Is anonymizer.com services a hoax?

[Josh Collins]

The website anonymizer.com says it can hide your IP and keep you from being
tracked online. It says it can hide your technical info from websites that
use stat trackers. I tested this and know it is true. However, I emailed
their support so I could get copies of email sent from their so-called
anonymous service. While no IP is listed in their email headers, there are
numbers that anonymizer.com itself uses and the words anonymizer.com are
clearly listed in the header.

So what is the point of using anonymizer.com if your email can still be
tracked back to the anonymous site? It is not really anonymous then, is it?

Also, do any of you really believe that their "tunneling" service can keep
your email and website activity shielded from your ISP? They claim their
service can keep you ISP from reading your email and logging your internet
activity. Any of you buy into this?

[Vanguard]

Sounds like you just want to blast a service without providing any proof
to qualify your arguments. "... there are numbers that anonymizer.com
itself uses and the words anonymizer.com are clearly listed in the
header." Well, with such a detailed description as this then, yeah, we
all are going to jump on the "slam anonymizer.com" bandwagon with you.
Sure, yeah.

Obviously ANY destination host that gets a connection from a source host
will know the IP address of the source host. Any receiving mail server
will know the e-mail originated from an IP address belonging to
anonymizer.com. I don't know if Anonymizer doesn't bother to report a
valid host name in the HELO or EHLO command for SMTP but it doesn't
matter since the receiving host can do a reverse DNS lookup to show you
that source host's IP name (if it has one; otherwise, you can simply
lookup the IP address of the source host at ARIN or another regional IP
address registrar). Anonymizer cannot hide to the receiving host that
the e-mail came from Anonymizer. But apparently you have already
confirmed that nothing of YOUR domain was revealed (your DHCP-assigned
or static IP address, your domain, your e-mail address, and so on). If
Anonymizer doesn't keep log records, or whatever they have or backup
doesn't contain any of YOUR information, then no one can subpeona them
to get any information regarding YOU and all they get are maintanence
logs of Anonymizer's operation. Your email can ALWAYS be traced to the
first mail server which either inserted the original headers or stripped
them all out and put in theirs. Why do you care who is the delivery guy
if he doesn't have any info on who gave him the package?

I haven't bothered to use Anonymizer. I haven't gotten that paranoid
yet. Using an e-mail alias suffices for now (I use Sneakemail although
there is SpamMotel, SpamEx, and others). Guess what? When you use
those services' anonymous e-mail service, like from Sneakemail, the
recipient can still see that it came from Sneakemail.com but nothing
about YOU. So who cares that the information within the headers shows
the e-mail originated from an anonymous service? Is that you? No.

I don't know about their tunneling feature. It it is like VPN (Virtual
Private Networking) then the ISP cannot use or disclose any of the
traffic in the tunnel since it is encrypted. Otherwise, VPN wouldn't
exist and no company would use it for off-site or at-home employees. In
fact, Anonymizer probably doesn't even need to use VPN. They probably
only need for you to use their SSL-secured proxy for web surfing because
that would encrypt your traffic, too. They mention using SSL at
http://www.anonymizer.com/privatesurfing/.

Yep, sounds like you just want to slam Anonymizer. I can't defend them
very well because I don't subscribe to their services. I haven't got
that paranoid yet but nor do I engage in any activities for which I
would fear the FBI or police would want to bother to arrest me for. If
I want to secure my e-mail, I encrypt it but I don't hide from whence it
originated. If I want to carry on business at remote sites over
non-company networks then I'd use VPN. SSL works for securing web
traffic. I'm not yet in a position where I would consider spending
$30/year for their PrivateSurfing service to be of much value to me.
But that has nothing to do with how well they secure your communications
and whether or not you feel the cost is worth it. I've actually
occasionally used their freebie web surf page to get to a site that was
unreachable by my ISP's route because a host in that path was causing
problems but a different route got me through a different set of hosts
to reach the target web site. But then using MultiProxy and public
proxies does the same thing. In some way, Anonymizer just provides a
more reliable solution to using something like GhostSurf and bouncing
through one or more proxies (but I don't think any of them use SSL as
does Anonymizer, so this proxy bouncing doesn't hide your ISP from
snooping on your communications).


