Do you
want to surf
anonymously
or not?
AnonymityTest.com
gives it to you straight on surfing anonymously using proxy servers.
You can surf anonymously using a proxy server. But many of
the
proxy servers available on the web are not anonymous at all -- even the
ones that they say
are
anonymous! And some of the sites that claim to determine whether
your proxy server is anonymous can give out misleading or incorrect
results!
The
following came with your request for this content:
-->
--> -->
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/usr/lib/python2.6/cgitb.py:173: DeprecationWarning: BaseException.message has been deprecated as of Python 2.6
value = pydoc.html.repr(getattr(evalue, name))
<type 'exceptions.ImportError'> | Python 2.6.5: /usr/bin/python
Sun Feb 5 22:19:37 2012 |
A problem occurred in a Python script. Here is the sequence of
function calls leading up to the error, in the order they occurred.
| /srv/www/cgi-bin/VisitorInfo.cgi in () |
58 sHttpCookie )
|
59 #
|
60 PutInfoOut( tEnvVars )
|
61 #
|
62 # UpdateLog( sDotAddr, sHttpVia, sHttpXFwd4 )
|
| PutInfoOut = <function PutInfoOut>, tEnvVars = ('38.107.179.223', 'None', 'n/a', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'CCBot/1.0 (+http://www.commoncrawl.org/bot.html)', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'no-cache', 'None') |
| /srv/www/cgi-bin/VisitorInfo.py in PutInfoOut(tEnvVars=('38.107.179.223', 'None', 'n/a', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'CCBot/1.0 (+http://www.commoncrawl.org/bot.html)', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'no-cache', 'None')) |
31 # from PowerGrabMethods import StrGotDotAdd
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32 # from Web.Test import GotDotAdd
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33 from Web.HTML import ReplaceCharsWithSpecialCodes
|
34 #
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35 print 'Content-type: text/html\n'
|
| Web undefined, ReplaceCharsWithSpecialCodes undefined |
<type 'exceptions.ImportError'>: No module named Web.HTML
args =
('No module named Web.HTML',)
message =
'No module named Web.HTML'
For anonymous surfing, no web site that you visit (including this site
and all the other on-line tests for anonymity) should be able to
determine your IP address.
For complete anonymity, your proxy server should spoof all web
servers (including this one) by concealing your true IP address -- your
identity. The proxy server can do this by giving its own IP
address to the sites that you visit, but not giving your IP
address. The most anonymous of proxy servers will even not disclose that they
are acting as proxy servers -- when using one of these, the web servers
you visit will think the proxy server is surfing the web, not
you.
You can determine whether a proxy is truly anonymous using this
site. But since a
truly anonymous proxy
server will spoof this site too, the test has two
steps:
- Know the IP address that your Internet Service Provider
("ISP") gives you when you surf.
You can find this out by turning your proxy server off, navigating to this site,
then recording the "Requested by IP" shown above. (Some ISP's
will give you one of many addresses, so this step can be more complicated --
see below.)
- Turn your proxy server on, then return to this site.
Anywhere above, do you see any IP address from your ISP?
- If you do,
your proxy
server is not anonymous.
- If you do not, congratulations!
You are surfing anonymously!
A number of sites on the web rate your proxy when you navigate to the
site. The result such sites give to you can be misleading or
wrong. As explained below, such sites cannot tell the difference
between surfing without a proxy and surfing with a truly anonymous
proxy. Also, if you are behind a firewall that includes a local
cashing proxy (good for you!), such sites will think your local caching
proxy is the proxy server that you want the site to rate. (A
local cashing proxy can make your surfing faster but it will not make
your surfing anonymous.) If you surf directly to one of those
sites that rate your proxy but do so without a proxy server, the site
might tell you your proxy is
completely anonymous, when you are not surfing anonymously at
all. Those sites that rate your proxy do show you the IP address
they think you are surfing from (as above).
When you surf, your ISP gives you an address;
it may give you one address only (yours), or it may give you one of the
hundreds or thousands of IP addresses that it owns. ISP's usually
own IP addresses in a "block" (i.e., range). The left two numbers
are often the
same, but even when this is so, the right two numbers may vary.
You can often determine the range
for your ISP from the "Who Is" information you can get by clicking on
the button above. The
address that your ISP gives you may change from session to session, but
must be an address in a range that your ISP owns.
As if all that is not complicated enough, some ISP's own blocks in
several ranges, and will give you any free address from any and all of
the ranges that it owns. This can even occur in just one
session. For example, assume your ISP owns these two ranges among
others: 61.232.0.0 to 61.232.255.255 AND 211.58.0.0 to
211.58.255.255. (We made up the ranges, and we extend our
apologies to the actual owners of these ranges, whoever you may
be.) If you go to Google first to do a search, your ISP could
connect you from 61.232.10.99, and then when you click on one of the
Google search results, your ISP could connect you from 211.58.99.45.
