Future Touch

I guess I’m not going to be very popular after publishing this article, but this is really a big problem and one that needs to be addressed very quickly before it grows into another digital snowball like spam and malware. IT departments spend a lot of time and money on network security. Restrictions are put into place, not only to protect corporate data, but also for the safety of everyone working on the corporate network. However, network restrictions are not only for the corporate world, these restrictions are also present at schools and even in our homes. But what is the use of protecting your data and privacy if you constantly have to deal with cyber rats eating their way through your defences from the inside?

A proxy is often blocked as soon as the network administrator becomes aware of the fact that it is used to gain unauthorised access to websites and other networks. That’s the reason why people are constantly in search of brand new proxies and what scares me the most, is the rate at which these new proxies become available, it is so bad you can even regard it as another form of spam. The sad reality however, is that the people who use these proxies, either do not know a thing about PC security, or they don’t give a damn about it. Browsing restricted sites via an illegal proxy exposes your computer to malware and hackers, putting the whole network at risk. Confidential and sensitive corporate information can easily be leaked and the privacy of every employee using the corporate network could be compromised due to the selfish acts of employees who can’t walk between the lines. So you are not only putting your colleagues in a tight spot, your compromising your own security as well.

The most popular reason for a proxy is to gain access to social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, Orkut or Twitter. Social networking sites are time and money wasters in terms of productivity, bandwidth and company resources. Instead of doing their jobs, people waste hours and hours of productivity during the day, by hanging out on social community sites. To add insult to injury, they don’t use their own bandwidth to chill on these sites, they use company bandwidth, company computers and company printers to do what they should be doing after work. Kids browse these social communities instead of attending to their schoolwork, wasting their parents’s money, or the money of the taxpayer if the government funds the school. Speaking of the government, what about government workers? Instead of delivering the services we pay for, they browse MySpace, Facebook, Orkut or Twitter with our tax money. (Some governments do not even have any network security to speak of, so they can access any site without the use of a proxy).

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against the use of social networking sites, but there is a time and place for everything and social networking sites do not have a place at the office or at school (unless you are the PR manager of the company maintaining the company profile on MySpace). Before everyone starts to call me a party pooper, accusing me of taking the fun out of the office, think about this: If everyone spent more time on their job and less time on social networking sites during working hours, we will get a lot more work done and will therefore have plenty of time to hang out with friends and family on our favourite social networking sites. Don’t be mad at your boss for limiting your Internet access, the fact that you are using a proxy to bypass Internet filters and other limitations imposed by your employer, already tells me that you can’t use the Internet responsibly. If you really need to use these sites, visit them after work or after school and if you don’t have a computer at home, use a friend’s computer or visit an Internet café. It has to be mentioned though, that 3rd party proxies are not only used to access social networking sites, but they are also popular for **** surfing and the downloading of pirated software, music and movies. These sites are far worse than social networking sites, because they do not only waste valuable man-hours, they are often loaded with nasty malware, a direct threat to the safety of everyone working on the network.

The bottom line is, companies invest a lot in computer security, computer labs at schools do their best to keep their networks safe and clean and parents invest in parental control software to keep their young ones from accessing harmful content on the Web. Still you get people who want to break down all these barriers, ignoring the damage they cause and the risks they create during this process. Bypassing the parental control software on the family computer can easily lead to a prohibited site where a sneaky rootkit finds its way into your system. It may log a credit card number here and a password there and before your folks know what’s going on, they could be staring bankruptcy in the face. The same can happen at work or at school, your infected PC can cause a lot of problems for other people using the same network. Do you want something like this on your conscience? Proxies may have their uses, but they should not be used to cross digital borders illegally. If you are not allowed to visit a specific site at work or at school, then there’s most likely a pretty good reason why you shouldn’t visit it. If you choose to visit prohibited sites without proper authorisation, you risk loosing your job, getting suspended or even harsher network restrictions may be implemented. Think about it, is it really worth all that?

