Although I've been tokin' for as long as I can remember(which isn't usually too far back), I'm still a newb when it comes to growing, making hash, and all that good stuff.

That being said, I figured I could help a few people in this area of the site, as this is one area that I'm not a newb.

Outside of the firewalls and Anti-viruses that everyone should have on your computer, another good security feature to have handy is the proxy. This is what I call preventative defense.

A firewall's great if someone is trying to infiltrate your computer, but if information can get out it can get in and so can an attacker. So in comes the proxy...

If you can't find a computer, it's much harder to infiltrate it and start snooping around in whatever goodies you might have on it that you don't want me to see. That's where the proxy comes in very handy. Every time you access a web site, download something, or upload something, you have to send the computer you are interacting with an address so it knows where to send the web page, download, or upload so you can use it. That address is all I need to go to work on your computers defense.

On the other hand if you have a proxy, when I begin to attack your computer, I'm going to run into a very big problem. Your computer's not where I thought it was.

When using a proxy server, you only send your ip address and other system information to that one server, and then that server sends its information to whatever you are trying to access leaving you much more secure because anyone who wants your info has to infiltrate the proxy to find out what your true ip address is. A government agency can usually get that info by calling the server's administrator, so if you're conducting any kind of illegal activity or doing something that you think might make the cops want to keep a close eye on you, it's usually a good idea to use multiple proxy's from different countries that have bad relations with each other.

The drawback to this is since you are using a third party to access things, it can slow you down a bit. I hope this helps some of you. I just wanted to do a quick overview, if you want more detailed information on this, just tell me and I can add a lot more to it.

good advice, I know very little about computers but a friend of mine who does says no matter what security measures you put in place, if someone has the skills and desire they will find you.

As far as posting here goes, I'm basically relying on the fact that no one will bother with me because I'm not doing anything but using and hopefully sometime soon have a small personal grow. Also, lots of people use this computer and my passwords are saved in windows, so who is to say who made what posts and sent which emails? the only thing against this is if someone decides they are going to use activity from your computer to get a search warrant, which I'm sure the cops could do.

How does someone get a proxy ?

pipeman, you couldn't be more right, you can't stop a persistant person from gaining access to your computer, but you can make it so hard that they give up. You're computer's only as secure as the people who have access to it. If for example someone who has access to your computer is dumb enough to fall for social engineering tricks and give up user names/passwords and your true ip address than you can have all of the proxy's firewalls and AV's in the world and they won't do you a bit of good.

Here's a few sites where you can get proxy's. Also if you do a google search for proxys or visit some security/hacking sites you can find a ton of them.

http://tools.rosinstrument.com/proxy/
http://www.serverwatch.com/stypes/index.php/cHJveHk=
http://www.blackcode.com
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/p/proxy_server.html

You'll quickly notice that some a for specific operating systems, and there's anonymous proxy's, multi proxy's, yahoo proxy's, and about a thousand others. Just look through them and find whatever suits your needs. Like I said above, it's good to have more than one in case you really need to scramble your signal. It's always best to use them in coordination with a good firewall that logs activity so you can see when someone gets a lock on your computer and is trying to get in. For those of you that aren't very paranoid about people messing around inside your computer(I doubt there's very many in here), try one of those firewalls and you will be before the day's over.

Due to my membership of certain other boards, I've had to use anon proxies for the last few years...

If ya interested, check out the stuff here:

http://www.google.com/search?q=%2Banonymou...=utf-8&oe=utf-8

Boy am I glad to be born in a country where you don't have to worry about what you 're pc is containing, or whatever you smoke.

Still You better (like me) get some protection,...it's unbelieveble how many different kind of spyware you pick up just surfin' the net!! :angry:

unfortunately, when you're on the 'net tboat, it doesn't matter what country u are from at all. people will still want to get in.

if you're connected, you're vulnerable to attack - doesn't matter what subnet or domain your machine is in

Nice link BlackBeauty.Thanx

tboat, government's one thing, but if you have the extra time, I'd recommend doing a little security research, because a little protection can have your box owned in a very short time. Like I said above try a firewall with a log(obviously you have to learn how to read them first), and you will see the amount of port scans and other hits you get on a daily basis. Then keep in the back of your head that an attacker with any skill will walk right around that firewall without you seeing so much as a single data packet being stopped.

A word of caution. If anyone who isn't knowledgeable in this area and takes my advice in doing a little research, it can quickly become an addiction. As the old saying goes, ignorance is bliss, and once you realize how many different ways there are into your computer you are thrown into a never ending insane spiral of paranoia. The internet is a big war zone, and 99% of people don't even know they're right in the middle of it. Have fun.

Yeah, I use Zone Alarm and it's constantly blocking attempts to access my PC. I read somewhere that some of these attacks are by large corporations doing their market research.

like I sayd,...use some protection.....I have ZoneAlarm, Eanthology, Vga6.0.......some popupkillerzz,.... and still sometimes I pick dirth up.
do your scans on a regular basis too!!

yes: regular scans, with updated virus/trojan/security hole definitions!

Yeah...

And if you use Zone Alarm you will also see so called attempts to access you system that are called ICM ....

these are not real attempts by hackers, nor are they large corporations trying to gain market research... They are simply a Time to Live Ping Echoed from an older style router.. ie cisco 3200 or under, or even a cisco 7000 thats not had a frimware upgrade....

Why do they do it... quite simply OLD TECHNOLGY...

The older sytle router had to have a ' smart ' means of keeping a connection ' alive ', this meant keeping in constant contact with it... and thus sending some kind of network packet and awaiting a responce...

The newer firmware is a little smarter, and doesnt reply upon this means of keeping connections alive...

So when you are getting ICM pings, if you take the time to do a traceroute, you will most likly see they are coming from a " hop " somewhere inbetween you and you provider...

Just a little something to help ease the minds of those who stress..

Cheers

- Merv