we’ve already written here, and if they are looking for a solution, you’ve got a lot of options that we have already covered here.

Why those figures?

Well, it may be too obvious, but peer-to-peer file-sharing has always been considered as piracy. The concept of legal peer-to-peer is yet in its infancy age. On the other hand, there’s a lot of pressure and legal threats on those kind of services nowadays that leads to users being more conscious about anonymizing themselves when surfing, and especially when launching any peer-to-peer services.

If we consider the US especially, with that SOPA bill, and other threats over internet users, people want to free themselves from the threat of being sued. As the discussion has moved to the legal matters, it all boils down to definitions: and without getting into the details, there will always be a risk that some legitimate use of the internet would be assimilated to piracy.

A growing market for VPN and proxy demand

I can see you thinking that this is great news for VPN and proxy vendors. Well, this ain’t false. The more the threat of being sued will be, the greater the demand for such services. The good thing, though, is that, here, at how-to-hide-ip.info, we’ve reviewed both paid and free solutions thereby leaving to you the decision to opt for one solution or another. Yes, the demand for anonymizing end-user’s internet connection will always grow – especially with all those legal threat to “control” the internet. There will always people who will be rebel enough, or who just don’t want to get into troubles.

As a closing note, let’s be clear once and for all, here, at how-to-hide-ip.info, we aren’t here to promote piracy, we’re here to talk about solutions that already exist for anonymizing your internet connection.  As we started with figures, let’s end this article with another promising stat:  the report published by “the American Assembly” from Columbia University mentioned that “of the 30% of Americans who have “pirated” digital music files, 46% indicated they now do so less because of the emergence of low-cost legal streaming services. Among TV/movies pirates: 40%”.

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70% of Users Are Using a VPN or a Proxy Service (or are Planning to Do So)

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Haven’t heard about it yet? That’s fine. The goal of How-to-hide-ip.info isn’t to show you how to do it (sorry guys, there’s a lot of blogs, forum posts out there who are geared toward showing how to do it- this is not our goal here). Anyway, so as to understand the principles and then explain how secure it is, let’s just give an outline of how it works.

In most countries, since Facebook is such a popular magnet, most GSM telco operators have setup as special offer where their customers can access for free the mobile version of Facebook via a specific link (usually 0.facebook.com). Telcos are so keen on attracting more customers – usually young people who are addicted to this social network: giving those people an opportunity to access for free Facebook from their mobile is such an interesting offer that they can combine with other features, usually SMS.

At a Telco’s side,they are setting up specific accounting/authorization/authentication scheme so that the customers who subscribed for the “free Facebook” offer can only access the 0.facebook.com site. However, in the phreaking world, they’ve found a trick to circumvent this limitation. This trick relies on proxies and Opera mini handler.

What is interesting for our how-to-hide-ip.info readers is that the trick relies on proxies. Well, to be frank, there’s a cat-and-mouse game between the phreakers and the GSM Telco as finding the best proxy to use is like a treasure trove quest. But anyway, we all know how proxies work, right?

For those who doesn’t, you setup your browser (for our case, we use Opera Mini browser for mobile phones), so that it uses a distant proxy server for processing most of its internet requests. In other words, you specifically request that every internet packet that you are issuing be redirected first to some kind of gateway, who will rewrite your internet request before delivering it. The good thing is: proxies can usually help you circumvent some limitations that your internet service provider has setup for you (which is the case for us here). But the bad thing is, you give the proxy server the power to see whatever you’ll be doing online.

As I told earlier, not only will the proxy be able to see all your internet traffic, but since you’ll have to frequently change your proxy server (hey, the Telco’s network administrators are also doing their work, so they usually block the popular proxies that phreakers are commonly using). So at the end of the day, by choosing to get some free internet access from your mobile phone, you may end-up allowing some of those proxies (that you don’t even know, finally) to have access to some (or most) of the data available on your mobile phones.

Now think about it a second: most people don’t have the habit of keeping their phone updated with the latest security patches – however, in order to run this Opera Mini Handler, your phone needs to be able to run Java (which means that other programs can also be run on the same phone)- what if some malwares are injected into your phone? At the end of the day, it all comes down to the assertion “there’s no free beer” – things are given to you for free, but there must be some untold reasons behind it. What do you think those reasons are?

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Free Internet For Your Mobile Phone via Opera Mini Handler: How Safe Is It?

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What are the limitations of proxies?