People are so touchy about this subject that when they ask for new proxies in forums or Q&A communities, they often warn you in advance not to ***** about why they shouldn’t be using one. So next time when you run across someone asking for a proxy to bypass firewalls and Internet filters, don’t waste your time explaining why they shouldn’t be using one, don’t expose yourself to insults and swearing, just refer them to this article.
favor boxes

A virtual private network (VPN) can either be a remote access or site-to-site network – whatever the case, you’ll need specific software and hardware to build a VPN. For instance, you may need a desktop software client for each remote user, dedicated hardware (a concentrator or secure PIX firewall), a dedicated server for dial-up, a network access server for use by a service provider for remote users to access VPN, and a network and policy management center.

There is no single way to put together a VPN, which is why most companies come up with a solution for their own needs. Most VPNs, however, make use of Cisco VPN technology simply because it is the most widely used equipment for networking in the world.

So what are some of the hardware components you will need, in addition to VPN software? One component is called a concentrator. This piece of equipment is good for remote access, with encryption and authentication techniques that are quite advanced. With high availability, performance, and scalability, this piece of hardware also includes SEP modules that let you increase capacity and throughput. VPN concentrators sold work in small business situations, as well as in larger businesses, with up to 10,000 remote users.

A VPN optimized router is used for scalability, routing, security, and quality of service. This piece of equipment is usually based on the Cisco IOS VPN software – you can find routers for many different networking needs. Small offices make use of them, as well as larger businesses.

If you’re setting up a virtual private network, you’re also going to need a secure PIX firewall. A PIX (private Internet exchange) firewall comes with dynamic network address translation, proxy server, packet filtration, firewall and VPN capabilities all in one. A Cisco VPN always makes use of this type of hardware to set up an SSL VPN, although a PIX usually doesn’t use the Cisco IOS software, but an efficient operating system that is designed to perform exceptionally well.

VPNs are used to connect offices and workstations together over a private network for various purposes. The type of software you implement depends on the type of network you are building. Most Cisco networks use a Cisco VPN client and software, for compatibility reasons. No matter what VPN client you use, an SSL should be set up to work as efficiently as possible, and have the proper security measures put in place to protect the dissemination of data.

Things have really changed in the past few years, with companies being forced to deal with worldwide markets and offices in different locations across the globe. With segments of modern businesses often spread out across different locations, the most important technology is the virtual private network. VPNs allow companies to maintain internal communications that are fast, safe, and reliable. Modern VPN technology and equipment give businesses the opportunity to do this inexpensively. Without the reliable communication capabilities of a VPN, companies wouldn’t run so well.
About the Author:

There have been too many cases, lately, where unsuspecting people have had their identity stolen while they were surfing the Internet. Anonymous web surfing is one of the tools users have at their disposal to protect themselves from anyone on the web that might ruin their credit or their reputation.

A lot of people have heard about anonymous web surfing, but they don’t really know how it works. It’s not really that hard. Anonymous web surfing is a simple way to conduct your Internet transactions but remain safe from people who may try to steal your passwords or other information or try to track your online behavior.

If you don’t want anyone tracking your actions on the Internet, anonymous web surfing may be the best choice. If you use a proxy server you can protect your identity from hackers and companies won’t be able to fill your inbox with spam. And that means that you won’t be subjected to the viruses, spyware, adware, and other malicious programs that sneak onto computers through seemingly benign emails.

Anonymous web surfing programs could be thought of like a type of buffer zone that sits between your computer and the websites you visit. It’s kind of like a firewall that protects you from intrusive behavior. It’s easy to use these programs, so you can rely on it every time you go online.

This buffer zone will be able to protect your and your personal information, which includes your browsing history and your passwords. This is a basic step you shouldn’t ignore if you want to protect your important details from unauthorized viewing.

A proxy site is a good way to handle your anonymous web surfing. It is simple to use because you just enter the URL on the proxy site which will then retrieve the page you want. This means you can view the sites you want, and that site will only register the IP address of the proxy site. You will be able to surf the Internet completely privately. This does, however, come with a little bit of a drawback.

The drawback is that no matter how fast your Internet connection is, if you use a proxy site you won’t be able to access pages as quickly as you once did. Of course, if you are really worried about protecting your information, this probably won’t seem like much of a trade-off.

