How to be Anonymous Online
Right out of the box, we encourage you to keep reading even if you are of the mindset, “I have nothing to hide.” That’s true of most people in the world. It is not about being anonymous because you are intent on criminal or underhanded acts, it is to protect your personal information from being used to set you up for such acts.
An article on Digital Trends about this topic popped into the inbox over the weekend and sparked the idea for this article. Let’s highlight their suggestions. You can read the entire article at your convenience.
They open their piece with an amusing comment, “Don’t open online accounts with your real name and data.” Humm, guess that makes sense, right? While not always possible, it makes sense to do it when you can. For example, I do not use my actual birthdate or legal name on any but governmental and banking sites.
Up first, browse in private whenever you can. What does this do? It turns off cookies and allows you to visit sites and research without leaving that annoying trail of crumbs behind everywhere. Crumbs that are used to “improve your online experience by presenting relevant content.” Here relevant content means ads. Check yourPC and mobile browsers for the Private setting and turn it on. Please note, some sites don’t play well when cookies are turned off.
Second, avoid the big three of search engines, Google, Bing, and Yahoo. These options collect the most data of any search engines and, when signed into your account, they all collect a lot ofinfo like birthday, gender, and phone number with Google and Bing grabbing your IP address and device’s geographic location as well. Avoid this data collection with a search engine like DuckDuckGo.
Third, hide or disguise your IP address. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) reserve the right to use different IP addresses every time you connect to the Internet. This dynamic assignment of IP addresses is based on the limited number available in certain protocols. Truth be told, this is becoming less common, andyou are likely to have a static IP address assigned, especially when using streaming services.
So, with a static IP address, your identity and location are easily discernible to those looking to do that. To combat this,you can set up a proxy server that disguises your static IP address. Perhaps easier is using a virtual private network (VPN). VPN services route your internet traffic through their servers that replace your IP address with one of theirs. Such services also make it more difficult to intercept your data between your device and their servers. VPN services abound and are reasonably priced. Be sure to check reviews.
Or, you can use the Torbrowser. This option has been around for a long time and is open-source. Volunteers allow traffic to be bounced through their machines, disguising the point of origin, you. There is one unfortunate side-effect of using Tor. According to c/net and the Washington Post, the US’s NSA (and probably other governments) add people to their watchlist who use Tor. And, they apparently go even further, planting malicious code on real and imposter sites that break Tor protections, compromising its anonymity capabilities.
Last, but not least, the Digital Trends article recommends a solution near and dear to our hearts, anonymous email andcommunication. There are options for this including disposable email accounts, like the burn phones in spy movies, or using a temporary email service. There are services for anonymizing chats as well.
Of course, these communications are still subject to interception and reading by others than the intended recipient(s), even if encrypted by the provider. So, rock-solid encryption is a must-have. And that leads us to CRIP.TO, our unique end-to-end encryption solution, and supporting stackof services.
Using the best encryption solutions in our “special recipe,” paired with custom hardware impervious to backdoors, and our best-in-class services, you have the highest level of anonymity and security available outside governmental and military organizations. In fact, we make our encryption solution so strong; even we can’t break it. How’s that for peace of mind?
When it comes to communications, you deserve the freedom to do so fearlessly. CRIP.TOgives you that freedom. Learn more today.