--
__________________________________________________ __________
** Share with others. Post replies in the newsgroup.
** If present, remove all "-NIX" from my email address.
__________________________________________________ __________


"Josh Collins" <JoshCollins32@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:blcs1c09a2@enews4.newsguy.com...
> The website anonymizer.com says it can hide your IP and keep you from
being
> tracked online. It says it can hide your technical info from websites
that
> use stat trackers. I tested this and know it is true. However, I
emailed
> their support so I could get copies of email sent from their so-called
> anonymous service. While no IP is listed in their email headers, there
are
> numbers that anonymizer.com itself uses and the words anonymizer.com
are
> clearly listed in the header.
>
> So what is the point of using anonymizer.com if your email can still
be
> tracked back to the anonymous site? It is not really anonymous then,
is it?
>
> Also, do any of you really believe that their "tunneling" service can
keep
> your email and website activity shielded from your ISP? They claim
their
> service can keep you ISP from reading your email and logging your
internet
> activity. Any of you buy into this?
>
>

[Josh Collins]

You haven't used anonymizer and you had the audacity to reply to my post.
Quit wasting people's time with your unneeded and uninformed verbosity. BTW,
I made no "arguments." Thanks for overstating the obvious: I only asked
questions.

Thank god for kill files. Vandork you are now in my ignore list.

"Vanguard" wrote in message
news:9XGeb.649965$Ho3.134495@sccrnsc03...
> Sounds like you just want to blast a service without providing any proof
> to qualify your arguments. "... there are numbers that anonymizer.com
> itself uses and the words anonymizer.com are clearly listed in the
> header." Well, with such a detailed description as this then, yeah, we
> all are going to jump on the "slam anonymizer.com" bandwagon with you.
> Sure, yeah.
>
> Obviously ANY destination host that gets a connection from a source host
> will know the IP address of the source host. Any receiving mail server
> will know the e-mail originated from an IP address belonging to
> anonymizer.com. I don't know if Anonymizer doesn't bother to report a
> valid host name in the HELO or EHLO command for SMTP but it doesn't
> matter since the receiving host can do a reverse DNS lookup to show you
> that source host's IP name (if it has one; otherwise, you can simply
> lookup the IP address of the source host at ARIN or another regional IP
> address registrar). Anonymizer cannot hide to the receiving host that
> the e-mail came from Anonymizer. But apparently you have already
> confirmed that nothing of YOUR domain was revealed (your DHCP-assigned
> or static IP address, your domain, your e-mail address, and so on). If
> Anonymizer doesn't keep log records, or whatever they have or backup
> doesn't contain any of YOUR information, then no one can subpeona them
> to get any information regarding YOU and all they get are maintanence
> logs of Anonymizer's operation. Your email can ALWAYS be traced to the
> first mail server which either inserted the original headers or stripped
> them all out and put in theirs. Why do you care who is the delivery guy
> if he doesn't have any info on who gave him the package?
>
> I haven't bothered to use Anonymizer. I haven't gotten that paranoid
> yet. Using an e-mail alias suffices for now (I use Sneakemail although
> there is SpamMotel, SpamEx, and others). Guess what? When you use
> those services' anonymous e-mail service, like from Sneakemail, the
> recipient can still see that it came from Sneakemail.com but nothing
> about YOU. So who cares that the information within the headers shows
> the e-mail originated from an anonymous service? Is that you? No.
>
> I don't know about their tunneling feature. It it is like VPN (Virtual
> Private Networking) then the ISP cannot use or disclose any of the
> traffic in the tunnel since it is encrypted. Otherwise, VPN wouldn't
> exist and no company would use it for off-site or at-home employees. In
> fact, Anonymizer probably doesn't even need to use VPN. They probably
> only need for you to use their SSL-secured proxy for web surfing because
> that would encrypt your traffic, too. They mention using SSL at
> http://www.anonymizer.com/privatesurfing/.
>
> Yep, sounds like you just want to slam Anonymizer. I can't defend them
> very well because I don't subscribe to their services. I haven't got
> that paranoid yet but nor do I engage in any activities for which I
> would fear the FBI or police would want to bother to arrest me for. If
> I want to secure my e-mail, I encrypt it but I don't hide from whence it
> originated. If I want to carry on business at remote sites over
> non-company networks then I'd use VPN. SSL works for securing web
> traffic. I'm not yet in a position where I would consider spending
> $30/year for their PrivateSurfing service to be of much value to me.
> But that has nothing to do with how well they secure your communications
> and whether or not you feel the cost is worth it. I've actually
> occasionally used their freebie web surf page to get to a site that was
> unreachable by my ISP's route because a host in that path was causing
> problems but a different route got me through a different set of hosts
> to reach the target web site. But then using MultiProxy and public
> proxies does the same thing. In some way, Anonymizer just provides a
> more reliable solution to using something like GhostSurf and bouncing
> through one or more proxies (but I don't think any of them use SSL as
> does Anonymizer, so this proxy bouncing doesn't hide your ISP from
> snooping on your communications).
>
>
> --
> __________________________________________________ __________
> ** Share with others. Post replies in the newsgroup.
> ** If present, remove all "-NIX" from my email address.
> __________________________________________________ __________
>
>
> "Josh Collins" <JoshCollins32@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:blcs1c09a2@enews4.newsguy.com...
> > The website anonymizer.com says it can hide your IP and keep you from
> being
> > tracked online. It says it can hide your technical info from websites
> that
> > use stat trackers. I tested this and know it is true. However, I
> emailed
> > their support so I could get copies of email sent from their so-called
> > anonymous service. While no IP is listed in their email headers, there
> are
> > numbers that anonymizer.com itself uses and the words anonymizer.com
> are
> > clearly listed in the header.
> >
> > So what is the point of using anonymizer.com if your email can still
> be
> > tracked back to the anonymous site? It is not really anonymous then,
> is it?
> >
> > Also, do any of you really believe that their "tunneling" service can
> keep
> > your email and website activity shielded from your ISP? They claim
> their
> > service can keep you ISP from reading your email and logging your
> internet
> > activity. Any of you buy into this?
> >
> >
>
>