Proxies were initially conceived for the http and https protocols. Then other protocols could be handled (FTP for example). Http being the most commonly used protocol on the internet, it is assumed that most applications are using it now. However, as technology evolves, more and more protocols can’t be passed through a proxy. This is one of the limits of using a proxy. Apart from that, using a proxy usually requires some modification on the user’s browser (some implementations can be setup as transparent proxy though). But by requesting the user to do some modifications on his browser, it limits the number of people who can do that with confidence. I know there are some ways to automatically configure proxies  on the user’s browser, but those means are usually implemented at corporate-level: which can’t always be implemented by the independent worker.

Why use Free proxy and what are the risks and limitations?

As a single-user, it is always tempting to use a Free proxy (who doesn’t love free things?). Here, at how-to-hide-ip, we have reviewed few of those Free Proxies, and while they can come handy, more often than not, they come along with some options that you don’t necessarily need. In fact, they either display too much ads for anything you’ll be doing online, or they also want to change some of your browser’s settings: your home page, your default search engine, and so one and so forth.

When not to use free proxies?

The most obvious situation is: you shouldn’t use free proxy services for any confidential online transactions you’ll be doing. So if you want to access your Paypal account, or even your bank account: just forget about going through a free proxy.

On the other hand, most free proxies (at least those that are web-based) impose some limitations:  it is common then to see a proxy service provider that do not accept technical things like javascript.

In terms of privacy: you definitely shouldn’t use a free proxy if you need to enter some kind of credentials on any website. In fact, by using a proxy, you are sending all your traffic into one gateway server before it spreads over the internet. By wanting to access your username and password of Gmail through a proxy server, you are also at risk of exposing your Gmail credentials, for example.

But one of the things that really annoys me when using a free proxy is the omnipresence of ads. While I understand that the business model of a free proxy lies somewhere else (ads, for example), I just find it harsh to flood everybody that is using the free proxy to watch/listen to some advertisements.

Those are only few items that should allow you to appreciate when not to use a free proxy. Now it’s really your call.

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When Not to Use a Free Proxy?

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Breaking proxies all boils down to disabling JavaScript. If a Web proxy allows JavaScript to be executed, then the protection is literally lifted. Since proxies use JavaScript methods for IP protection, all a website needs to do is override these methods that are meant to prevent an attack. Once this basic protection is lifted, web resources can then be “unproxified” and reveal a direct IP connection to a user.

Breaking a proxy can also be done by introducing invalid HTML code. Since web proxies interpret HTML code differently from your browser, omitting even one link of a website link such as an image or style will make it vulnerable to being bypassed. Enabling JavaScript will further make it impossible for the proxy to reach the real test site without providing full anonymity.

The only way to resist this attack is to disable all JavaScript plugins and scripts. Doing this will make it almost impossible to surf the web with a proxy since most sites need JavaScript-enabled browsers for navigation. Browser plugins like Flash and Java are also vulnerable to deanonymization and should therefore be deactivated. Alternatively, a proxifier software can be used to force Flash and Java to use proxy in order to protect your IP address.

There are, however, proxies that provide anonymity. Using a tool like IP Check can help you determine which proxies are more secure and how deep the proxy security goes. If you are sending private sensitive data, it is advisable to avoid using proxies altogether just to be on the safe side.

Post from: How to hide ip

Proxy Deanonymization – What Does It Mean

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So, lately, the guys from CyberGhost told us they have a new free Proxy and that we should check them out- which we did. So here are our impressions:

CyberGhost’s free proxy is a web-based proxy. This means that as an internet user, I don’t expect to install any software on my computer so as to be able to use it. But with the word free service, I always expect a lot of advertisements (they should be paid in one way or another, aren’t they?)

So I pointed my browser to the proxy server, then, along with the field for entering the URL of the website I want to reach (I chose BBC iPlayer- we all know that BBC UK iplayer isn’t available in my country). But something just got me wondering: there are some options that can be ticked on or off as you can see from the screenshot below

I just didn’t want to have a headache wondering why I would need to untick those checkboxes, so I left them ticked (my view is simple: most regular users wouldn’t even care about these options, unless they want to go the “advanced mode” way).

