Web Tracking Freak!

[SmirGel]

I'm really pissed off at my friend being really ignorant or doesn't want to understand that no matter what plugins or whatever you use you can be tracked down in the internet if someone has the skill, time and money to do it. 

 

So he https://panopticlick.eff.org/ goes to this website to test out how unique his browser is and brags about the score being something like below 10 his having like tons of firefox plugins like NoScript, Disconnect etc to make the score really low then he thinks okay now I can't be tracked down at all. But after all this he doesn't use VPN?

 

Before Snowden saying NSA is spying I told him he should use few plugins to make companies to not track him in internet then he called me paranoia now his completely opposite.. -.- 

[LAwLz]

It is possible to be anonymous on the Internet. Tor is one way of doing it.

Anyway if he doesn't want to be trackable then he shouldn't brag about having a very unique browser fingerprint. You want to have such a common one as possible. If everyone had the same finger print then they would be useless as evidence. It's the same thing with browser fingerprints. The more people that has the same one as you, the less useful it becomes when tracking you.

[SmirGel]

It is possible to be anonymous on the Internet. Tor is one way of doing it.

Anyway if he doesn't want to be trackable then he shouldn't brag about having a very unique browser fingerprint. You want to have such a common one as possible. If everyone had the same finger print then they would be useless as evidence. It's the same thing with browser fingerprints. The more people that has the same one as you, the less useful it becomes when tracking you.

 

VPN is the way to go. At least I'd buy one if I really wanted to be secure..well at least little more..but in my opinion if you're really doing shady stuff in internet you desire to be caught but if you're just browsing in internet and want privacy that's okay to me. 

[Fred Castellum]

VPN is the way to go. At least I'd buy one if I really wanted to be secure..well at least little more..but in my opinion if you're really doing shady stuff in internet you desire to be caught but if you're just browsing in internet and want privacy that's okay to me. 

Hotspot Shield! With the linus promo code! GO!

You need to smack your friend with a does of knowledge! Find the relevant sources for him to read and point at it for him.

And good lord your avatar gif.... 

[SmirGel]

Hotspot Shield! With the linus promo code! GO!

You need to smack your friend with a does of knowledge! Find the relevant sources for him to read and point at it for him.

And good lord your avatar gif.... 

 

it's nice isn't it

[LAwLz]

VPN is the way to go. At least I'd buy one if I really wanted to be secure..well at least little more..but in my opinion if you're really doing shady stuff in internet you desire to be caught but if you're just browsing in internet and want privacy that's okay to me. 

No... A VPN does nothing to protect your privacy. The VPN provider can see everything you do, and everything you do will have your name and billing address attached to it (since you need to pay to use it).

If you want to be anonymous and untrackable then you need something like Tor. If you just want all your traffic to be encrypted from people at for example Mc Donalds' open WiFi, then you want a VPN.

[SmirGel]

No... A VPN does nothing to protect your privacy. The VPN provider can see everything you do, and everything you do will have your name and billing address attached to it (since you need to pay to use it).

If you want to be anonymous and untrackable then you need something like Tor. If you just want all your traffic to be encrypted from people at for example Mc Donalds' open WiFi, then you want a VPN.

 

https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-providers-really-take-anonymity-seriously-111007/

[Imaginaerum]

It is possible to be anonymous on the Internet. Tor is one way of doing it.

Not really, if the FBI has as many exit-nodes as rumored then they can trace it back to you if they really wanted to. It's hard to tell, sure, but I don't trust Tor.

[SmirGel]

Not really, if the FBI has as many exit-nodes as rumored then they can trace it back to you if they really wanted to. It's hard to tell, sure, but I don't trust Tor.

 

Like I said if anyone has time, skills and money you can be traced no matter what you do.

[Snickerzz]

No... A VPN does nothing to protect your privacy. The VPN provider can see everything you do, and everything you do will have your name and billing address attached to it (since you need to pay to use it).

If you want to be anonymous and untrackable then you need something like Tor. If you just want all your traffic to be encrypted from people at for example Mc Donalds' open WiFi, then you want a VPN.

there are some non logging vpns ;p

[Almercenary]

You can still get past a VPN if you want to, it just stops the average joe from seeing your IP and stuff

[Guest]

I'm really pissed off at my friend being really ignorant or doesn't want to understand that no matter what plugins or whatever you use you can be tracked down in the internet if someone has the skill, time and money to do it. 

 

So he https://panopticlick.eff.org/ goes to this website to test out how unique his browser is and brags about the score being something like below 10 his having like tons of firefox plugins like NoScript, Disconnect etc to make the score really low then he thinks okay now I can't be tracked down at all. But after all this he doesn't use VPN?

 

Before Snowden saying NSA is spying I told him he should use few plugins to make companies to not track him in internet then he called me paranoia now his completely opposite.. -.- 

Why is the man in your profile pic burning his beard?

[LAwLz]

https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-providers-really-take-anonymity-seriously-111007/

If the leaks from Snowden has taught you anything then it's not to trust companies that says they don't track you. Don't trust the VPN providers on that list.

 

 

 

Not really, if the FBI has as many exit-nodes as rumored then they can trace it back to you if they really wanted to. It's hard to tell, sure, but I don't trust Tor.

