Anonymity: Basics

Anonymity
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anonymity

the condition of being anonymous.

lack of outstanding, individual, or unusual features; impersonality.

Two definition you get for anonymity when you google the word, but from a hacker perspective anonymity means a fine line between jail and freedom. In essence anonymity is where the game is played, the game of cat and mouse. In this tutorial I’m gonna try my best to address the basics and my techniques. Do whatever you please with this information, but don’t blame me if you get caught after all who’s there to blame but yourself?

The first thing to address is that even when using a proxy, vpn, or spoofing you still run a risk. Using proxies that you don’t know what the owner is doing with your information is such one risk. If you don’t like this risk then don’t use any anonymity software, simple as that. Of course if you’re still reading this then you clearly accept the risks.

With that outta the way, time to explain proxies. With a simple google search the definition for proxies are:

In computer networks, a proxy server is a server (a computer system or an application) that acts as an intermediary for requests from clients seeking resources from other servers.
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_server

Yes that’s the defintion of a proxy. I’m not gonna go into much detail about proxies and how they work. The point here is that when used correctly a proxy can in essence put a veil on your real Ip, for example using a Russian Proxy would make it look like you’re in Russia when in reality you are in your parents basement drinking coffee. There are many sources but my favorite to use is this particular website:

www.samair.ru/

VPNs are in my opinion the same as proxies, but I’m not gonna go into much detail about the differences. A VPNs purpose is the same to “hide” your real Ip and thus fooling pretty much everyone, well almost. There’s no one-hundred percent to hide your Ip no matter what you try, this should be noted when playing the game, yes this is a game as in cat and mice. I use the VPN GhostVPN on my phone, but not on my computer for security reasons.

I personally use a combination of Tor (proxy) and GhostVPN on my phone and I use a program called proxychains. Proxychains does what the name says, it allows you to chain multiple proxies together so that way you “hop” between the proxies. Although even this method isn’t 100% bullet proof, nothing is.

EDIT: If you’re interested in more of in depth detail please check out this really good article:

How to Become a Ghost Hacker - Merozey' Tips by Merozey

(I like to thank Cromical for showing me this article)

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Nice article! If you’d really like to know more about techniques that can help you remain Anonymous and so on take a look at this article: How to Become a Ghost Hacker - Merozey' Tips by Merozey! It’s really in-depth and I think you’ll learn a lot from it that can help with later articles! Otherwise nice job! However, I understood you did say:

Which I can respect, but I’m sure it would be better to actually get into detail about how they work. People, and yourself would benefit by having that knowledge. I personally find all forms of anonymity very-very fascinating, but due to my procrastinating self I haven’t gotten around to reading up on it too much (binge watching Mr.Robot). Anyways, in the long run good job although there is still room for improvement (as there is with all our articles).

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I understand but I had the suspicion someone else described in detail about what and how proxies work. I didn’t want the hassle to repeat what already been written. Thanks for the suggestions.

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Ah, makes sense on your part. Either way it was great.

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From the point of view of hiding your IP they may look the same, but technically they are completely different beasts. The most obvious difference between both is that the VPN usually encrypts the traffic an works transparently for all applications (you basically get a new network interface, a tunnel for your traffic) whereas to connect through a proxy the application needs to support that kind of connection or you have to “proxyfy it”.

The main purpose of VPNs is actually to access remote networks in a secure way (so the encryption) and as if you were actually in the remote network. They are like a virtual cable from your machine to the remote network. It can be use to hide your IP but just because, in a sense, you are using the remote network to bounce your connection…

A post on this is coming… not sure when but it will come unless somebody else write it first :wink:

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@0x00pf: In the VPN post you just mentioned, will you be covering l2tp and related things? using C?

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I’ve talked to @unh0lys0da in the IRC about that :slight_smile:. In principle I was planning to use other technology easier to grasp, I believe, for an introductory paper. Actually, I found out yesterday that I need a bit more education on managed L2PTv3 tunnels… I also find out that there are quite some interesting topics behind them

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I’ll definitely look into the possibility of l2tp and other related things… I should note that this was my opinion based so please don’t take offense if I may say something wrong.

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you use proxy chains on you’re computer or android or both?.

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More we concentrate on being so accurate in safety, more we make mistakes and leak our information. It’s okay to give your email, phone number or other sensitive information to big companies like META, but to be safe from unethical people or websites, just use TOR , and if you are on linux , use proxychains4 to do some actions like scanning or stress testing;
LIFE IS SHORT, BE ETHICAL
BLACKHAT

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Whats your thoughts on using tools like proxychains or torproxy?

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use TOR (port 9050) with proxychins config

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tl;dr Anonymity takes effort, discipline, and respect for the craft.

First off, Proxychains adds latency, breaks tools that rely on fast session handling, and doesn’t fix bad opsec. You’re probably going to get more timeouts than actual scans, but it depends on how you use it.

TOR by itself is not magic, especially during long sessions. Exit nodes sniff, traffic fingerprinting happens, and if you’ve got nothing layering over it. (I’ve covered this before, take a look if you’re interested.)

VPN and Tor at the same time? - #7 by 0xf00I

Think handing over your email and phone number to companies like META is “okay”? That’s cute. META doesn’t just collect what you give; they dig into everything they can | metadata, patterns, shadow profiles. even people who haven’t signed up.

What Really Caused Facebook's 500M-User Data Leak? | WIRED

Security fails because people cut corners not because they’re too “accurate.” Do you really think your info gets leaked because someone was “too careful”?

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Interesting information, never thought about it