Doesn't using a tor/proxy attract attention?

[shain707]

Hi i'd like to visit a site without the site knowing I'm visiting it. I've read that using a proxy server can do this, or also that I might use a TOR browser as the easiest way to use that.

But something I've always wondered about that sort of thing is , doesn't it actually attract attention to you if you use these things because it shows that '...hey!...this ones anonymous!' or that it would jump out at anyone monitoring something that it's coming in on a proxy or through TOR? you know what I mean?

thanks for any feedback, Shain.

Hope this is the right forum for this.

PS: and also please recommend a proxy server they all look/sound cheap and virus prone

 

[gb2000ie]

Your options for hiding from snoopers are basically:

1) a regular proxy server
2) TOR
3) a VPN

All these options have different pros and cons, and which would be more suited depends on the scenario, specifically, who do you think might be spying on you?

If it's your ISP then a proxy is useless if the site you are going to is not a secure site, and you will be obviously going to a proxy even if it is secure. TOR would hide what you are doing from your ISP completely, but it would be obvious that you are trying (and succeeding) to hide. Finally, a VPN would again totally hide you traffic from your ISP, and they would know you were doing that, but VPNs are used by loads of business people, so their use is less unusual.

If you want the owners of the website not to see where you are, then a proxy may be utterly useless. The HTTP protocol used by proxy servers supports something called the x-forwarded-for header which allows a proxy server to insert the original IP into the request sent to the server, so in effect such a proxy server is saying to the website "Hi, I'm a proxy and I'm here on behalf of this guy". Proxies don't HAVE to insert the x-forwarded-for header, but they CAN, so unless you know the proxy you are using definitely does not, then you could have a totally false sense of security.

If you use TOR the site will know for sure you are hiding your true origin, but they won't be able to trace where you really are.

If you use a VPN you will definitely be hiding your true origin, and it may or may not be obvious that you are trying to hide depending on whether you are using a well known VPN provider or not.

Hope that helps,

B.

 

[shain707]

Ok, I'll look into Virtual Private Networks

....but I guess I was also wondering about the basic details of like, if someone has a commercial website up, how can they tell who's looking at it? Like how, if it's not the ISP how would they even go about that? Is that something anyone with a website automatically looks at? Is it something you'd have to get extra experts around for? Or do they ask the hosting ISP to monitor something for them?

OR is it more than likely someone could have a site up and not even be monitoring who's going on it? (not a naughty-porn site but something with cute guys on it that they're probably aware would attract that type of interest anyway).

Thanks for any feedback, Shain.

 

[gb2000ie]

Ok, I'll look into Virtual Private Networks

....but I guess I was also wondering about the basic details of like, if someone has a commercial website up, how can they tell who's looking at it?

Because websites use the HTTP protocol which sits on top of the TCP protocol. When you hit enter after you enter a URL into your browser this is what happens:

1) your computer makes a DNS request to the DNS server configured on your router to turn the name of the website (e.g. www.gayheaven.org) into an IP address.
2) The DNS server responds with the answer (109.201.152.100 in our example)
3) Your browser opens a TCP connection to port 80 at that IP address - this triggers the so-called TCP3-way-handshake which establishes the connection. When you establish that connection both sides know each other's IP address, without that, the connection cannot be established.
4) Your browser sends a HTTP request through the TCP connection to the web server asking for a given URL.
5) The server responds with the requested web page through the TCP connection
6) The server closes the TCP connection

This means three things:
1) who ever runs your DNS server knows what domain you went to
2) the web server knows the IP address you connected from
3) the web server knows the URL you requested, and has logged the IP, the time, and the URL in it's log file

OK - so how can a VPN/TOR/Proxy work? All three of these things work by splitting the TCP connection in half, and effectively turning it into two connections, one from you to the VPN/TOR/Proxy, and from the VPN/TOR/Proxy to the server. The server then logs the IP of the VPN/TOR/Proxy, not yours.

Like how, if it's not the ISP how would they even go about that? Is that something anyone with a website automatically looks at? Is it something you'd have to get extra experts around for? Or do they ask the hosting ISP to monitor something for them?

The information is in the web server's log files - it takes no special skill to read, and there are lots of so-called "log analyser" programs that will take a web server log and generate reports and statistics on it.

OR is it more than likely someone could have a site up and not even be monitoring who's going on it? (not a naughty-porn site but something with cute guys on it that they're probably aware would attract that type of interest anyway).

Whether or not a website owner chooses to look at the info is up to them, but they all have it at their finger tips.

Personally, I run a lot of web sites (I'm a Linux sysadmin by profession), and I only look at the logs when I have a reason to - perhaps the site is slow and I want to look for strange activity, perhaps the police have knocked on my door and asked for info, or perhaps one of my automated tools has alerted me to the fact that there is an unusual traffic pattern on the site.

If a website is monetised with ads the owners will be watching the statistics from the logs very carefully, to see how many views per day they get and so on, but they are unlikely to care what individual person is doing what.

I hope that helps,

Bart.

P.S.
One of the advantages of a VPN is that DNS queries go through the VPN too, so your ISP can't know where you have been based on DNS queries - that is not true with proxy servers, there only the connection to the server is proxied, the DNS query goes over the ISP's network unencrypted.