I suggest you look up how Tor works. Hint: Even if they controlled every single exit node they would still not be able to track you. There is a lot of documentation how it works on their website but here is my TL;DR summary of it:

When you open Tor you connect to some nodes (picked at random). Each one of these nodes has their own encryption key to the next hop, and every node only knows the next hop destination. If you try to access the public Internet then you will also connect to an exit node (if you use an hidden service then you will not connect to the exit node, and the connection will be fully encrypted) and if that website you visit is a regular HTTP website, then the exit node will see what the previous node is trying to access. It only knows which node is trying to access it though, and what it is. It does not know who the original sender was, nor does it know which the node 2 hops away is. I know Logan did a video about this and as always, he was completely wrong and you should not listen to anything he says.

Anyway, the point is that even if they own all exit nodes it would still not be enough to track you, it would just be enough to track the second to last hop. Also, you randomly switch which nodes you are connected to at certain intervals, so you don't always take the same path. So even IF they owned all exit nodes, they would only see that maybe 3-4 different computers accessed the same website (several thousands of times since a lot of people use the same nodes), which makes it even harder to point out a single person.

 

Tor is great for anonymity. It sucks for everything else though.

 

 

 

there are some non logging vpns ;p

According to their PR staff, yes. Even if they are not lying (which they might very well be), they could let someone else do the logging for them, intentially or unintentially. It's like with DuckDuckGo. They don't log you, but they use Verizon for hosting (from what I have heard), and Verizon most certainly tracks you.

[Imaginaerum]

snip...

First I have to ask why the balls you brought Logan into this. You must really hate the guy, which is fine, but if you keep mentioning him like people use him as an encyclopedia then people just might end up doing that.

Second:

http://www.ohmygodel.com/publications/usersrouted-ccs13.pdf

https://www.torproject.org/about/overview.html.en#stayinganonymous

http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/the-fbi-says-it-busted-the-biggest-child-porn-ring-on-the-deep-web-1

http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/tor-is-less-anonymous-than-you-think

I saw Logan's video just now and I actually agree with him, for once, and maybe on a few political issues. But no, Tor is not anonymous, it's just another layer that can be breached given enough effort. That's my point.

[LAwLz]

First I have to ask why the balls you brought Logan into this. You must really hate the guy, which is fine, but if you keep mentioning him like people use him as an encyclopedia then people just might end up doing that.

Because I saw a dramatic increase in ignorance and misinformation about Tor after he released his video about it. I assume that is where a lot of the misinformation comes from.

 

I am currently reading the ohmygodel pdf you linked (it's pretty long so it will take a while even if I just skim through it) but here is my response to the other articles you linked:

 

 

https://www.torproject.org/about/overview.html.en#stayinganonymous

How does this prove that Tor does not let you be anonymous? All it says is that you shouldn't post with your real name and such if you want to be anonymous. Sure it quickly mentions that if both the entry and exit node are controlled by the same person then they could in theory figure it out, but with the big amount of data going through, the large number of nodes, and the fact that you often change node (also, if your nodes are in different countries then it is very unlikely that the same person owns all of them) makes this extremely rare. Even if it were to happen, all they could do is go "oh, someone sent 10MB of data, and this node received 10MB of data shortly after, that might mean they are in the same circuit!". It's like throwing darts in the dark, while the dart board is attacked to a fighter jet, and your darts were made out of jelly... Not the best analogy but you get the point. Of course there is always a teeny tiny risk of being tracked, but the point is that Tor is pretty much as good as it will get. VPNs are a joke for privacy in comparison.

My point was that owning exit nodes does not really help in tracking down people using the Tor network. It helps tracking the people hosting clearnet websites that are being accessed through Tor, but that's about it.

 

 

 

http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/the-fbi-says-it-busted-the-biggest-child-porn-ring-on-the-deep-web-1

That doesn't really have anything to do with the Tor network. What happened was that hidden services on Tor were infected with malware that used an exploit in Firefox to execute malicious JavaScripts. The Tor network itself had nothing to do with it. Also, it only affected people running an outdated version of Firefox, and only on Windows.

Anyway the point is that it was a Firefox issue, not a Tor issue. Car analogy... It's like saying it's the roads fault your car stereo doesn't work. Sure you might drive on the road while using your car stereo, but the problem is with your car, not the road.

 

 

http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/tor-is-less-anonymous-than-you-think

That article is just the same stuff as in the other two, which I have already addressed. Hell, it even links to the motherboard.vice.com article.

[Imaginaerum]

sdgafh

If you want to trust all your stuff to Tor then I can't stop you, but I don't believe Tor to be anonymous if someone truly wants to track you down. I also have no interest in arguing essays with you.

[LAwLz]

If you want to trust all your stuff to Tor then I can't stop you, but I don't believe Tor to be anonymous if someone truly wants to track you down. I also have no interest in arguing essays with you.

Nice strawman...

What I said was that:

1) Tor is for privacy. VPNs are not. It's a simple as that. VPNs are not designed to give you any privacy.

2) Controlling a lot of exit nodes does not really help all that much when it comes to tracking people.

3) Tor is very anonymous. Of course it doesn't make you impossible to track (especially not if you post with your real name) but it is pretty much as good as we can get right now.

 

Why do you think they had to use malicious Javascript to track people if they could have just snooped Tor traffic? Because that's extremely difficult, next to impossible. Why do you think it took them so long to put the guy behind that drug store in jail? They figured out who it was because he posted with his real email on some forum. If they really could track people on Tor, they wouldn't have to use those tactics to find people.

[SmirGel]

Why is the man in your profile pic burning his beard?

 

he got mad