Privacy is a big part of today’s world. As people’s information and data become more and more sensitive, the need to keep it hidden becomes more and more necessary. Ten years ago, someone’s IP address wouldn’t have been treated with any security what so ever, now it must be hidden at all costs. People probably wouldn’t have known what an IP address was at the time!

The demand for Internet privacy got to be so strong, that there began to be a market for it. People would pay for the services they provide, and would do so willingly. At first, these companies charged ridiculous amounts for their services, but today they are often dirt cheap.

Anonymous Proxy usage became more and more important. These are programs or web sites that actually alter your IP address, which is a virtual nametag showing location, browsing history, etc. The programs then allow you to surf on their encrypted networks to be sure all of your information is encoded upon you sending it. Then, they actually go and retrieve the websites you wish to visit for you, allowing you to bypass blocks set on work and school computers (or possibly an oppressive government) and enjoy the sites you want to. They will allow no traces of data such as cookies or cache to stay on your computer, allowing no one to see your browsing session. All your employer or teacher would see is the name of the anonymous proxy over and over and over again. If this isn’t good enough for you, professional fee-based proxies offer a “delete session information” function that completely deletes history of your browsing for that session, leaving no traces anywhere.

There are two major types of proxies; a software based proxy and a web based proxy. We’ll focus on the web based one first.

In the U.S., we enjoy a great amount of freedom and many social rights. Privacy is one of those, and arguably the most important. Our Internet is completely uncensored and our government has no notions or plans to change that. We can surf what we want, when we want, and people have almost taken this for granted. Many other countries are not this way. For example, Iran is very censored, and around certain times, it gets worse. As the last election drew to a close, the government in Iran blocked Twitter and other instant messaging services were shut down so as to not give protestors a medium to communicate their message. In China, people always make jokes about the “Great Firewall of China”. It didn’t earn this nickname for no reason though, Chinese citizens are blocked from pretty much any site that has anything anti-communist or any content that might go against their ideologies.

Although out Internet is as free as red, white, and blue can be, freedom can bring about some bad things. Criminals and identity thieves roam the Internet; hackers and trackers prey on innocents. As technology increases, these criminals up their arsenal and still have some tricks up their sleeve. Some people may feel comforted by the security systems and firewalls installed on their computer, but this is just the same as a child hiding under the covers; what are the covers actually going to do?

These preliminary defenses are a piece of cake for a hacker of even the most rudimentary talent. The truth is, even if these defenses worked, they still wouldn’t fix the main problem: the IP address. This virtual nametag your computer wears is shown to every website, and contains your location. If someone got your IP address, all they would have to do is copy it into a Google search, and they would have your location.

Blogging is a recent Internet phenomenon, which can be classified in a variety of ways. Blogging could be as simple as someone posting an update of where they are going for the weekend, or just writing their thoughts in a stream of conscious manner. Blogging can be angry too; there are people who have a wide following that read their rebel blogs about everything from government to driving laws. Blogging is also a good way to keep people updated; consider the social networking giants MySpace, FaceBook, and Twitter. MySpace and FaceBook both are used to provide an inside look into a person’s life directly from them, and also what they are doing. This is in the blog section you see; your friends could have anything written there. Twitter is just a more condensed form of blogging, making use of a minimal amount of characters to propagate a message to many people.

With blogging becoming such a popular and widely utilized pastime, people are beginning to see the security issues it represents. First of all, there is the possibility of someone tracking the blogger from his or her page, and maybe even posing as a friend (which isn’t hard to do online) to arrange a real life encounter. There is also the simple possibly that the blogger is just putting too much information out there. While they may talk about other things, blogs are often centered around friends and their activities together. Oftentimes you will see a blog that lucidly describes the place they are discussing, (sometimes even an address…) people involved in the event, and usually a picture attached of the person and their friends. This is everything and more than a criminal needs to find this person and rob, kidnap, or steal from them.

Every computer comes stock with some sort of Internet browser; whether it be Internet Explorer, FireFox, Safari, etc. These browsers start out completely uncensored and unblocked. This is the prospect of America; you have absolute freedom unless you choose to limit it. Parents who buy their young kids computers have to go in and manually install child-blocking software and other censoring programs. This is all done by choice, and is completely unnecessary to the correct function of the computer.

