Using a secure proxy server is one vital step in protecting yoruself online.  Unfortunately if you pick an insecure one, you’ll be doing more harm than good.  The world is full of idenity thieves, huge criminal gangs with plenty of resources have realised the huge gains and limited risks of electronic fraud and theft.   The risks are minimal compared to the conventional crime and even less when you can set yourself up in a distant country with lax information laws and ineffective police.   Electronic crime and identity theft offer these huge rewards, those rewards keep growing as a the communication revolution of the internet continues.

One of the main issues is fundamental to your browsing and that is that most of it happens in clear ascii text.  So that’s everything that leaves your computer and travels across the web is instantly readable by anyone who happens to intercept it.   Where can it be intercepted, well the most obvious is the ISP logs which contains a complete log of everything you do online.  There are lots of other places of course but a favourite trick is the free anonymous proxy.  It’s quite simple and very clever simply buy, rent or hack into a server, install some proxy server and them advertise it on the net as a free secure proxy server.  It doesn’t take long before thousands of people flock to use the server and you have lots of clear data flowing through the server.  Swicth it to caching mode or enable some logging software and you can record everything - user accounts, login details, passwords you name it.

A quick and simple way not only to steal personal data but to actually have people send it directly to you in the name of anonymity !

Remember always the adage - ‘you get what you pay for’ - proxy servers cost a lot of money to supply.   A free anonymous proxy quickly gets very expensive, so why would someone pay a fortune to allow everybody to use a free anonymous proxy.   Well the simple answer is they usually do it by mistake and accidentally leave the proxy open, or they do it on purpose and steal your details in payment.

Be very careful that the secure proxy server you choose to protect your browsing is a proper secure professional server not a free one run by a bunch of eastern european hackers.

proxy?

Have you ever come across a problem like whenever you are trying to open a website it is getting blocked and the error message that is showing up is about some content filter which is not finding the contents of the website authentic and viewable?

This is when a proxy site comes into the picture. They allow you to go through the websites overcoming the blocks. Basically the proxy sites are the ones that ids meant for the convenience of the end users. The proxy servers can help you in various ways. They generally work on behalf of the particular allocated clients and also help the users.

Advantages of proxy

You must have heard about the firewalls which often come in between the end user and the source of connection. They filter the contents and then cater then to you. This is basically made to stop the hackers. The proxy server somewhat relates to the same purpose but they work on it in a slightly different way.

They follow the mechanism of storing and then forwarding. They terminate the source internet connection that is supposed to come to the users and creates a separate connection with the destination. The proxy servers are capable of serving a number of users at the same time.

Using a proxy server you can surf the internet without getting in touch with the internet connection directly. This is the reason you can maintain your privacy with the proxy servers. There are many big service providers like VSNL and AOL which employs the proxy servers to serve their customers who opt for the dial-up plans.

Types of proxy

There are various types of proxy servers. Some of the proxy services fall under the firewall services and some of them work independently. Generally there are three types of proxy servers- Generic proxy, Circuit proxy and SOCKS. The generic proxy always comes with the firewall packages and they provide you with a facility of having a local address even if you are in a remote destination.

Their service is often independent of the situations and applications. The circuit proxies can be considered as a particular type of generic proxy. But they are very helpful when you need too interact with multiple clients virtually and access the client’s connection.

The last one SOCKS was launched in the year of 1991. Though this server comes with the facility of various client libraries but there are certain demerits of this proxy.

On the web network, there are a lot of websites which offer features like file-sharing, instant messaging or leaving comments for the user’s profile. A lot of schools and universities have blocked such websites to be accessed from their locations to restrict people from logging in to these websites. But the use of proxy servers has a technological advance over these restrictions. The Proxy servers let you access websites from restricted locations and are a source to bypass secure sites from blocked locations, as they have the ability to bypass the network firewalls and filters. These proxy servers enable the users to surf the internet from blocked servers and are compatible to surf through sites which have audio and video streaming platforms like Youtube.

A proxy server is a computer program or application which processes a client request and forwards it to other servers. When you connect to a proxy server, and try to access some information available on another server, it forwards the request on your behalf and acts as the host server. In short, it becomes your face and represents you for access to the website or information. There are lots of types of proxy servers available based on your need, such as;

• Web proxy

• Caching proxy server/ Http proxy

• Anonymous proxies

• Intercepting proxies

• Hostile proxy servers

• Reverse proxy servers

• Forced proxy servers.

