Unless you take some special but simple measures your Internet activities may be tracked and a profile about
you take shape. Every Internet connection can be traced back to its IP address. Clever marketers and other
elements can cross-reference the different activities undertaken by a specific IP address (your specific IP
address) and in the process they can learn a lot about you.
You may already have experienced this when leaving one site and upon entering another being presented with
adverts closely related to what you were doing at the earlier site.
While this example merely illustrates a privacy issue for the (arguably) legitimate purpose of web marketing
the same techniques can be used by hackers to try and gain access to your system, your personal data or to
steal your identity.
Whether you want to shield yourself from hackers or just avoid being tracked by annoying web marketers, the
key is to mask your true IP address.
How you can mask your IP address depends on what you are doing on the Internet. For example, if surfing the
web with a web browser like Internet Explorer you can mask your IP address using a web proxy. If you are
chatting with a chat client like mIRC or downloading torrents with peer-to-peer (P2P) you can mask your IP
address with a SOCKS proxy. You could also mask your entire connection for most or all Internet activities you
engage in with something called a virtual private network or VPN.
Whether using a proxy or VPN you need to make a few easy adjustments to the settings of your Internet
software.
Proxy and VPN providers appear and disappear so choose a reliable and long-standing service.
The book,
Complete Guide to Internet Privacy, Anonymity & Security
,
takes you through the risks in detail of using the Internet and sets out the steps for masking your
IP address, whether for web surfing, P2P/torrents, chatting or Usenet newsgroups.
