Anonymizer
An anonymizer or anonymizer is a system that helps users to maintain their anonymity on the Internet , especially on the World Wide Web . They are intended to help maintain data protection and data security while surfing. In their function, they are similar to remailers , which are used to anonymize e-mails .
Simple anonymizers
An anonymizer is connected as a so-called proxy or a virtual private network (VPN) between the user and the target computer. Since the proxy / VPN now communicates with the target computer instead of the user, the connection to the original user cannot easily be traced back. For this, however, it is necessary that the proxy is really anonymous and does not use header data like a regular proxy to report that the request comes from a proxy and which client is requesting it.
The data stream between the user and the anonymizer is usually encrypted to prevent eavesdropping on the connection between the user and the proxy. It is assumed that as many users as possible use the same proxy at the same time so that individual connections cannot be assigned to specific users.
Many well-known Anonymizer rely on the SSL - or SOCKS - protocol and can therefore be used with a variety of applications.
Mix cascades
In systems with only one proxy server , security depends on the trustworthiness of the proxy computer. If this is corrupted or if it works deliberately against the user, the whole system will be affected.
Therefore modern anonymizer rely on several successive proxies, called Mix - cascade . Here, the data is encrypted several times and passed through several computers, with one encryption being decrypted for each computer. The data can only be read at the end of the mix cascade. However, since the connection data of different users are reshuffled at each link in the cascade, a clear assignment is impossible. Only an attacker who controls all computers in a mixed cascade can monitor the data traffic. Even if only a single mix remains intact, the entire system remains secure.
One user of Mix-Cascades is, for example, JonDonym . This anonymizer indicates that the individual operators of the cascade levels are each certified with regard to data security .
Anonymous P2P networks or mixed networks
But even with mixed cascades, there is no guarantee that the various operators will not work together, even if they are in different jurisdictions . You can only be 100% sure that there will be no logging if you operate the anonymization service (i.e. a mix node) yourself, thus mixing and anonymizing the traffic of others and your own. So that you can now get traffic from others, they have to know their own node and have their data flow routed through it . Mix networks such as the P2P anonymization network I2P are based on this philosophy : Each participant in the network routes external data traffic and mixes it with his own, which he in turn allows other network participants to forward (via so-called "tunnels"). Since the data does not leave the I2P network by default, it is end-to-end encrypted and is only forwarded by the participants ( nodes ), the forwarding nodes are not associated with the activities of the users.
Risks
As has been reported in the media, visitors to websites of certain anonymization services end up on blacklists of secret services , so it can make sense to only visit them after using anonymization software obtained elsewhere and thus leave little or no usable traces.
In general, anonymization makes criminal prosecution more difficult, but this is by no means to be equated with de facto impunity . The behavior as an anonymous user on the Internet should not be criminal or vandalistic , at least out of self-protection interests .
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Patrick Beuth: Xkeyscore: NSA considers all Tor users to be suspicious. In: Die Zeit , July 3, 2014, accessed November 6, 2015