Usage of these proxy servers requires a simple process to be followed. You have to sign up to be able to use these proxies. Most of these proxy websites offer services without a cost. But, some of them may ask for a small fee to for the proxy services. After signup, the user can type the desired URL (for example: www.myspace.com) on the main page and all connections and traffic to and from the destination URL is redirected via the proxy, making it look as if the traffic is evolving from the main proxy , thus bypassing the domain based URL filtering blocking system. These proxies allow users to browse through the restricted websites and view profiles, post comments, blogs and surf the sites for music.

These proxies are reliable and secure. You have to agree to accept the strict set of terms and conditions like not to access websites that contain illegal content such as ware sites, use for spamming purposes, or distributing Spy ware or any other malicious script and you can surf the internet at school, universities, work and other places without any restriction, using the simple scripts which allow you to access the blocked websites.

One way to protect your self online when surfing the internet is by using a secure proxy server.  But just picking any proxy to use is not advisable, as you might pick one that is not secure and instead of your surfing being anonymous your information might just be being sent somewhere else, which can make this a bad situation for you.  More and more the world and especially the internet are full of people who are waiting to steal your identity.  These internet pirates are not just a single person, but they are an entire huge team that has tons of resources and they realize the huge gains that can be gotten, with very limited risks of getting caught for electronic fraud and theft.  Sad but true, the risks for these thieves are so minimal compared to any conventional crime and even lessens when they set themselves up in a country with lax internet laws and with a government that cannot police the situation.  As the internet continues to grow by leaps and bounds, the rewards for these identity thieves will continue to grow as well.

One of the basic and most important issue while surfing the web is that most information is transferred in easily readable format, called ascii text.  So basically all information that leaves your computer and travels across the internet can be instantly intercepted and read by anyone who chooses to do so.  One place that all internet information is intercepted is your ISP, who logs everything everyone does online, along with many other places.  So to keep what you do online private many people will use a free anonymous proxy.  What this means to you as a user of the internet is that these internet pirates can either buy, rent or even hack into a server and then install their own proxy server and then put them on the internet, advertising them as free secure proxy servers for the general public to use. 

Each and every day thousands of people use these proxies and unknowing to them all their data is being intercepted and read.  With a server configured to cache mode and enabling software these internet pirates can record everything … your usernames, account logins and passwords, your credit card details, social security number, you name it and they have your information.  So they not only give you what you think will protect you, but they are providing themselves with a way to steal all your information in the name of anonymity!

You have probably heard the saying … “there is no such thing as a free lunch”, well that holds true with free proxies as well.  The cost to run a free proxy server is very expensive, so why would they want to give them away free to the public?  The answer here is pretty simple, it is one of two reasons … #1 being that someone, more than likely a company did not close all the ports to their proxy server or … #2 it has been done by someone on purpose to create a trap to steal peoples data

You want to be extremely careful when choosing to use a secure proxy server and that it is from a reputable company that runs a secure professional server.  Not a free service that could very well be run by a team of Eastern European hackers, with only one motive in mind.

Personally I would not know how to find out whether a reputable company is running a proxy server or if it was hackers, but there is  a very good privacy software out on the market now that will allow you to surf and buy safely online.  You will have access to a large network of private proxies to use; the program itself is fast and completely encrypted, allowing you worry free surfing.  There is no better, it is the best on the market.  

 

There’s no exact definition of what constitutes a Secure anonymous proxy or indeed a place you can find one for free on the internet.  But I’d like to add some general points and things to watch out for if you are searching for such a proxy server.

An important fact to remember that simply adding the tag - ninja, elite or high anonymity to the description of a proxy server does in fact have no effect whatsoever on how secure that server actually is.  This might sound an obvious point but I have personally checked a huge list of supposedly ‘Elite proxy servers’ and to be honest my gran could have configured them more securely.

Lets for instance take one of the very basic premises of running a secure, anonymous proxy server - what context is the proxy service running in.  Is this something you know about on proxy servers you have used?

Let me tell you why - the absolute worse thing you can do is run the proxy service as root, yet I see many that are configured in just this way.   The problem is that any flaw, bug or vulnerability with your proxy server could lead to the compromise of the whole machine.  The root account gives complete control of the server, and with it all your browsing, all your logs and any traffic you send through that proxy.  This sounds pretty stupid but you will find that many ‘free anonymous proxies’ that appear in the net are configured exactly like this.

There is a common alternative which runs in the context of the user ‘nobody’, now this is much better as the account has no special privileges which could put the server at risk.    But neither is it a suitable configuration for a high anonymous proxy and the reason for this is that the account will still have some read and write privileges over public areas and directories.  It will also have some rights over all logs created in the context of the ‘nobody’ user meaning potentially all users of the proxy  have potential access to all the proxy logs and files created by this user.

