“CyberArmy” begins with a heavily detailed and slightly humorous trip through its history, which gets you up to speed on the site and its purpose. They advocate a self-regulated Internet, meaning an internal police system…. They have been responsible for the shutdown of almost 100 child pornographers!

Easy to navigate, CyberArmy has all of its links in the top of its page. This allows for one-click access to whatever you wish to browse. A log-in function is always located in the side of the screen too, so you don’t have to fumble around the site forever to try and login, as some pages require.

With a Army theme, the site is hard not to love. Each registered user (quick and easy to do so) gets a military rank. Beginners start out as a Recruit, and you can advance throughout the system all the way up to the head honcho, the CinC. The camaraderie between the site’s members is as palpable as the bonds that hold actual servicemen together.

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The current Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is wreaking havoc on his civilian’s rights to access the Internet and other mediums freely. The Iranians are fighting back; not in a physical sense, but are evading these new bans.

The Iranians today are blogging on FaceBook, sending anti-leader protest on Twitter, and Ahmadinejad is quaking in his boots. He is desperate to shutdown these opposing forces. These Iranians are headstrong; despite recent additions and blocks, their Internet activity has actually increased!

The most popular content on Twitter currently is related to these Iranians. Protests, photos, and imperative blogs have caught the interest of not only the citizens of Iran, but everyone around the world.

In a less-than-democratic nation such as Iran, holding public protests can have dire consequences, so a grassroots system has taken place; these new candidates for office are doing their protests and advertising online. One of these e-candidates is Mir Hussein Moussavi. One account all about him (Moussavi1388) has won over nearly 7000 fans, and meticulous updates and news spearhead the assault on a bad government.

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For months, Microsoft and bloggers have been discussing the added privacy features Internet Explorer 8 offers to its consumers.  In many ways, these changes are similar to Mozilla, Safari and other browsers have offered to the net surfers for a time.  IE8 centered its attention around the security and ease of use to users.  Some of the added features include InPrivate Browsing, Delete Browsing History, InPrivate Blocking, and InPrivate Subscriptions.  Other areas to include improvements in RSS, cascading style sheets, and AJAX (the information exchange).  Simply stated, IE8 is promising a safer environment for the surfer.

InPrivate Browsing puts you in control.  You have the option to allow Internet Explorer to save your browsing history, cookies and other private data exchanged on the net.  By having the ability to Delete Browsing History, you are able to manage whether or not websites that you have visited are saved.  While saving your website history may appear to be an added convenience for later use, this is not exactly a safe way to operate from a privacy perspective.

InPrivate Blocking and InPrivate Subscriptions rely upon each other.  InPrivate Blocking advises you about any potentially harmful outside source that is in a position to view your browsing history.  Once the information has been relayed to you, you are given an opportunity to block the outside source.  This feature is Internet Explorer’s version of Privacy Mode, commonly referred to as “porn” mode.  InPrivate Subscriptions are a list of websites that you have created and named safe or unsafe.  If there is a site that you question security, you have the option of adding it to the blocked list.

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The Internet can be compared to the old Wild West in some cases. You have criminals out in the digital world lying in wait for you.  Not Dirty Dans and Phillip McGees with guns ablazing, but worse.  Every time you open your browser you run a gauntlet of invisible cyber criminals longing to rob you of your identity, as well as treacherous ISPs and lurking marketing companies tracking, collecting and logging your IP address, following you like digital bloodhounds as you surf.  Many savvy surfers know one of the best ways to protect their Internet privacy and personal information is to use a proxy server.  Now, proxy servers can be located on the Internet with a simple search, but the question of the day is: Which is better? Web-based proxies or Anonymous surfing software?

Web-Based Proxy Servers
These web-based anonymizers are easy to use and only require you to have an Internet connection and enter a URL.  Give it a click and your IP address is replaced with theirs.  This can get you into a blocked website, like Myspace, but that is the main purpose of the online anonymous browser.  It’s not safe to send personal information over these servers because there is no guarantee that the information is encrypted, and if not, it can be accessed by some less than scrupulous person.  Also you cannot use web-based proxies to access banking sites or any other online location that uses either Secure Shell or Secure Socket Layer.

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“Elite proxy” gets many keyword hits every day on a multitude of internet search engines. What are these exactly and why are they such a hot topic?