Whatever activities you are pursuing on the Internet, you should always try to keep your identity private. Anonymous web surfing gives you the opportunity to do just that. You can keep your passwords and personal information safe, and different websites won’t be able to track your online patterns. Using a proxy site might be a good choice if you want to practice safe web surfing.
godaddy coupon code

So, let’s talk privacy, and then let’s talk about how you haven’t got any. That’s right, if you are surfing the Internet, and you aren’t doing it through some third party proxy server, the sites you surf to can potentially learn everything about you-your habits, your likes and dislikes, who your buying preferences and more.

In this way, advertisers can serve up those annoying pop-up ads, spyware can quietly download to your computer in the background and track your every move, government agencies can watch you, and hackers can slither into your hard drive and steal your world.

Paranoid yet?

If you aren’t re-read the the opening to this article slowly. While you are reading it, remember an advertiser’s spyware could be phoning in your private information for future use as you read.

What is anonymous surfing? Remember the old punchline, “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog?” Well, if you practice Anonymous Web Surfing 101 nobody will know whether your Fido, the family pet out looking for the latest craze in dog food or the parakeet looking for warmer climates.

But seriously folks, put simply, anonymous web surfing erases any trace or trail of where you’ve been or going on the Internet.

Your private world remains private and no one, not even your Internet Service Provider (that’s the guy you pay $20 to $40 dollars a month to get on the Net) won’t have a clue about who you are. This is how it used to be, and this is how it should be. Period. End of story.

Beyond simple paranoia, people have various reasons to surf anonymously ranging from general terror about losing their privacy to wanting to keep their personal surfing sites that they go to on the job away from the prying eyes of their employers.

Beyond the obvious, what are spy websites looking for, and how do they accomplish it. Websites use a variety of methods to gather intel from the most basic which is your IP address to placing cookies on your website.

Your IP address is where you started from, like your home street address. Cookies are little bits of information placed on your computer that keeps track of your habits.

One of the easiest cookies is kept by Internet Explorer, when you visit and log in to a website, IE will ask you if you want it to remember your username and password. If you say yes, it will download a small file with that information to your hard drive. Forever more, or until you clear your cookies in IE, whenever you visit that site, it will automatically fill in your log in information.

Neat, huh? Well that’s okay. But what about the cookies that are downloaded that you don’t know about. That’s where the grey area of invasion of privacy comes in. That’s also where anonymous web surfing stops it dead in its tracks.

Sites use a variety of techniques to gather and collate this information, but the two most basic are examining your IP address and placing cookies on your PC. Matching your IP address with your cookies makes it easier for them to create personal profiles. If you’d like to see what kind of information sites can gather about you, head to these two sites, which peer into your browser and report what they find.

analyze.privacy.net gives a comprehensive report plus an introduction to privacy.net which shows you more about cookies, gives you a look at what others see when they look at your computer and more.

Browse Spy located at gemal.dk/browserspy/ goes even deeper into your system and gives an eye-opening report on what’s on your system right down to the software you own.

Now that you know why you should surf anonymously and how easy it is for others to violate your privacy, how do you stop it? It’s actually easier than you might think.

There are a couple software packages out there for anonymous surfing. I personally like Tor and Vidalia located here. It runs in the background through my Firefox settings, and while it slows down my surfing a little, The Tor/Vidalia combination is a bit tricky to set up so if you don’t need heavy-duty protection, you might want to select one of the packages listed below. Either way, I no longer have to wonder who’s virtually following me around taking notes.

Like most anonymizers, it sends my information through a special series of computers called proxy servers which screen me from the websites I’m contacting.

My computer contacts a proxy server instead of the website directly. The website, in turn, doesn’t see me, it sees the proxy servers IP address and proxy servers are like the aircraft carriers of the net.

They have so much armament to block cookies, popups and other web parasites that it never gets infected or passes anything on to its clients.

