Security - IP Hiding,Port Closing,Ghosting

Hi...this past weekend i went to go visit my cousin who is like this high tech computer guy....he has like 120gb with like 512mb of ram and hes so paranoid about his internet security...i wanted to download kazaa to get some music and he got so mad at me. He says he has some illegal things in his box that i dont know about..and well i thought it was so cool. He has like this hella tight ass PopUP blocker and all the IP Proxy tools.and he says his computer is a "ghost" computer and noone can find it, and well my point is that i was wondering if someone can help me make my little 20gb 128mb ram computer into a ghost computer too. i wanna hide my IP behind proxies and be cautious about replying email yahoo (somethings he said he doesent do). So if anyone can help me id be happy.

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he says his computer is a "ghost" computer and noone can find it

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He says he has some illegal things in his box that i dont know about

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'nuf said

But, about your question;

Setup a firewall and properly configure it, make sure it drops ICMP packets, so when somebody pings you, your pc won't send a reply.
See here: http://www.securityfocus.com/infocus/1750

You can search google for free anonymous proxys:
http://www.google.be/search?hl=nl&ie...=Google+zoeken

dJ, my first suggestion is looking through the forums here at AO for related threads (use keyword searches for Proxy, firewalls, masking IP, etc.) You'll find tons of good stuff.

As for 'hiding' your computer on the internet, I'd suggest Anonymizer like el-half said for a proxy, although it's not the only proxy service out there. You can easily Google for a Proxy and set your defaults on your browser to connect through those proxies on certain ports.

To be perfectly honest, I don't think proxies totally conceal your IP anyways. Should someone scan your domain, your real IP should still show up as a live connection. From what I know, proxies just change your source IP address in the packet header to a random IP address and foward the request and then change the destination IP back to your real IP when returning requests. This however doesn't mean your true IP is non-existent on the internet. However, most proxies quickly discard or don't even keep a record of the source/destination IP information to my understanding.

Also, like el-half said, set up a firewall to drop (or) reject (this is a heated debate) ICMP packets. Coupled with some good rulesets to block services that hackers/crackers can exploit to get into your computer. (Telnet, FTP, etc.).

I'd also suggest looking into PGP if you're also looking to secure your email as well.

IF you want to get real fancy, you can also play with your registry keys to change your browser's UserAgent to better help mask your true OS and browser. (amongst many other things).

This is just the tip of the iceberg, I'm sure I've missed all kinds of other things you can do. but none the less, everything I suggested and much more can be found here in tons of related threads. Good Luck.

I'd also suggest that you don't listen to everything you hear because a lot of people are just full of ****.

So true, the only true ghost computer is one that is off and not plugged into the wall. :)

Also note that even with a proxy or firewall you will only be hiding your internal network ip's but your external IP provided by your DLS / Cable provider can always be found. In a proxy world you are in essence taking your local IP (10.1.1.1) and converting it to a valid internet IP (65.2.45.1) which can always be identified. You can however spoof yourself when are scanning other networks, but most people turn on anti-spoofing so it drops the packets anyway.

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Originally posted here by Relyt
So true, the only true ghost computer is one that is off and not plugged into the wall. :)

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I dunno about that. I have two ghost computers in the office. One in the vault and one in the front room. They're both ghost servers, although we have a lot of them laying around the school... The one in the front office keeps crashing though, I'm gonna have a talk with the people setting them up.


Anyways about making yourself a ghost... it'll never happen. The big thing with the newer versions of ICQ in the last few years was that they no longer revealed your IP, like all the other IMs, however they're are patches to make it reveal the IP again. You initiate a file transfer in msn or yahoo and boom they have your IP. Browse to my website, or access my IP and I have your IP. If you are behind a router, or a hardware firewall at least they won't get back to your machine, only to the device.. but they are still seeing your IP. Go get your list of proxies and feed it into your applications, pump everything through your proxy. Then join an IRC channel and inadvertantly comment on the bad service <enter isp here> is providing, and boom I do a ping sweep and I know one of those machines I find is yours (unless you have ICMP being dropped.. but there are still other ways).

Get promoxitron, av, and a good firewall. Make sure you have patches and you are up-to-date. Scan regularly with your av, ad-aware, spybot and swatit. Yes, I recommend both because neither of them are complete. Install the google toolbar, modify your IPSec policy, your local security policy, your local password policy. Disable non-essential services.

Then start reading books and this website. Read Hacking Exposed: Network Security Secrets and Solutions. Read books on networking protocols and standards.

And like souleman said stop believing everything you hear, the person is prolly talking ****...