Assignment Description
Anonymous technologies, the same way as other technologies, can be used for legitimate and illegitimate purposes.
You may choose to investigate one specific class of anonymous technology (e.g., anonymous web browsing, anonymous P2P communication, anonymous emailing service, anonymous content distribution), one specific technique
(i) how the chosen class, technique, or application works. Use references to provide deeper explanations and definitions.
(ii) Discuss how the chosen class, technique, or application has been used by Internet users for legitimate purposes.
(iii) Discuss how the chosen class, technique, or application has been used by cybercriminals (illegitimate purposes).
(iv) Discuss and critically evaluate which measures can be adopted against the chosen anonymous technology used by cybercriminals.
(v) Critically evaluate and discuss the literature, rather than simply regurgitating what you have read.
You have to interpret, reflect and be critical about what you read and about the sources you actually use.
(vi) Contrast and compare the legitimate and illegitimate viewpoints (usages) of the chosen anonymous technology.
(vii) Use in-text citations where neccessary, which should be in Harvard style.
Answer:
Anonymous browsers are known to be allowing various users to properly visit various websites without properly revealing any kind of information which are private like the specific address of IP. One of the anonymous browsers which are most commonly known is the browser of Tor. It has been actually designed such that all the users can be able to directly send a lot of information which are highly sensitive without being totally intercepted (He et al. 2014). Despite all the various controversies which are surrounding the concept of anonymous browsing, this specific kind of software can be actually utilised as a perfect tool for various journalists as well as governments who will be wishing to specifically browse the web in a private way. The concept of anonymous web browsing is known to be helping a lot in hiding the information of any user which is personally identifiable from various websites which have been visited. This web browsing which is anonymous is known to be properly achieved through VPNs, proxy servers and also some other programs of anonymity like Tor. Such kinds of programs are known to be working very well by directly sending information via a specific series of a number of router for hiding both the source as well as the destination of the information. Anonymous web browsers are known to be generally working by directly placing any proxy which is anonymous in between a specific user and the particular website which has been visited by them (Libert 2014). Such servers can be greatly utilised for bypassing various restrictions as well as sites of visit which may be totally blocked in any particular school, office or rather country. There are a number of cookies which have been stored within the browsers of web and also with various smartphones and the locations are tracked utilising GPS. For achieving anonymity which will be complete, there is a requirement for utilising browsers which will not at all be allowing such kinds of activities. It has been observed that Tor is the best tool which has been available.
This anonymous web surfing is known to be utilised by a number of legitimate users who have been wanting to surf the internet privately (Su et al. 2017). It can be said that anonymous web browsing will be allowing a specific legitimate user to visit several websites without providing the allowance to someone for gathering information regarding which of the sites of user has actually visited. Anonymous web browsing is known to be used for two main reasons (Chuda, Kratky and Tvarozek 2015). The first reason is that it will be helping a lot in the protection of the privacy of user and the second reason is that it helps a lot in bypassing various applications of blocking which will be preventing the specific access to various websites or any part of the site which any specific user will be wanting to visit (Zaid et al. 2015). A number of various visitors are very much interested in having a secure browsing on the internet and this will be actually possible because of the concept of anonymous browsing. It has been known that there are a number of reasons people are wanting to stay on the internet in an anonymous way. People wants to hugely avoid all of the various creepy ads which are targeted for all the things which have been Googled in the earlier times. People sometimes do not at all want any earlier visited websites to be again turn up in the browsing session of the partner and hence for this reason the anonymous web browsing is really very much essential (Low et al. 2013). It can be said that when people will be sharing any computer or rather utilising any public system, private modes can be turned on and thus will be greatly preventing any kinds of visited sites from popping later on. In such a way, various cookies which have been belonging to the third party which are basically some little files of text which possess with the capability of tracking each and every movement done between several sites (Kalavade Zettics Inc 2014). All the cookies belonging to the first party are completely deleted at the session’s end such that for the next time whenever someone will be visiting, it will not be totally clear that he/she has been there as well. Anonymous web browsing is really very much essential for all the various legitimate users who have been wanting to particularly ensure about the fact that all of their sessions on the internet are not at all monitored (Fan et al. 2014). It has been observed to be hugely utilised by a number of enterprises for circumventing the monitoring of traffic who will be wanting to both control as well as discover which of the websites have been actually visited by all the employees. If officials of the enforcement of law suspects any kind of activity which is totally illegal, they can be sending logs of request from the internet provider of the user (Liu et al. 2016). The providers of internet which will be emphasizing the huge protection of all the personal data will be saving only the log files of them for some days at which specific time they have been overwritten by that of rotation. Anonymous web browsing users are known to be seeking for anonymity whenever any business is to be properly conducted. Intentions may be highly noble like all the journalists are known to be seeking for interviewing various citizens of a number of countries which are repressive where all the communications are well monitored.
