Being Anonymous: A Beginners Guide

Its a typical day, you turn on your internet to find the usual set of notifications popping up. You see an ad by your favourite online store about the best deals they have on laptops. But wait, how on earth did they know you were planning to buy a laptop in the first place?

We spend a vast amount of our time on the internet. Frankly, finding out that your favourite browser has been stalking you is not good news. The need for Private and Anonymous browsing have never been higher. Being private blocks your information from being viewed while staying anonymous leaves no trace of your identity at all.

Wanna know why they need all these data? This is Business. Don't expect them to play fair.

PS: Staying Incognito does not always help (In case you were wondering)

Here are some basic ways to lay off the Radar

Private Browsers

The aim of private browsing is to prevent information from being stored or sent to any third party. Using private browsers like DuckDuckGo, Brave, Firefox etc helps you block your information from reaching people that would want to monetize them. They usually block cookies and delete your history on closing the window.

Although private browsing seems private, those terms could change any moment without you even knowing it and your information could be out there flying around. Its apt for regular surfing but when it comes to real privacy, well, not so much.

VPNs

Virtual Private Networks or VPNs encrypts the content and then reroutes it through various intermediate servers  across the world. The main function of a VPN is to change your IP address so you can enter sites that are restricted for a certain location. Yeah, sounds too simple? But it works in most cases and is the most popular solution today.

Although, remember that it does not make you a 100% anonymous. VPNs only shift your traffic to their servers and thus change your IP address. But it is clear that they provide an extra layer of anonymity to your data. They offer a lot more privacy than private browsers. Use them whenever necessary.

PS: Don't blindly trust those free ones online.If you want a VPN you can trust, go for the paid ones.

TOR

TOR or the  "The Onion Router" is a free and open-source software for enabling anonymous communication.To begin with, TOR is not connected to the World Wide Web directly. In fact, you would be taken through thousands of TOR nodes located all over the world. Your request would be encrypted in such a way that each node it passes through would only peel off one layer of encryption. A layer would peel off revealing only the address of the next node. This step continues until it reaches its destination, thus the name "The Onion Router". TOR is one of the most sought out solutions for individuals wanting to be as anonymous as possible for their specific interests on the web.

Please do not jump into the TOR browser just after reading this. There are parts of the web accessible mainly through tor which could cause you more harm than good. Being anonymous is not something that only you want. Drug deals, black markets, pornography and even hired assassins can be found here. These operate in a hidden part of the web commonly known as the Dark or Deep web which are out of the scope of this article. You go into the dark web without prior knowledge and protection, you end up losing your entire data and that's exactly the opposite of why we did this in the first place. Hackers just love the place too. So do not go in without being prepared for the worst.

Combine VPN, TOR and a Linux Distro and you have got yourselves an invisibility cloak for the internet. On an ending note, all of the above said steps are just some of the basic ways to keep your data and personal information anonymous. They are not the the ultimate and only ways to lay off the grid. But that's a topic for another day.

This article is contributed by Joel Joshua. If you would like to contribute to Hackzism you can also write an article and mail to hackzism.hack@gmail.com. 

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