Other programs that facilitate anonymous surfing include Guardster, SnoopBlock and Mega Proxy and Anonymizer. My second favorite anonymizer, is one of the four I just listed. Anonymizer is recognized as the leader of the pack and is relatively simple to use.

It’s where I started before I got involved with servers and such, and is really good for web surfing protection.

Last, if you are at work and can’t load a bunch of stuff to your workstation, simply surf to the-cloak.com/anonymous-surfing-home.html. It’s web based, easy and with nothing to download, a real godsend. Give them a donation and you can log in and surf to your heart’s content.

It’s not the prettiest site to look at, but it is functional and it has never failed me for fast cloaking.

It’s done by having a special computer — called a proxy server — screening you from the websites you are contacting. Your computer contacts only the proxy server, which contacts the website for you.

The website, in turn, sees only your proxy server and not you. In addition to hiding your IP address, a proxy server will usually block cookies, pop-ups and other annoying web parasites.

With some systems you have to go to an anonymous service website and access your favorite website from there. With others, you download and install software which finds an anonymous server for you.

There are numerous services and programs that facilitate anonymous surfing such as Guardster, SnoopBlocker and Mega Proxy, but Anonymizer is the pioneer and recognized leader of the pack.
buy.com coupons

The speed, reliability and economy at which businesses can access and distribute information, creates their competitive edge. Internet enables businesses to access and distribute huge variety of information.

The last few years saw an exponential decline in the cost of Internet connectivity and the great improvements in quality and reliability of service. Arguably Internet is now, a very efficient force-multiplier for business.

Internet, if correctly harnessed, can yield rich dividends:

Improved productivity;Employee efficiency;Overall knowledge quotient;Quick & economical assimilation of -Business intelligence,Distribution of commercial information. Like any other wonderful facility or tool, employees, and other unknown entities can misuse Internet too.

Various software are now available to distribute, restrict, define and filter the content that appears on your computers from the Internet. A large variety of such software is distributed commercially or even freely. There are software, that need to be installed on every computer; but they are very difficult to implement and manage in environments that have a large number of computers. In such environments, the software that enforces the Internet Use Policy across the enterprise must be implemented on the Internet Gateway. A variety of such software is available too, and one can always find something suitable.

Building a realistic Corporate Internet Use Policy (CIUP) is however, far more important, before any such software is implemented

The technicians implementing any Internet Access or Content Filtering software or even trying to present a proof-of-concept to an organization will achieve “precious little”, without a CIUP. The uniqueness of each enterprise, make a universal CIUP quite ineffective. The CIUP should be as holistic and comprehensive as possible and specifically designed for each enterprise.

A corporate CIUP essentially strives to map the purpose of every user, computer or application that requires access to the Internet.

Such maps minutely profile -

The purpose for which employees or the other infrastructure applications like emails, automatic software updates will be allowed Internet Access.The amount of Internet connectivity resources that will be used for each of such purposes; the time-schedules during which Internet Use will be permitted for them, is also profiled. This helps the management to judge, the benefits to the organization. A corporate CIUP also must be micro-documented. This is very important, since the management should be aware of what policies have been set, their need, effective results It is also a guideline to future modulations, roll-backs of any portion of the policy. The documentation must start before the implementation of any such policies, and must be appended as the implementation proceeds, and considered an on-going process.
buy.com coupons

The Georgia Institute of Technology has teamed up with Google to investigate how to counter new forms of phishing attacks by hackers. Hackers are able to control users’ internet browsing by using the “open recursive” DNS (Domain Name System) server. This type of attack is not new, although hackers have developed a technique that makes it almost undetectable by anti-virus and anti-phishing software.

A DNS server is an internet service that translates domain names into a numerical internet protocol address. For example, users would type “google.com” into an internet browser and it would translate it to something that would look like this: “207.35.118,135″. The internet browser would then direct the user to the site.

DNS servers work together in a network. If one DNS server can’t find the address it would send it to another one until the address is found. Unlike other DNS servers, open recursive DNS servers answer all DNS look-up requests from any computer on the internet. It is this feature that hackers use.