If you were not surfing anonymously, Google would know that you
connected from 61.232.10.99, while the site you went to next would know
that you connected from 211.58.99.45.
Not only that, but some ISP's will give you IP addresses from different ranges
in different weeks -- this week, if you discover all the different ranges that
your ISP gives you, next week you may discover your ISP is giving you adddresses
in completely different ranges. Therefore, for the best (most reliable) results,
check the IP addresses that your ISP gives you from time to time.
Does an ISP giving out addresses from different ranges give you any
anonymity? Very little -- see the page Your ISP and You.
To know who you are, the bad guys would have to get information
from your ISP anyway. If they find out which ISP you use, they probably have you where they want you. In the USA and many other countries, your
ISP is required to keep records on the IP addresses that it furnishes
to you and to its other customers, so your ISP can identify you by doing a simple
lookup. If someone wants to know who you are badly enough, they only need to
know the site you were visiting and when, and get a court order against your ISP.
Surfing through an anonymous proxy server in a far away land will help by making it more difficult or impossible for anyone to know who was visiting the site.
A non-elite but anonymous proxy server in a country that is unlikely to cooperate with the bad guys is probably a lot better than an elite proxy in your own country or in a country where the bad guys are likely to get government cooperation.
Examples
No proxy server, direct connection to Internet
| |
Requested
by IP:
|
[Your
IP address or ISP IP address]
|
|
| |
Via
Proxy Server:
|
None
|
|
| |
On
behalf of:
|
n/a
|
|
Proxy server, not anonymous ("transparent")
| |
Requested
by IP:
|
[Proxy
IP address]
|
|
| |
Via
Proxy Server:
|
XYZ
|
|
| |
On
behalf of:
|
[Your
IP address or ISP IP address] |
|
ISP (caching) proxy server -- not anonymous
| |
Requested
by IP:
|
[ISP
IP address or your IP address]
|
|
| |
Via
Proxy Server:
|
XYZ or
blank |
|
| |
On
behalf of:
|
[Your
IP address or Unknown] |
|
Local network caching proxy server -- not anonymous
| |
Requested
by IP:
|
[Your
IP address or ISP IP address]
|
|
| |
Via
Proxy Server:
|
XYZ
|
|
| |
On
behalf of:
|
Unknown |
|
Anonymous, but disclosing, proxy server
| |
Requested
by IP:
|
[Proxy
IP address] |
|
| |
Via
Proxy Server:
|
XYZ
|
|
| |
On
behalf of:
|
Unknown
|
|
Anonymous proxy server with fake
"On behalf of"
| |
Requested
by IP:
|
[Proxy
IP address] |
|
| |
Via
Proxy Server:
|
XYZ
|
|
| |
On
behalf of:
|
[IP
address with no connection to you]
|
|
Truly anonymous proxy server
| |
Requested
by IP:
|
[Proxy
IP address] |
|
| |
Via
Proxy Server:
|
None
|
|
| |
On
behalf of:
|
n/a
|
|
Your Ad Here
Contact Sales at AnonymityTest dot com
|
Do you really need anonymity?
As explained on the
page Your ISP and You, even
the most anonymous proxy server only maintains your anonymity to the
sites you visit, and hides nothing from your ISP.
In 2005, Yahoo
China identified a blogger named Shi Tao who was promptly convicted of
"leaking state secrets", and then sentenced to hard labor and
"re-education". Shi Tao might have evaded identification and
capture if he had only been accessing his blog through an anonymous
proxy server in a far-away country that allows its citizens to complain
about the government; a proxy server in the USA or Western Europe would have allowed Shi Tao to keep blogging.
If you live in a police state and want to publish your complaints about
government abuses, then you need to surf anonymously.
If you live in a police state and just want to read the New York Times,
you have less to worry about -- the New York Times cannot be forced to
divulge its on-line readership. Even if you surfed anonymously,
your ISP would still know what you were reading.
The number of people who actually need anonymity may be far less than
the impression one can get from reading the sites selling anonymity
products.
|
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Translations
| Term |
HTTP Header |
| Requested
by IP |
REMOTE_ADDR
|
| Via
Proxy Server |
HTTP_VIA
|
| On
behalf of |
HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR
|
HTTP Headers are variables containing information that is exchanged
between your browser and the web servers for the sites you visit. |
|
From the examples above, note that a truly anonymous proxy server and
the worst case scenario (no proxy server) look exactly the same -- the
only difference is
the IP address, and whether the address can be traced back to you
easily!!!
Some links for sites with information about proxy servers:
AnonymousTest, AnonymousTest.com, AnonymityTest, AnonymityTest.com and
PowerGrab
are trademarks of PowerGrab Corportion.
Copyright © 2005-2006 PowerGrab
Corporation. All rights reserved.