However, it has been noticed that apart from all the various purposes which are legitimate, there are some illegitimate purposes of various cyber criminals as well as hackers (Yang et al. 2015). The particular way of anonymous web browsing can be hugely utilised by a number of hackers for performing their respective activities in a way which will be hiding all of them. It has been known that there are a number of programs like Tor which has been working properly by directly sending information via a specific series of a number of routers for hiding the information’s source as well as destination (Lapets et al. 2015). However, it has been known that there is not at all any particular guarantee in the anonymity of such servers. Such kinds of programs are very much susceptible to the analysis of traffic. Proxy servers which mostly forms the actual key point of knowledge are even very much susceptible to the data collection by a number of authorities. Such proxy servers possess a number of limitations and various web pages will be loading sometimes at a pace which will be very much slower as the information of use should be properly rerouted (Bodenhamer Google Inc 2013). Now, if the server is known to be attempting for bypassing any kind of software which is suspicious, there are some elements of the page which may not at all load. Some of the information which are highly personal like all the passwords as well as numbers of credit cards are known to be passed via a specific server which is external that can be easily accessed by someone. Here, proxy servers are much more of a specific hazard of security other than browsing the entire web without any kind of proxy upon a channel which will be encrypted (Li Red Hat Inc 2014).
Even though some intentions of users are noble, it has been noticed that there are a number of various users as well which act like criminal actors like all the hackers, dealers of drugs and peddlers of the child pornography. There is even a growing economy of service within the so called dark web within which various hackers as well as a number of various operatives who are illegal hugely advertise their respective service in certain ways which cannot over all the channels which are traditional. There are a number of hackers who have been noticed to be gradually collecting smaller pieces of information which are highly personal regarding various users for directly compromising their accounts. Whenever such kinds of activities are done via autonomous browsing, all of these are totally hidden from the actual user. Hence, this autonomous browsing can be hugely advantageous for all the cyber criminals to a great extent. It has been noticed that there are a number of proxies which have been recording data for selling the system for turning the PC into a particular bot which will be then utilised for all the attacks of DDoS without being known by the users.
There are a number of various measures which can be taken into account for preventing from various cyber criminals. First of all, the best way of having a safe anonymity is by the utilisation of Tor. Tor is also known as the Onion Router which is known to be making use of a full series of various nodes as well as replays for masking all the individual traffic and hide the identity by properly disguising IP addresses as well as IP. Even though there are a number of ways one can be going about utilising the network of anonymity, the browser of Tor is hugely considered to be the correct option for the protection of privacy (Brunell et al. 2013). Secondly, users can also be utilising proxy server as well. Whenever any user will be utilising any proxy server and entering the website’s URL, all the pages are known to be entirely retrieved by the particular proxy instead of the one who has been actually found to be browsing the web. As the ultimate result, the specific remote server will not be able to properly see the IP address and also some other information of browsing of the user as it will be get totally replaced with the proxy server. Another suggestion which can be given is the use of PureVPN’s Chrome Extension which will be offering with the instant protection online and also a perfect anonymity at a button’s click.
References
Bodenhamer, A.S., Google Inc, 2013. System and method for managing user web browsing information. U.S. Patent 8,402,011.
Brunell, B.A., Dumais, S.T., Goodman, J.T., Horvitz, E.J., Flake, G., Gupta, A., Meek, C.A., Naam, R. and Peltonen, K., Microsoft Corp, 2013. Anonymous and secure network-based interaction. U.S. Patent 8,458,349.
Chuda, D., Kratky, P. and Tvarozek, J., 2015, May. Mouse Clicks Can Recognize Web Page Visitors!. In Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on World Wide Web (pp. 21-22). ACM.
Fan, L., Bonomi, L., Xiong, L. and Sunderam, V., 2014, April. Monitoring web browsing behavior with differential privacy. In Proceedings of the 23rd international conference on World wide web (pp. 177-188). ACM.
He, G., Yang, M., Gu, X., Luo, J. and Ma, Y., 2014, May. A novel active website fingerprinting attack against Tor anonymous system. In Proceedings of the 2014 IEEE 18th international conference on computer supported cooperative work in design (CSCWD) (pp. 112-117). IEEE.
Kalavade, A., Zettics Inc, 2014. System and method for sharing anonymous user profiles with a third party. U.S. Patent 8,775,391.
Lapets, A., Dunton, E., Holzinger, K., Jansen, F. and Bestavros, A., 2015. Web-based multi-party computation with application to anonymous aggregate compensation analytics. Computer Science Department, Boston University.
Li, R.D., Red Hat Inc, 2014. Privacy enhanced browser. U.S. Patent 8,763,136.
Libert, T., 2014. Privacy implications of health information seeking on the web. arXiv preprint arXiv:1404.1951.
Liu, X., Liu, Q., Wang, X. and Jia, Z., 2016, June. Fingerprinting web browser for tracing anonymous web attackers. In 2016 IEEE First International Conference on Data Science in Cyberspace (DSC) (pp. 222-229). IEEE.
Low, D.M.K., Huang, R.K., Mishra, P., Jain, G., Gosnell, J. and Bush, J., Apple Inc, 2013. Group formation using anonymous broadcast information. U.S. Patent 8,359,643.
Su, J., Shukla, A., Goel, S. and Narayanan, A., 2017, April. De-anonymizing web browsing data with social networks. In Proceedings of the 26th International Conference on World Wide Web (pp. 1261-1269). International World Wide Web Conferences Steering Committee.
Yang, M., Luo, J., Ling, Z., Fu, X. and Yu, W., 2015. De-anonymizing and countermeasures in anonymous communication networks. IEEE Communications Magazine, 53(4), pp.60-66.
Zaid, S., Linscott, G., Becevello, A., Zaid, T. and Lem, P., 2015. System and method for anonymous addressing of content on network peers and for private peer-to-peer file sharing. U.S. Patent 9,112,875.
