For many years, the only people who worried about being spied on whilst online were media pirates, which is ANYONE who downloads anything that has any form of copyright on it, and the actual criminals who do business online. You know, bankers, lawyers, government officials, and the like. But now with the NSA reading every filthy email you send your sweetheart while you’re away on business, more and more people worry about Big Brother snooping around the private lives we’ve all built online.
This article isn’t about stealing movies and music without getting caught. This is about keeping a nosy government out of our emails and browsing history. If you’re not harming anyone, then what you do online is of no concern to others, and especially no concern of a bunch of suits who want to censor the internet and peek at your private details without cause, and without regard for your privacy.
But I’m getting off track here. Why you hide yourself online is your business, and none of mine. I’m not here to spout right wing or left wing bureaucracy. I’m only here to guide you through surfing the web anonymously. There are hundreds of programs and tricks to keep you off the spies’ radars. Some work, some don’t, and some are nothing more than internet rumors that never existed in the first place. Spend some time in the underbelly of the web, and you’ll see what I mean. The internet is the ultimate rumor mill, usually hindering progress instead of helping it.
The first thing, and the one I used for a while, is PeerBlock. PeerBlock is an open source program that uses frequently updated IP lists to block known tracking software from seeing your activity online. Some say it works, some say it doesn’t. I’ve never experienced anything bad when it comes to PeerBlock, but that doesn’t mean anything. It’s a very basic solution that relies on well-known lists that everyone has access to, including the folks it intends to block. All they have to do is get a new IP, and boom. PeerBlock used to update for free, but now they charge around $10.00 per year for their lists, or you can get a free update every week. If you want minimal comfort and security, go for it. If you’re a little more wary about being watched, then read on.
The second thing I’ve come across on my journeys is Tor Browser. Tor Browser was created by the good folks over at the US Navy, believe it or not, to keep businesses from tracking what a user does online. It’s a modified version of Firefox that works on any OS, and routes your IP address through several “onion” servers, obscuring your original address. The NSA has tried repeatedly to crack through the security with no luck thus far. Ironically, the primary source of funding has been the US Government itself. It’s non-profit, run by volunteers who host servers around the world, and is completely open-source. Tor Browser is strong Kung-Fu, and keeps you from being tracked or located based on your IP address. It also doesn’t keep a browsing history, so no having to remember to delete that after you’re done looking at pr0n.
There are a couple of downsides to Tor Browser. First, it’s going to be slower than regular browser due to everything you browse having to jump from relay to relay before it gets back to you. It also blocks Flash and QuickTime plugins, so you’ll have to use something else if that’s a problem for you. Watching YouTube videos is disabled by default, but you can quickly remedy that by opting out of YouTube’s HTML5 site. A fun fact, after Edward Snowden revealed what the NSA was up to last year, Tor Browser usage jumped from 500,000 users to nearly 6 million.
Unfortunately, Tor Browser has also become a tool of the “dark web”, as it has features that enable certain websites to be visited only by Tor and no other browser. Actual criminals have taken advantage of this, such as pedophiles, and use it to share underage pornography. It’s a shame when something meant to protect us is used in such a manner, and a lot of these scum are brought to light thanks to hacktivists who also use Tor. It’s a vicious circle, but more often than not it takes care of itself.
Last but not least, we have VPN. By comparison, PeerBlock is child’s play. Tor Browser is just an add-on. VPN (or Virtual Private Network), is the equivalent of duct taping your windows and wearing tin foil on your head. Except that it works. VPNs reroute all of your information through servers hosted in hundreds of countries around the world, effectively making it appear as though you are based far from home no matter what you’re doing. Some are slower than others, however, and even the fastest VPNs are going to slow you down somewhat. I used VPNbook, which is free, and it routed me through some place in unnamed place in Europe that was so slow that I eventually just uninstalled it.
But with a little searching, you can find what suits you best. I happened upon CyberGhost 5, which has a free option along with premium service. CyberGhost doesn’t keep logs of what you do, which is what you want in a good VPN, only costs about $7.00 per month for premium service, and has a very usable free service that hardly slowed down my connection at all. The only real downfall that I could find with the free service is that you have to wait 60 seconds to connect while staring at an ad for their premium service, but that’s something I can deal with. CyberGhost also protects iOS devices and works with OSX as well.
Five years ago I would have said that PeerBlock along with private browsing and some common sense was more than enough to protect your identity and personal information, and that using something like Tor Browser was a little Conspiracy Theory, but things have changed. Unless you protect yourself, everything you do online is tracked and logged, and each time you put your credit card information into a field to buy something you’re taking a risk. Your bank account could be cleaned out by this time tomorrow, and your identity stolen in minutes. And on top of those worries, there is the ever present watchful eye of the NSA, who have nothing better to do than spy on its own citizens, it would seem.
As George Orwell put it; “It’s a cautionary tale.”