Anonymous proxy, what is it? Why would someone need to be anonymous on the Internet? What is anonymous surfing? These are all reasonable questions.

Anonymous Proxy usage is on the rise. This is because an anonymous proxy can help you bypass Internet restrictions or Internet censorship. An anonymous proxy is an Internet server that you connect to and that appears to be your ISP’s Internet server to any site that you visit. The websites that you visit when connected to an anonymous proxy see the proxies IP address and not the IP address of your ISP, or employer. This helps bypass restrictions based on IP address. If your IP address is banned or blocked, then by using the IP address of the anonymous proxy, you are bypassing the ban.

Anonymous surfing is slightly different. In addition to hiding your IP address, anonymous surfing is the process of being invisible on the web. With an anonymous proxy that encrypts your website traffic, you make virtually impossible for someone to monitor your Internet surfing. All they will see is the encrypted traffic which is almost impossible to decipher.

When you surf anonymously by using encryption, then the data that you send not only can’t be read, its hard to block. Let’s say that you are in mainland China and researching democracy. By encrypting your searches, the Chinese government won’t know what you are looking for. This bypasses the block on those searches. Let’s also assume that the New York Times website is blocked by the Chinese. Again, the URL that you enter into your browser is encrypted so it cannot be monitored. This also means it can’t be blocked.

Anonymous Proxy and Anonymous Surfing are keys to being safe on the Internet. Safe from hackers and thieves. And safe from repressive governments.

For most of us, we don’t worry about being anonymous because we don’t live in a repressed society. However, governments aren’t the only ones watching you. Hackers and thieves are watching you too. Using an anonymous proxy can also protect you from would be thieves.

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Privacy: it doesn’t seem like we have much of it these days. Nearly everything we do these days is being watched. This new surveillance is manifested in many aspects of life. A person just walking down the street could be caught on tape from a store’s outdoor security camera. A driver who runs a red light could be caught on a security camera embedded in the light and sent a nice little ticket and directions on how to pay the fee. Students in school and in college are watched the most closely. In today’s cut throat world, students will do anything that they can to put themselves ahead of the pack, and that includes an unfair advantage by cheating. Some universities with large, lecture style rooms survey test takers with hidden video cameras to try and catch cheaters and give everyone a level playing field. Some on the more paranoid spectrum think the government watches everything we do, and records it all to be used against us later for criminal implications.

This is far from accurate though. While the government certainly does, and this is no secret, record things about the American people, it is certainly only for our safety. Ever since the 9/11 bombings, our country has stepped up security three-fold. This is most noticeable in the airports; the conduit for the brutal attacks. Where you used to go through security with pretty much just a visual check and a quick metal detector, you now spend quite a bit of time. It is not uncommon to see a person having to take off coat, shoes, and belt to be searched and patted down, to make sure they are not a threat. To most though, this is just an annoyance and means they have to wake up even earlier for their flight lest they miss it due to a convoluted security check.

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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.

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The Chinese government won’t budge on their resolution that all computers to be sold in China will contain censoring software. In fact, it seems they are going even further! They are thinking about recruiting some 10,000 people to be Internet monitors; find bad sites and report them.

The plan was offered up for discussion on Tuesday. This goal is to create a system that can “purify society.”

They are definitely on the offensive. One group, the China Illegal Internet Information Reporting Center, has been seeking out sites and warning them to take down their offensive content. They are afraid of no one, even going after the Chinese Google for hosting vulgar images and sexual content!

China has always had a history of interfering with people’s freedom rights by censoring and blocking content deemed inappropriate, or harmful to their Communist party. Internet-savvy citizens can easily get around these blocks through a myriad of ways, but this new computer installation software could prevent them from doing so any longer, and they are up in arms.

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As many devious people prowl the Internet and try to intercept exchanges of information, encrypted anonymous surfing is becoming more important on a daily basis. Because of this, the amount of people searching for the best way to become anonymous in their web surfing is growing everyday. US Military personnel are not exempt from this need to hide their identity and activities on the web.

The use of an anonymous web proxy can allow you to do more than just hide your IP address. It also allows you to have more freedom to explore websites that are restricted for some reasons, including government restrictions. Many schools, offices, organizations impose these restrictions, but our focus is on bypassing government censorship for military personnel abroad.

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