An elite proxy is just a stronger, more secure version of a normal anonymous proxy. A standard anonymous proxy hides the user’s IP address from the site, but the site can still tell that it is not the proxy requesting the information, and that someone is behind the communication. While this is still more secure than completely unprotected surfing, there is still a possibility for your identity to become known and your anonymity compromised.

An elite proxy goes one step further than a standard anonymous proxy. They actually make it seem as though only they are trying to access the information. Therefore, you are completely anonymous. In a normal anonymous proxy, the site knows there is someone else requesting the information, but not their identity. With an elite proxy server, the site has no idea there is someone else pulling the strings backstage.

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The U.S. Military is the heart and soul of America. These are people who would give their lives for freedom, and to protect rights of Americans they don’t even know.

Even with this larger than life persona, these soldiers are just average people. They value family, happiness, and fun just as much as everybody else. When they signed up for duty, it was with the knowledge that they might have to leave their home for a long period of time. This is just part of the duty, but it doesn’t take away from the ache going away from their home and country will cause.

While traveling or being stationed internationally, some military members get homesick. If you are in a different country for an extended period of time, loneliness can easily dominate your trip. If soldiers begin to find themselves forgetting the smell of an old fashioned barbeque, or the pleasure of hanging out with friends and family, then maybe watching some good old American television is a great way to restore their morale.

Unfortunately re-runs of “The Honeymooners” get old quickly and can lead to a strange affinity for communism. Only kidding, but it can get boring.

Along came internet TV, a godsend to the nomads of the globe. Imagine a soldier’s joy when they get a chance to connect back to their culture, and feel at one with the U.S. again. They could catch up on affairs overseas, whether it is watching the stock market, or just to see what antics Britney Spears has been up to lately.

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The Transportation Security Agency (further referred to as the “TSA”) has been hatching plans to start full body scanning, and implement this into airport security terminals across the nation. There was a bit a bit of controversy about this practice, and when called to the attention of the House Of Representatives, was banned in a 310-118 vote.

Privacy groups have claimed that the scanner can show in detail things that are meant to be hidden. “Even genitalia can be discerned in the scan”, some claim. TSA representatives on the other hand, assert that the imager is invades privacy only minimally, and even offers a “privacy algorithm” to further distort sensitive areas on travelers.

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With the digital age going strong and a new administration in the White House, now is the perfect time to enact legislation and regulations concerning the Internet. TechCrunch recently published (courtesy of the Washington Post) an article outlining a Digital Bill of Rights to protect Internet users and consumers.  Most of the laws that govern the Internet are in need of a major overhaul due to all the advances in technology.  Basically they need to keep up with the changes.  If laws weren’t changed concerning the United States Postal Service, we’d all still be waiting for our mail to be delivered on horseback.  Imagine what it would be like if those old laws were still being used even with our modern delivery service.  Mail service would be unreliable, chaotic and ineffective.  The same situation we face digitally today.

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If you thought you have privacy when you’re surfing the ‘net, you’re sadly mistaken. Every site you visit, every email you send, goes through the server of your ISP. As you might have heard recently on the news, the only way to guarantee your security is to use an anonymous proxy. It sounds mysterious, doesn’t it? First, you need to know why you may need one.

According to Colorado Law School professor Paul Ohm, there may be more to worry about than we know. Ohm says, “…almost no other entity poses a greater threat to privacy than the ISP.” While some Internet users are aware of this, most haven’t entertained any major concerns about all their private information that is transmitted. Up until now, ISPs haven’t had the technology to really play around with people’s privacy.

Those are the operative words: up until now. Deep packet inspection gear is being developed by several software companies that can not only collect this data, it can sort it so it can be sold to advertisers so you can be targeted by marketers preying on your harvested interests. The companies with this software are offering large amounts of cash to ISPs for this information. What ISP company is going to want to turn down money? Another aspect is that the government, in the interests of being able to wiretap a user’s Internet data if they are suspected of acting against this country, has required ISPs to install this kind of gear. Just in case.

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The internet is not the club it used to be. There are many more people using it, and some with bad intentions. It is more important than ever to be guarded online, and luckily, you don’t have to have a doctorate in Computer Sciences to do so.

One must always be wary of their ISP. The ISP has a meticulous log of all internet activity done while under them and every website has a log of every IP that visits them. By using an anonymous proxy, your ISP won’t have a log of sites you’ve visited because it won’t have been under them, and the website will log the proxy’s IP, and not yours when you visit.

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