Making my computer seem like a ghost?

[freeOn]

I had this debate with someone I know. He says it can't be done. We got pretty deep in thought about this. Ways to make your computer seem offline, or not there at all. We weren't really thinking about using proxys, and hiding your internet behavior but more on the side of blinding someone. Lets say that your best buddy had your IP, he knew you had a computer that was connected to the net. How would you hide the signs that your computer makes ?
Is there really any possible way?

[cwk9]

Might blocking his Ip have this effect?
I don't think that you could do this on a local network because nic's never shutup.

[freeOn]

What about pings, and tracerts to the ip? They send signals right? If you block only one IP others still are allowed to see that the computer is working. This would be a good question for someone running an ISP since they see all.

[obi]

Just use a nat device, the ip will appear alive, but not return any info to the far end

cheers

[Jabberwocky]

i don't know of any way to make your computer seem completely offline....

at&t has a service called crowds, which is like anonymous browsing. you're put into a bank of other users, and instead of looking up webpages or whatever with your own computer, the service has another computer in the crowd look it up and pass it to you. that way it's impossible for annoying watching your traffic to see what you're looking at on the web. there's some obvious disavantages, but if you really want anonymous browsing.....

www.research.att.com/projects/crowds

[Terr]

The best way to make your computer seem to be offline is simple:

A) Take the network cable or modem cable
B) Grip firmly
C) Press the little tab (on certain models)
D) Pull
E) Coil up.
F) Repeat as necessary.

Voila! It is impossible for your computer to be detected from the internet!

Actually, I'm not too clear on what you mean by 'like a ghost'. NAT works pretty well, in that it is a proxy-service which is not always identifiable as such.

Are you trying to make a single computer invisible, or any and all computers which can be connected to you? By the criteria of this thread, I could use an NAT computer and my personal computer, and only one would be seen from the internet. It would be a computer of mine, but not the computer I'm actually using.

My basic answer would be that NO, you cannot be 'invisible' online. There is always a path for information, and there is always the possibility that that path will be captured if you use a proxy which is not your own.

Exceptions include TEMPEST-monitoring a webserver to browse it.

[cwk9]

I was reading up on TEMPEST-monitoring. The only thing that sounds more scary that I can think of is (Shadow masked triad consortium). Were talking big brother sticking an anal probe up your ass type scary. Not the Miss Afghanistan doing a full spread on you lawn type.

Ok sorry got a little off track there. Anyways I was reading about the whole TEMPEST thing when I came across and article about picking up CRT images from your monitor.

You can read about it
here
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ieee02-optical.pdf
and
here
http://www.attrition.org/~modify/tex...c_tempest.html

Kind of a 1337 James Bond type thing.

Hmm maybe you could walk around a bank with a car battery, VCR and a small modified hand held T.V in you back pack and see what you could pick up. Of course that would be an onsite hack and we all know that a hacker would **** his pants as soon as he saw a security guard.

Reminds me of that article about getting data off the reflections from a modem light on someone’s glasses.

[s0nIc]

Not the Miss Afghanistan doing a full spread on you lawn type

lmao i think thats more scarry d00d.. hahhaa

[freeOn]

hmm..well Terr what I mean that as a ghost is you know that when you see one it's there but it's actually not visiable ofcourse people do see them every once and a while. hehe, I could see using a Nat instead of a proxy as a way to hide your computer. Connecting to a Nat on another network would be ideal and especially if that person was unaware. Using Proxys yes is probably the best way to hide your internet activity, but on the net you leave nicknames, and information for services. I'm going to look more into this if I find anything I'll put it up.

[str34m3r]

Well, I'm not sure if I exactly understand your question, but I'll give it a shot. If you mean being able to connect your computer to the internet without being connected to yourself, it's pretty tough. NAT is definitely a great option, but if you don't have another system to perform NAT, a good firewall is another option. A good firewall will give you the option of blocking all incoming traffic that isn't part of a connection you initiated. It will also block pings and other traffic that would give away your existence. The only traffic that isn't usually blocked is arp traffic. In order for networking to work correctly, your system generally needs to respond to arp requests and replies. Therefore, if someone knows your ip address, they can simply "arping" it and find out whether or not your system is up. There is a way to disable arp functionality in linux, but it can cause problems with network connectivity, so it's not recommended unless you're putting the box on the network solely for the purpose of sniffing. And if that's the case, then you probably don't want it to have an IP in the first place.