Google and the Georgia Institute of Technology have discovered that there are over 17 million open recursive DNS servers. Most of these give accurate information, but 0.4% or 68,000 are giving users false addresses to phishing sites. The hackers are able to send users to phishing sites with the DNS.

Phishing sites are false sites set up by hackers. Hackers would create sites that look like the original and get users to give information such as usernames, passwords and pin numbers. For example, they could copy an online bank site and get users to register and log in. The login information is sent to the hacker and he or she is able to use it to gain access to the user’s bank account. They trick users into entering their phishing site by sending a fake email. The email, for example, could be made to look as though it came from the user’s bank, asking them to login and update their details. The e-mail would then contain a link to the phishing site.

Hackers are using the open DNS system by targeting the user’s settings. The user would either open a virus infected attachment on an e-mail or a website with the virus embedded in it. The virus will exploit the user’s computer by changing just one file in Windows registry setting. The changed setting will allow the hacker to have complete control over the user’s browser.

If the virus is not stopped during the initial stages, it can go undetected for the rest of its existence. Users might believe that because they have anti-phishing software they can’t be infected. However, because the hacker is operating at DNS level, the anti-phishing software is rendered useless. Hackers would allow the user to browse normally, but would re-direct them suddenly if they tried to use online banking.

Google and the Georgia Institute of Technology are looking into developing a type of software that will counteract the hackers. They are also trying to create more awareness among all administrations to change their DNS servers. There is no real benefit from having an open-server. The Georgia Institute has marked phishing attacks as one of the top threats for 2008.
work at home mom

Everyone loves it when lots of traffic comes through their website. In fact, many do whatever they can to achieve that traffic in hopes that someone will find what is on their site interesting and will make a purchase from the site. That’s the idea, right? Of course it is, but it is a fact that traffic of all types may not be very beneficial if it isn’t targeted traffic. However, there are ways in which traffic is brought to sites and two of these are DOS Attack and Digg Traffic. There are actual differences between the two as far as how they bring traffic to websites. Let’s just say that one is more vicious than the other.

DOS Attack

Dos Attack makes the web server beg for mercy because it is flooded with traffic that can actually be considered useless. There are different kinds of DOS Attacks such as Teardrop and Ping of Death. What these do is exploit the limitations of the TCP/IP protocols. However, there are software fixes that administrators administer to their systems to reduce the damage that is done by DOS Attacks. But just like computer viruses, there are always new attacks being created by hackers.

What these attacks do is keep the website from functioning properly and usually target large sites such as those of banks and credit card sites. The Teardrop attack sends IP fragments with huge payloads that are overlapping to the machine that they are targeting. Many operating systems are vulnerable to this type of attack and can crash the entire system.

There is also an attack called the Smurf Attack in which it floods the internet by sending packets of information to be sent to the computer hosts on a certain network. This is one of those methods in which it appears a website is receiving a lot of traffic, but none of the traffic is legitimate. SYN Flood is another that floods the servers to appear as legitimate traffic.

Digg Traffic

Digg is actually a legitimate way to generate traffic to websites. It is community-based and uses articles to gain traffic. It combines blogging, social bookmarking, and syndication with editorial control by the users. Websites and news stories are submitted by the users and a user-based ranking system is used to promote the website. It can happen that the web server is not prepared to manage that high incoming traffic and ultimately crashes the site for a short time.

However, Digg has met some controversy because it is said the users have entirely too much control over the content. There are even users who have been accused of operating what is called a “Bury Brigade” in which users mark articles as SPAM, which can bury these legitimate stories under the ones that users want to promote, whether they are legitimate or not.

The differences

The differences are rather clean in that DOS attacks are a way in which hackers maliciously flood systems with fake traffic and can actually disable use of a website. It is not a legitimate way to gain traffic, whereas Digg is a legitimate method. However, even Digg has met its controversy in which traffic can be directed away from legitimate articles due to “Bury Brigades,” which can hinder one’s ability to promote through Digg’s system. Yet as with any system on the internet, there are always ways to compromise its original intent and Digg is not an exception. DOS Attacks, on the other hand, still do what they are intended to do and that is to maliciously attack the web.
About the Author:

Anonymous surfing is the ability to surf the Web without being tracked.