Ok, back to BBC iPlayer : the issue was simple: the list of proxy servers does not contain UK country: we have Germany, Netherlands, Russia and Ukraine.  I chose the Ukraine-based proxy and inserted BBC iPlayer into the Free Proxy. The good thing is that at least, I didn’t see a lot of pop-up showing-up here and then. But the advertisement takes 1/3 top of the browsing window, so you have to scroll down to see the actual website you are trying to see. And guess what?  As expected, I couldn’t watch BBC iPlayer. But anyway, I guess it would work for any country-based limited online service that fall into the list of countries aforementioned. Not sure yet. If anyone has a service that would fit into this criterion, feel free to mention it so that I can test.

But for the heck of testing, I browsed whatismyipaddress.com from the free proxy, and it actually reports me with a Ukraine-based IP address. So at least, I know that the IP address sent to webservers that I reach through this Proxy server isn’t my actual IP address.  I played a bit changing the country of the proxy, and Whatismyipaddress.com actually reported the right country. Moreover, by using the “Audit My PC anonymous surfing”, the basic results I received when using the free proxy is satisfying: it doesn’t show my actual GPS location, nor my actual country and IP address.

From what I’ve seen, this Free proxy actually works for changing my IP address, and it is not so cluttered as do other free proxies. However, the limited list of countries where they provide Proxy is a shortcoming so far.

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New Free Proxy From CyberGhost

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We all have heard countries who ban access to different services: from China to some countries during the “printemps arabe” where major revolutions happened in most of arabic countries . It all started with blocking access to major user-generated-content platforms (twitter, youtube, facebook, …). In fact, governments can do so by imposing some kind of control on all international internet gateways in their countries – every internet going through those gateways, they can filter out every traffic based on website address, IP address, protocols, type of content, …

In fact, the number of internet gateway for one country is limited, the main challenge for an entity who wants to filter is to take control (or at least be able to monitor) those gateways. Internet technology has it that everything is following standards and protocols, though easing the filtering process. While some protocols can use different ports randomly, the main challenge for the censor is to filter the initiating connection.

So how does it work from your user point of view: initialy, you want to use the regular applications (skype, instant messaging, …) or go to regular websites  (online mail laike gmail, yahoo, hotmail, …) or social media platforms (facebook, youtube, twitter, …) then try to use them as you normally do. You either see an error message stating that the access to the site has been blocked (well, at least if they are kind enough to inform you), or you see nothing happening on your computer …

While there is no one-size-fits-all solution for each problem you may be facing, it’s always good to take the following precautions:

- setup your workaround measures while it’s working. I can’t stress it enough. Figure out how can censorship come to you (based on the articles I just wrote or based on other online ressources), and set and test the appropriate workarounds,

- Test either of the following workaround:

• using some web proxy and endure the ads served by those web proxy service providers. Be careful though as some websites aren’t compatible with these implementations,

• use some VPN services so as to send your traffic through a secure and encrypted connection when going out of your country. However, as the China experience pointed out the Chinese Government has also begun blocking some VPN implementations (PPTP and L2TP based). Any way, SSTP and OpenVPN implementations seem to be working yet (until the port used will be blocked too)

Moreover, with the convergence of ICT technologies, it is now possible to use SMS for example to update twitter, thereby not using the internet-way, other solutions are expected to go mainstream.

So how can you overcome such censorship? Tor can eventually be you savior.

Post from: How to hide ip

Simplified View of Internet Censorship – Part II

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If you are a bit connected to social media (even if you don’t), I’m sure you’ve heard about Spotify – this online music streaming service that is only available for users in Finland, France, Norway, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom and the US (at least by the time of this writing). If you’re not in one of those countries, you won’t be able to listen for free to great music (they also have premium accounts, though). That’s too bad, especially when Spotify claims to have 13 millions music available for listening,  and we’re not talking about indie artists, they have big guys and gals on their list, if we only mention Beyoncé and Coldplay (just had a glance on their home page).

So you know that I am located in a place that is not part of those lucky countries. You are in the same situation too, I guess – otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this article.

But anyway, I’m just thinking that if a VPN can have me pretend that I am in New Jersey, I guess there must be a way that I can tell spotify that I’m in the US too … So let’s do it.

I launched my VPN client, then I got a US IP address. Now I can create a free spotify account. So I process, and … oops, I need to get an invitation code. While being a bit skeptical, I applied for being put on the waiting list of people who want to have an invitation to spotify.

I then browsed the internet looking for some invitation code that people may have put on forums, but, as you may guess, they are all used-invite that are worthless.

