Hiding Your IP Address 101

I recently blogged about reasons why you might want to hide your IP address and a comment by Larry Westfall asking how this can be done.

So here I present to you an introduction to how you can hide your IP.

But before I start I will say that one of these methods will require you to be comfortable with adjusting your computer settings with the other just requiring you to install a piece of software.

Just before we dive in though a quick walk through on IP’s. An IP address is akin to your post or zip code and applies to one single machine at a time. When we surf the internet we utilise two IP Addresses – a public and a private one. It is the public address we are talking about hiding in this case.

Method 1:

Proxy Servers

These fall into two categories:

1. Browser based such as: Proxify, Anonymouse and The Cloak and

2. Server based – also known as: anonymous proxy, high anonymity proxy, transparent proxy and distorting proxy.

Using a server based proxy is simplicity itself though. It’s a matter of editing your browser settings to reflect which server and port they require and then browse as normal. Some browsers even have plugins that make switching between anonymous and open an even easier process.

Method 2:

VPNs

VPN or Virtual Private Network are almost always a ‘pay to use’ service but can be found from around $5pm upwards for home use. VPNs typically work by installing software (but not always) on your PC that “wraps up” your PC such that your PC is seen as a part of the remote network – in this case the supplier of the VPN service.

Typically VPN traffic is also encrypted which makes the logs that your ISP keeps unusable.

If you pay for a VPN service then one huge benefit is that it will typically ‘secure’ your browsing when you use public wi-fi hotspots which are notoriously open allowing all sorts of problems.

Some aspects to conisder when researching a VPN supplier are:

• Security
• Reliability
• Scalability/ Speed / Low Latency
• What O/S does it work with?
• Do they offer mobile (aka wi-fi hotspot) access as a default?
• Do they cover all protocols or just HTTP and HTTPS?

Personally I can recommend the products from WiTopia – I am a previously happy customer of theirs and they had excellent tech support when I used them. I also like the look of, if only for the name, Banana VPN and of course there is IPREDator from the powers behind The Pirate Bay.

Alternatively just search for “personal VPN” via your favourite search engine.

Method 3:

Tor

Tor is best described in their words: “Tor distributes your transactions over several places on the Internet, so no single point can link you to your destination. The idea is similar to using a twisty, hard-to-follow route in order to throw off somebody who is tailing you — and then periodically erasing your footprints. Instead of taking a direct route from source to destination, data packets on the Tor network take a random pathway through several relays that cover your tracks so no observer at any single point can tell where the data came from or where it’s going.”

The trouble with Tor is that you need to be fairly computer literate to use it fully and it doesn’t, by its own admission “magically anonymize all your traffic“.

Tor will only protect applications that have bene pre-configured to use it.

Tor recommend you use a Firefox plugin called Torbutton – but this automatically blocks other plugins that could potentially reveal your IP Address and thus rendering the reason(s) to use Tor. These include Java, Flash, QuickTime, ActiveX, PDF plugins, RealPlayer and so on. In real life this means that Youtube use will be useless.

When using Tor you have to be very aware of browsing in a non-Tor mode as any cookie left behind will get re-used during a Tor session again opening you up to being identified.

My final warning on the use of Tor is that it’s anonymity and encryption really depend on you using it correctly. You also need to be aware that the encryption only takes place whilst in the Tor network – not from you to the Tor setup (via your ISP) and not from the last hop in the Tor network to your destination.

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So there you have it.

Three methods of hiding your IP.

Some more simple to action, some free and some complicated if not of a technical mindset.

• Is my 101 to involved – should it have been split into a multi-part post?
• Have I missed any obvious methods to hide your IP?
• Do you plan (or do you already?) to hide your IP?