The most secure alternative is what I would expect to see on any highly anonymous proxy and that is that each user has a specific user ID for using the proxy server.  This user account should have no other access rights whatsoever, each proxy session would run in the context of this individual user.   This protects the security, anonymity of every user of the proxy and secures their files and logs from other surfers using the proxy service.

Configuring an anonymous proxy is extremely important, a badly configured and insecure proxy server puts all of it’s users and their information at risk.   Remember whenever you use a proxy server, you are creating a single log of all your browsing in addition to your ISP logs - if it is not secure you will be putting your security at great risk, in fact much more than not using a proxy at all.  If you want a high anonymous proxy make sure you get one.

 

If you were ever wondering how people accessed myspace and other social networking websites at school and work when all you received was the schools error page then they were probably using a proxy site.

Proxy sites help to bypass filters created by network administrators at your school or work place, these are in place to stop students or employees from accessing websites which are not supposed to be accessed mainly due to the irrelevancy that they have with your job or education.

There are different types of proxy servers which can be created some which use the server its self to put a server request through without contacting the specified server.

Other proxy sites use the World Wide Web this being the most common type of proxy site the “web proxy” these are used as a web cache providing access to blacklisted websites.

Proxy sites also help to allow banned IP addresses that may have been blacklisted from certain websites filtered access back in to that website.

You can create your own proxy site very easily with basic knowledge of HTML and CSS as well as a slight knowledge of PHP. If you’re unsure how to create a proxy site you can learn by reading my own free proxy eBook which you can download here free proxy eBook. Proxy sites offer you access to every website that may of before been blocked, your able to surf and chat also giving you the choice to surf youtube and watching videos. Proxy sites are often slower than entering the website from the normal route due to the bypassing they have to do however they are generally fast enough.

Facebook proxy bypass servers are necessary if you have some reason to hide the IP address either of your internet connection, or of the site to which you are trying to connect. Why should anybody want to do this, and how do Facebook proxy providers work?

Why Use a Proxy Bypass?

If you work for an employer and have unmonitored internet access, then you can be barred from accessing certain IP addresses, such as those of the commonly used social networking sites. Facebook, Friendster, Twitter, MySpace and YouTube are the more common sites that employees tend to visit in company time. Your employer can stop this by preventing your computer from accessing the internet (IP) addresses of these sites.

If you have internet access at school, college or university, you will be even less supervised than at work, and few students have not tried to use school or college computers to access social networking sites. There again, the relevant IP addresses have a block or filter placed on them which only a proxy bypass can circumvent.

A block generally refers to a blanket bar placed on the entire network accessing specific addresses, while filters permit access to individual terminals, the users of which might have a legitimate use for them. Most sites are filtered while a few can be blocked, and a Facebook proxy might be needed by a student, for example, but not a faculty member.

The target websites themselves can place blocks on individual IP addresses, and if Friendster or Facebook has banned you and your internet address for some reason, then you can’t even re-register using a different name and email address unless you get a new internet connection with a different IP address. Facebook proxy bypass servers can enable you to re-register without changing your IP address. You can also access your home page using your regular login details.

How a Facebook Proxy Bypass Server Works

If computer A connects to website B, then the IP address of both A and B are known to each other. All it takes to sever that connection is for either to block the other. However, if A connects to site C, and C connects to B, neither A nor B sees each other - they both see only IP address C.

Therefore, a block or filter against B will not be triggered by the address of C, to which you are connected. Neither will any block place by B on A be triggered, because as far as B is concerned it is connected to C and not A. The term ‘proxy bypass’ is therefore a bit of a misnomer because it is more of a proxy ‘router’; many different computers can be rerouted by a central connection to a number of social websites (or any type of website in fact).

For example, if you are finding it difficult to connect to a specific website, such as a search engine, you can do so through a proxy. The principle behind a Facebook proxy is just the same as that of you connecting your computer to a router in a network to connect to the internet - all computers connected to that router will have the same IP address, and when you use a modem attached to your computer to bypass the router through a different internet connection, you will have a different IP address.

Proxy bypass sites don’t last forever. Once they have been detected and also blocked, you have to find another. However they can last for a long time, and new Facebook proxies are coming online as fast as they are being blocked. For that reason you should find a site that offers you a number of alternatives.

So next time you have difficulty accessing a specific website, whether it is Facebook, YouTube or anything else a proxy can help you. Bear in mind that they are rarely specific, and take the form of an address bar into which you enter the internet address of the site you want to access. In the case of a Facebook proxy bypass server you enter the Facebook address, but it usually also works with any other website address.

Facebook proxy bypass servers allow you to access any sites that have blocked by your school, college or employer. An understanding of how they work will enable you to make best of use of them, not just for Facebook, but also Friendster, MySpace and any other website you are unable to access directly.