-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [PCBUILD] Getting Rid of Viruses
From: Donald DeWitt <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, October 08, 2010 10:21 am
To: [log in to unmask]

 Along the lines of computer security issues, has anyone had experience
with
anonymity networks or proxy servers? I’m interested is exploring this
and
would appreciate any pros or cons on this subject. I have a Dell desktop
running XP. Don
-------

  First of all, none of these services is going to hide you from your
ISP (or if youuse the Internet from work or school, the administrators
of those networks.  Such networks often have policies about what you may
and may not use them for; IF they let you connect to an anonymizer or
proxy, the fact that you do so may call attention to your activity.  In
any case, they can see your traffic outside of the anonymity service --
as can anyone who can set up just in front of the service.  I've read of
multiple instances where inimical types compromised or took over access
to TOR (The Onion Router, a popular anonymity network) entry/exit nodes
in order to record and analyze unprotected traffic.
  They may conceal where you are coming from from web sites or other
services that you want to connect to, but if those services care who you
are, you'll have to log in, so that doesn't much matter.

  Such services may have some utility in evading surveillance by
national authorities or backbone ISPs -- they can see the traffic, but
may not be able to tell where it comes from or goes to.  This is kid of
the inverse of encryption, where generally they could see where the
traffic comes from and goes, but not what's in it...


  The scenario where anonymizing shines is if Big Brother is somebody
like a national government agency monitoring a limited number of
gateways.  When they see traffic that appears "suspicious" -- however
this paricular agency defines that -- anonymization can make it
impractical (security measures such as encryption almost never make
compromise impossible, just prohibitively expensive) to determine which
member(s) of the population sent/received the traffic.  Moving traffic
capture closer to the users makes anonymization less effective, but
means many more points need to be monitored.

  There is persistent belief that the NSA monitors Internet traffic on a
massive scale.  At last year's RSA Security Conference (2009), keynote
speakers included the author of a book who believes he has proven this
is true, and the head of the NSA who denied it.  If it's true,
anonymizing your Internet use might keep you below their radar, although
you'd want to also encrypt your traffic, or scrupulously avoid sending
identifying information such as email addresses, birthdates, photos,
etc.
  If you wish to communicate internationally, there may be more than one
government that could take an interest, and some ARE known to monitor on
that kind of scale.  Unfortunately, they're not above pressuring ISPs
outside the warrant process, or even setting up and running ISPs and so
the protections that anonymizing appears to promise may be less than
perfect.

  Security is largely about risk analysis -- how common and ow serious
is the risk, how expensive is the defence.  You may have a situation
where the threat is grave or the countermeasure is easy, in which case
it would be foolish not to take those steps.  My best guess is that for
most people in this country, the awkwardness of using an anonymizer
outweighs any credible threat, but your personal assessment might
differ.

David Gillett, CISSP
(Certified Information Systems Security Professional)

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