This is true of most countries, the United States being the most prominent. There are some places where the government censorship is running rampant and is instated unwillingly upon its citizens. These places are few and far between, but are highly publicized for their censorship and other injustices on their citizens. China is a prime example. “The Great Firewall of China” is what China’s censoring agenda is satirically known as, and its citizens are becoming fed up with it. The people of this nation used to just be defeated by it, and would never do anything to try and help themselves out of desperation, but recently, movements have been made to free them. People in the Americas and other free nations set up proxy servers to send aid to their companions in less-than-democratic nations. These anonymous proxies ensure anonymous browsing for the citizens, who run the risk of being caught for their “crimes”; YouTube, FaceBook, etc.

The importance of anonymity cannot be stressed enough while online. Consider the fact that you are amongst thousands of random people you don’t know while online. These people could just be there to do their required surfing and then get off, but others could have bad intentions. Being anonymous can shield you from their bad intentions and not allow them to hack into your system.

Since anonymity is so important, people know this, and have created products to help one ensure their anonymous browsing while online. Enter the anonymous proxy, a godsend to all people concerned with their Internet safety.

The anonymous proxy is pretty much an all encompassing Internet privacy tool. When hackers look for their prey online, they look for people who are unprotected and will be easy to get into; the path of least resistance. These people usually just use their stock systems their computer was pre-loaded with to gain a false sense of security. Often times, they haven’t even properly set up these programs! This doesn’t matter though, even the most well configured firewall couldn’t stop a determined hacker. These criminals cower at the sound of anonymous proxy though.

Online advertising has been around since the dawn of the Internet, and is more or less prevalent on pretty much every site you visit. MySpace, FaceBook, and other social networking sites are especially populated with them, and they are propagated to every user who has to navigate to a different page. Ask any FaceBook user and they will tell you; there is an ad on every page. Some may protest and demand an explanation to why FaceBook is subjecting them to these incessant advertisements. The answer is simple though: the site is free, how do you think they make money? It is a brilliant idea; take a service people will flock to, and make it free, but charge advertisers top dollar to put ads on your site due to the high volumes of traffic. While FaceBook has to pay to keep their domain name and maintain servers that hold all friends, profiles, and other system information on them, they are not hurting for cash. Every time you click on an ad they make some money, and it adds up.

While these ads are seen, who can be sure they are clicked on? Everyone has had an instance where an ad pops up on their web browser that has absolutely no interest to them. Let’s take the stock example of a stereotypical avatar of masculinity: this man loves football and all day meticulously surfs and updates his fantasy football page, making trades and offers. Then he heads over to ESPN and watches some online football to see how the players and teams are doing to decide where to take his team, then an ad pops up. The ad consists of a new flower product that “will make your garden bloom like never before.” After considering for a moment what the ad is, and asserting that “flower” has nothing to do with “pig skin”, the man would quickly exit out the pest and be on with his negotiations.

Things have changed recently though. When this man would get ads of flower products, sweet smelling detergent, and other emasculated items, it was a completely random affair. Now this same man might be seeing ads showing off awesome football strategies, or trying to sell an in-depth guide on all of the major players. While this seems like a good thing, it isn’t. The information is pulled right from your surfing, and without your knowledge.

With the advent of the social networking site, people spend more time online than ever before. Some people don’t even meet in person anymore, because it is more convenient to arrange a quick chat online. People load up their profiles with all sorts of personal information and pictures for the world to see. Privacy filters are virtually non-existent, and those that do exist are rendered useless by the public. Why only have “friends” view your profile when everyone who sends one message to you is instantly a “friend”? The truth is, these sites are terrible for people’s privacy, and people are just now waking up.

Germans and Germany in general are very cognizant about what goes up on the Internet, as they are often haunted by constant reminding of the Holocaust and the stigmas attached to it. Lately the German population has become suspect of the U.S. company FaceBook. They are convinced that FaceBook is completely disregarding their privacy rights and not securing all of their information.