Hiding ip

[DakX]

Ok i just returned from vacation. I read a few books and in one of them there was a site called hackerwhacker. It scans your ports that are open. Now it seemed like a good i dea so i scanned. I saw nothing. But they did have my IP and other things. Like the last page i visited. I know that thats easy to do but i still want to make it a bit harder for them. I am using firefox 1.0.6 with a proxy extension but that doesn't work. An got an idea's on how to hide or make it harder for people to see your ip and other things??
Help will be greatly appreciated. (did I spell that correctly?)
By the way the site is www.hackerwhacker.com

Dakx

[Aspman]

You can't really hide your IP or your ISP wouldn't let you connect. Sites showing your IP and then saying that this makes you vulnerable to attack are preying on your paranoia.

Using a reasonable personal firewall + the usual antispyware/AV tools would keep you safe enough online. You would not appear to many automated scans.
A determined and skilled cracker could still damage your machine but in reality anyone with those skills is not really going to be interested in you.

Have a read of some of the security tutorials in here they'll keep you right.

[DakX]

Thx. I found some way's but they slow me down a lot. I got a firewall aswell as av and spyware detectors (would be wierd to be a member of AO and not have those.)
M going to install a second firewall aswell. Because i really am paranoid. Zonealarm and sygate

[XTC46]

M going to install a second firewall aswell. Because i really am paranoid. Zonealarm and sygate

thats a bad idea. They will conflict. if you want two firewalls, use one hardware and one software. two software is a HUGE waste of resources and will casue more grief than good.

[Und3ertak3r]

A tool I use on my daughters machine is The Proxomitron http://duke.usask.ca/~macphed/prox/
That helps with the local shite, cleans the crap off many pages. oh and some sites complain that they dont know what a Victor Lawnmower is
now as for masking your IP.. well the packets need a return address.. dont they?.. use a proxy server or 2.. Useing a proxy server is no guarantee that a malicious code wont find its way to your machine, you will need a filtering proxy
If you want to play with packet filtering and firewalls.. have a look at Squid and Smoothwall or IPcop..
oh one more thing to readup on TOR..

[wildred]

Now Dakx, here's my question...why the paranoia? If you aren't doing anything illegal and have secured your sensitive information, then relax and use a good software and hardware firewall and you will be ok. If you still are paranoid, stop doing anything illegal (if you are that is) and remove all sensitive files from your computer after backing them up to a DVDRW/CDRW.

[NeuTron]

Why does he have to be breaking the law to be paranoid? Perhaps it isn't the police that he's protecting himself from. (trying to at least )

[Juridian]

Hardware vs software firewalls don't matter so much depending on the quality of the firewall you're putting in place. I'd recommend you get or set up an inexpensive router as your border device and use it as a packet filter (very simple firewall). Behind that put up a linux box (with say...netfilter) or something similar that can do some stateful inspection....You can even put squid on it as a proxy/filter for your web traffic.

Breaking it out like this can make it easier for you to manage and maintain in your brain while working on it, and can be done for just a small amount of cash. There are also plenty of free resources on the internet to help you learn to do this work.

Like the man said above, you don't have to be doing anything illegal to be paranoid.

Just do your research and the proper amount of planning before you take action. Putting the two personal firewalls on your one machine probably isn't going to be all that helpful for ya. If you have any questions on setting stuff up or on how to test it once it's built just shoot me a note and I'll point you in the right direction.

[zENGER]

Do you shread your junk mail too, or are you only paranoid about computer security? I find many people who will go to no end to protect their computer from the internet but have no problems throwing away credit card applications without even ripping them up. I would rather deploy an acceptable level of security across all domains than to focus on one completely and ignore others.

[Juridian]

I shred all my old mail. =p