Privacy

Oblivion

I'm nothing like an expert in these matters , but like you, value & guard my privacy.
I'm sure more internet-savvy A2K people will have things to suggest to you ... I hope so.
So I'll limit myself to welcoming you to A2K ..... Welcome & enjoy!

All of the free sites I've used have basically sucked and very few (inculding teh pay sites) are able to help with actually making transactions. You might acess Amazon through a proxy but as soon as you go to buy something you have to hand over your credit card infor and address so any privacy is immediately lost.

If you are willing to pay a few $$ a month and want to avoid a lot of the other trappings you can register and use the service at http://www.cotse.com - for $6.00/month or so you get anonymous Web surfing, Anonymous FTP, NewsServer access and 5 e-mail addresses. You can also host a domain of your own through them if you'd like (i.e. add your domain to their DNS).

Surfing through a proxy does very little to protect your privacy. In fact in my experience it's easier to get information out of a proxy server than it is from an ISP. The reasons for this are: a) proxie servers are already worried about nefarious use of their services and tend to be more cooperative since they are loved by the lowlives and they know it.

Proxy servers also tend to be small, poorly run operations who succumb to pressure more rapidly than will, say, America Online. Big ISPs will take the battle to protect their customer's privacy all the way to court because it's a good PR move and they have the cash.

Administering a well used server means lots of attacks, when I try to identify the source of the attacks I have found that proxies give up the data almost negligently.


If you don't want to be personally identified do not type your name into a computer.

As long as you do not give out any of your info the only way to identify you is is law enforcement forces your ISP to disclose the information.

And that is exceeeeeedingly rare.