Wednesday, May 4, 2016

HOW TO HIDE YOUR IDENTITY WHILE SURFING THROUGH THE INTERNET

Howdy guys? Hope you all are fine. Hiding your identity while surfing through the internet is challenging, but this era have made a lot of changes from past. Now it became possible to hide your identity while surfing through the Internet .In this  post I will be informing you the ways to protect yourself while browsing through the internet.



HIDE YOUR IDENTITY- KEEP YOUR IDENTITY SECRET:

Your privacy is a most vital part when it comes to online. You don’t want other to know about who you are, where you live, or have any of your other sensitive data. Once a person gets hold of any of your valuable information, he/she can begin and start searching for more info about you with the current data they already have on you. This makes their job much more easier as it is like solving a jigsaw puzzle. Hackers can do it by many ways such as social engineering ,foot printing they put all the pieces together and all of your information is revealed.


WHAT SHOULD YOU KEEP IN MIND WHILE YOU ARE ONLINE?

Name : When registering on a forum, like this one, or on any other site, NEVER ever use your real name. You can use your real name on trusted official sites like PayPal, Amazon, or eBay, but on other sites where it’s not really necessary to input your real name, use an alias or a fake name. You can instantly create a fake profile using Fake Name Generator.

Location : Don’t ever give out your real location. Whether it’s saying what continent you live in or what country you live in, they don’t need to know. For most people, they will not reveal their location to other people on the internet. However, that doesn’t mean your location can still be exposed. Your IP (Internet Protocol) can easily expose where you are in the world. Anyone can go on a website like IP Location, whois, ip2location input your IP, and start gathering your location and information of your ISP (Internet Service Provider). Now that we know our IP can give out quite a lot of information to unwanted users, we need to prevent it from happening.



How to prevent from it?

A VPN (Virtual Private Network) connects you to the internet with a disguised IP. Rather than showing your real IP, it gives out your VPN’s IP.

How does a VPN work? Well according to Wikipedia, “A VPN is created by establishing a virtual point-to-point connection through the use of dedicated connections, virtual tunneling protocols, or traffic encryptions. Through VPN you can access your private network over Internet”.

You can use a VPN to help protect yourself and remain anonymous. If you IP were to be exposed, only your VPN IP would be exposed, leaving your home IP safe.

You can definitely find many VPNs (free and paid). Some of them are listed below:

» VPN (Free/Paid)




PROTECTING YOURSELF  ONLINE:

Now, what is online protection and offline protection? Online protection is securing yourself online while browsing the world wide web. Once you try to connect yourself to different places in the internet, you will need to make sure you’re not posing a threat to your security. Offline protection is securing your system from malware, viruses, spywares, all sorts of malicious pest.

Generate a fake profile for online use: You can use that fake information for sites that you’re not quite sure about. That way, if someone finds your information online, it’s your fake profile and not your real one. A quick and easy way of generating a fake profile is by using Fake Name Generator.

Using the TOR browser: What is TOR? As stated on their site, “Tor is a free software and an open network that helps you defend against traffic analysis, a form of network surveillance that threatens personal freedom and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security”. Basically, Tor is an anonymous web browser. Every time you use Tor, it’ll hide your IP, just like a VPN can but on a web browser.

Using Mozilla Firefox: The only browser that I use is Mozilla Firefox,also do not use IE,Google Chrome,Opera,Safari… Why Mozilla?Because I try not to use anything that is American production.Pirate Mozilla is American made but unlike the listed browsers that are also American corporations except Opera (Norwegian made) respects the privacy of users more than others.

Using Search engines:

Start Page: My first choice goes to Startpage as it is a Dutch company.”Startpage offers you Web search results from Google in complete privacy. When you search with Startpage, they remove all identifying information from your query and submit it anonymously to Google ourselves.It get the results and in return we get total privacy. In Start Page your IP address is never recorded, your visit is not logged, and no tracking cookies are placed on your browser. When it comes to protecting your privacy, Startpage runs the tightest ship on the Internet. Our outstanding privacy policy and thoughtful engineering give you great search results in total anonymity.

DuckDuckgo: DuckDuckGo has everything to expect a search engine to have, including images, news and places, all while respecting privacy. It have a great results without tracking you. But anyhow i would like to prefer StartPage rather than choosing DuckDuckGo.

Use a generated email :Do you notice that spam you get often in your inbox? That’s because when you input your email on a site (some sites may or may not do this), they will give it to third parties that will send you unwanted emails. They will send you ads, phishing links, and all sorts of junk. What I recommend you to do is have a personal email, the one where you do all your business, and a “recyclable” email, for your entertaining needs. 10 Minute Mail is a great site to use for things such as a quick signup and email verification.

Temporary email services: Disposable Email Addresses (DEAs) are anonymous and temporary. They allow users to quickly create new email addresses as-and-when they’re needed, which can then be disposed of after use. This is particularly useful for avoiding spam when filling in forms on websites that require an email address to proceed. Keeping your real email address away from spammers is crucial to protecting your identity online and DEAs are a great solution. Popular providers of this service include Guerrilla Mail and Mailinator, although there are hundreds out there to choose from. Most DEAs are not particularly secure, so it is not advised to use these services to send sensitive information – rather, use them as a way to avoid giving away your own information in situations where you are obliged to do so

PROTECTING YOURSELF OFFLINE:

You might end up downloading unwanted programs into your system as you browse online. Things such as viruses, trojans, keyloggers, and spywares could end inside your computer all because of silly mistakes. Most computers nowadays will automatically have an antivirus to protect your system. Make sure that AV is always on, and as a second protection, make sure you turn on your firewall or use a firewall program.

These viruses and trojans will hurt your computer’s health. What’s worst about this is that it can easily spread and infect others. Keyloggers and RATs are important to be reminded of. These things can and will steal your information. Anything you type can be logged. Your computer screen will most likely be watched by another user. Many bad things can happen from these little monsters.

»Antivirus Softwares




» Anti-Malware Softwares




» Virus/URL Scanners




» Miscellaneous




Operating System:

Linux: Like i sad try not to use anything that is American production.In this case my primary OS is Windows,because i study and it need me to perform activities related for a college.Other operating systems that are using: Kali Linux best pentesting OS and Tails. Tails is a live operating system, that you can start on almost any computer from a DVD, USB stick, or SD card. It aims at preserving your privacy and anonymity.

CONCLUSION:

This article is basically for those who want to use technology safely to communicate, organize, and share data (news reports, information, media, etc.) – but it can be used by anyone online anywhere who wants to protect their privacy and security.

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