[Vanguard]

I don't need to use a specific service that utilizes SSL and non-logging
proxies to understand communications remain encrypted and unusable
elsewhere along the path between source and destination hosts. Since
Anonymizer uses SSL, you don't have to worry about your ISP seeing the
*content* of communications. But SSL alone does not prevent your ISP
from seeing *where* you connected. That's why you use Anonymizer's
proxy. Your ISP only sees you connecting to Anonymizer, but not to
where you have that proxy connect. Are you saying Anonymizer does not
provide an SSL-secured proxy? Do you know? If you don't know then
obviously YOU are the one bashing a service for which you have no
experience. If they do not provide an SSL-secured proxy then, yes, your
ISP can see *where* you connect but not *what* gets transferred. This
isn't rocket science. I don't have to use a particular service to know
how it works since lots of other services and even companies themselves
use the same techniques. It ain't nothing new.

Unless you can provide some actual PROOF that Anonymizer is not
anonymous rather than just some vague claims, stop wasting time bashing
a product that apparently doesn't suit your specific super secret needs
(which also makes suspect why you need security on *where* you have
browsed rather than being concerned about securing *what* is contained
in your communications). I'm sure pedophiles, scammers, thieves, and
other slime are truly afraid of the gov't, their parents, or their
employer in finding out who they are or their browsing habits.

Unless you provide some specifics as to exactly why Anonymizer is not
anonymous, your comments are seen as merely rants to bash a service.
Just how is Anonymizer not anonymous (for YOU)? So what is YOUR
solution? What other anonymous service provider is *more* anonymous
than Anonymizer? And why are you so desparate to hide?

[Tim Smith]

In article <blcs1c09a2@enews4.newsguy.com>, Josh Collins wrote:
> anonymous service. While no IP is listed in their email headers, there are
> numbers that anonymizer.com itself uses and the words anonymizer.com are
> clearly listed in the header.
>
> So what is the point of using anonymizer.com if your email can still be
> tracked back to the anonymous site? It is not really anonymous then, is it?

How does having anonymizer.com in the header make it not anonymous?

> Also, do any of you really believe that their "tunneling" service can keep
> your email and website activity shielded from your ISP? They claim their
> service can keep you ISP from reading your email and logging your internet
> activity. Any of you buy into this?

Why do you find this unbelievable? Hell, I can stop my ISP from reading my
mail, just using tools that came with my computer:

In an xterm:

ssh -L 110:mail.mydomain.net:110 -l myname -N mail.mydomain.net

mail.mydomain.net is the mail server at the company that hosts my
domain. myname is my account name there.

In my mail client:

tell it to read mail from localhost port 110

And if you go read their support pages, that's basically what they are
doing. You get a mail account on their servers, and they basically provide
a Windows implementation of ssh, and use ssh tunelling, just like my
example, to map the POP, SMTP, and HTTP ports (and others...I think I saw
FTP in there, too) on localhost to the corresponding services on their
server.

Of course, *they* can read you email, so all you've done is substitute them
for your ISP...

--
Evidence Eliminator is worthless. See evidence-eliminator-sucks.com
--Tim Smith

[Jay T. Blocksom]

On Tue, 30 Sep 2003 16:19:37 -0500, in <alt.privacy.spyware>, "Josh Collins"
<JoshCollins32@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
[snip]
>
> So what is the point of using anonymizer.com if your email can still be
> tracked back to the anonymous site? It is not really anonymous then, is
> it?
>
[snip]

There is NO SUCH THING as true anonymity on the 'net, period. Believe
otherwise at your peril.

--

Jay T. Blocksom
--------------------------------
Appropriate Technology, Inc.
usenet01[at]appropriate-tech.net


"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-- Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759.

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