By using “sniffers” somebody could find out your IP address, cookies, what’s in your browser cache, what kind of computer you’re using…they could even connect to your hard drive and access your private files, including passwords and banking information.

Web sites and other people can sniff out information about you including your IP address. You can be found and tracked using your IP address very easily. Your IP address gives hackers an entryway into your computer.

Anonymous, or proxy, servers work by retrieving Web pages for you. They hide your IP address and other important browsing information, so the remote server does not see your information but sees the proxy server’s information instead.

Surfing with an anonymous proxy site/service is simple: all you do is enter in the URL you’d like to visit anonymously, and you’ll be able to surf leaving virtually no trace that you were ever there. Basically, when you use an anonymous proxy and enter in the URL that you’d like to visit anonymously, the anonymous proxy retrieves the pages BEFORE they are delivered to you. This way, the IP address and other browsing information that the remote server sees does not belong to you – it belongs to the anonymous proxy.

When you surf the internet, your computer lets every other computer know who it is by giving away information such as your ip address, type of browser and a ton of other information. The goal is to hide all this information from other computers and this is called anonymous surfing.

Every time you surf the web you leave traces of your Internet activity that can reveal your real identity. Any url you access can gather and record information about you such as your IP address, location, browser type, browser language, operating system you are using, web pages last visited and other information that you might want to keep confidential.

Hackers, identity thieves, spammers and other people who want to get access to your personal information can monitor your browsing habits and activities, spy upon you, steal personal information and exploit security holes in your system to cause damage to your computer.

There are literally hundreds of free anonymous proxies. It is estimated that 90% of all computers are infected with spyware that may allow criminals to learn passwords and bank account numbers-essentially giving them access to anything and everything on your computer.

IP address (Internet Protocol address) is your internet identification number. Everyone has an IP address to communicate on the Internet, It’s like a telephone number or mailing address. Using your IP it is possible to know your country, city, internet provider and even physical address. Hackers and identity thieves can use this information to steal personal information, spy upon you or cause damage to your PC.

While most sites use information about OS and browser to provide a better surfing experience, this information can also be used by hackers for virus attacks to get access to your hard drive, steal personal information or cause damage to your computer.

Cool place to start: Proxy.org — Guide to online privacy and anonymous web surfing and the most comprehensive list of working web-based proxies, updated daily.

Paris Anderson
allsitecafe.com
©1997-2008
wedding fans

When browsing the internet from a home PC, there are several elements that make the whole process possible.
First of all, on one end, we have our home PC. This PC is connected via its modem to the ISP’s server, which in turn is interconnected to servers around the world that host the specific web sites that we are requesting.

From a web browser, we send a request to access a specific website by typing the site’s address, for example, http://www.findproxy.org.

When we hit “Enter”, this request is sent to our ISP’s server, which identifies the request. If the ISP has a proxy server with cached requests, when retrieving our request it will look up the information in its cache to determine if the proxy can comply or not. This means that the proxy server saves all requests made from users to its cache, so that the next time another user makes the same request, it does not have to retrieve that same information from the original server. The proxy server responds by sending the information to our PC from its cache.

On the other hand, if the proxy server cannot comply, it will send the request to the real server that hosts the specific website that we are requesting. The host server sends that information to the proxy server, which can then cache the response for future requests, and then sends the information to our PC. Sometimes, more than one proxy server can be involved, as some sites, like MSN, Yahoo, and AOL have several proxy servers that respond to requests from their cache, thus reducing the amount of petitions to the main server and reducing response times.

In a corporate network, even more elements form part of the process. Apart from the possibility of having its own proxy server to improve performance, the proxy can also act as a filter from the employees’ terminal, blocking attempts to access specific content from their web browsers. Additionally, companies have mail servers that store and distribute emails over its local network and WAN. All potential viruses are filtered at this stage before it can reach an employee’s PC. Servers also provide additional security through firewalls either from the proxy itself or from a firewall server dedicated to such
amazon coupon code