Trying to be a bit smarter, I tweeted if some people would give me a #spotify (please notice the use of the hashtag), I had two unknown people who answered me that they could give me an invite. But the trouble happened when it came to sending the invite as they requested my e-mail address. I didn’t want to give my e-mail address (well, I could have created a temporary one, but I was a bit lazy doing so), and those guys couldn’t DM me the invite, neither could I DM them as they aren’t following me on twitter – so it was a dead end (well, I could have been a bit insisting, and share a temporary address on twitter, but I didn’t want to be seen as an irresponsible twitter user who share his e-mail address to the public)

Anyway, less than one week after I applied to the waiting list, ….surprise! I received my official spotify invite. Great.

So I launched again my VPN client, got a US-based IP address, then clicked on the spotify invite link, created my account, downloaded the spotify client and …. I could listen to the whole album of “3 doors down” that they just released a few days ago …. Ain’t life VPN great? Yeah, I’ve got a Junk of the heart, and I’m happy.

Post from: How to hide ip

My Adventure to Accessing Spotify via a VPN service

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Anyone knowledgeable about the Internet will know that it takes money to run a proxy server. So, if proxy servers can’t run without money, where does that money come from?  It has to come from somewhere.  There really is no such thing as “free”.  Alas, something happens when a person who is usually sane sees or hears the word “FREE”.   That one word, “FREE”, somehow turns off all brain function.   “FREE” is the classic lure that is thrown out to catch these usually sane people like they are flies in a spider web.

Additionally, these free anonymous proxies use very persuasive print ads; brief, enlightening and enticing.

A sample of the opening paragraph taken from a site that claims to offer you access to anonymous proxies is as follows:

“An anonymous proxy allows you to bypass restrictions, browse blocked sites or simply browse privately and securely. If you browse the web through an anonymous proxy, no web site can find your real IP address. They can not track you and you are safe, secure and anonymous on the web. Access blocked sites like MySpace, Facebook, Orkut and more.”

If you would like to gain access to sites that your school or employer has restricted, this sounds very compelling.  Wouldn’t it be great to be able to somehow “fool” your employer into thinking you’re following policy when in fact, you’re not?   Then again, there are many other explanations as to why anonymous proxies are needed, the primary one being that you want your personal information protected.  Being able to access MySpace and Facebook without being discovered are bonus uses.  Now, let’s refer back to my first thought.  Running servers costs money.  Where is this money coming from?

As you are using the proxy, Google ads are posted on the pages.  These anonymous proxies earn cash mainly from these ads.  So far, so good, right?

Not really.  Sorry to say, some free web proxy sites contain ads that are flash-based and surfers are redirected to malware scan sites.  When this happens, the computer is “scanned” and malware is downloaded.  This is then hidden in folders on the hard drive.

Malware can take control of your computer, render your task manager inoperative, alter your registry, and take over your rights as administrator.  Malware also can place hidden, self-writing, executable files on your hard drive.   These will cause you even more misery as they run in the background.

“Free” anonymous proxy access sounded so good, didn’t it?  This just goes to show you that the old saying “if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is” should be followed.

Use your head if you feel you must surf the internet anonymously.   Purchase software that will provide you with reliable, safe, and secure anonymous proxy services.  These services have no ads, and give you layered security which includes data encryption, rotating IP addresses, which makes you sure that your personal information is protected.

Don’t be fooled by the “Free” Anonymous Proxy sites.  In life, there is one thing that is true: nothing is absolutely free.  Everything has a cost.  What you need to ask yourself is: “What cost will I be paying for FREE?”

We recommend looking at a paid proxy service such as Private Proxy.  Even thought they offer a free trial, you know they hope you will be completely satisfied with their service so that you will continue with them long after the trial is over.  So, sign up for your free trial today!

Here are some of the features of Private Proxy:

• Private Proxy offers a 7-day trial so you can make sure that it is going to work for your specific needs before you buy.  The trial is the software used for all clients and has no advertising or bandwidth limits.
• The installation is very easy. It runs without difficult configurations.
• There are several server locations in the US and the Netherlands that you can choose from.
• Rotating and Static IPs are available for your use. You can choose a static IP that never changes or you can opt for the rotating IPs that change every 30 minutes on the hour and the 1/2 hour.
• With Private Proxy, all your browsing traffic is routed through their secure servers with 128-bit encryption.

Why not sign up for their free trial?  Their goal is to convert you into a paying customer.  And who knows, maybe you will want to become one.

Post from: How to hide ip

Anonymous Proxy – You Get What You Pay For

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