Released on: October 22, 2007, 7:46 am

Press Release Author: NetConceal, Inc

Industry: Software

Press Release Summary: Hide IP address for anonymous Internet access.

Press Release Body: The press release is brought to you by NetConceal Anonymity
Shield, leading Internet Privacy solution, acknowledged by tens of thousands people
around the world. Check out www.netconceal.com for details.

In today´s world of globalization and wide spread of computers, Internet has become
increasingly popular way for communication, for expressing yourself, for sharing
your mind with everybody. Popular types of resources include web blogs, instant
messaging, chats, forums and many others. Just a few clicks and everybody in the
world knows about your point of view on politics, culture, science, relationships,
whatever, since quickly evolving technologies bring Internet to millions of people
around the world.

But no good comes without bad. The worst thing to consider about many modern
technologies such as Internet is a complete lack of privacy. Sitting at the front of
your computer screen and surfing the net you are being watched constantly, by many
people and organizations, interested or not. How is it possible? Let´s see.

Internet is based on IP - Internet Protocol - special network protocol designed at
the beginning of 70s for U.S. defense purposes, but has become widely used solution
today (take a look at Internet History for more information). Basically, most
today´s computers are connected by IP, and its extension, TCP/IP. We will not dive
into details of TCP/IP here, but rather give a short explanation and point to major
privacy concerns. Main idea of IP protocol is a set of independent nodes (computers)
connected somehow between themselves, each node has unique identifier assigned to
it, and special rules exists which help computers exchange data with each other
through intermediate computers, called \"IP routers\". The unique identifier is called
IP address, and every networked computer must have it in order communicate to
others. To view your current IP address, run \"ipconfig\" from command line under
Windows, or open web site like www.netconceal.com or www.showmyip.com.

Ok, but what´s wrong with my IP address? Like a regular address (e.g. your postal
address), IP address identifies your location, no matter how you are connected to
the Internet. For example, DSL connection from your home is managed by ISP
(remember, you have to sign agreement with ISP, and your actual and billing
addresses are there). Wireless connections, such as GPRS or WiFi are being tracked
as well (GPRS stations are able to determine your position with a mile precision,
WiFi are even more location-bound), and service providers always register and
identify you as a subscriber. Try web sites like www.ip2location.com to see this in
practice (the information is not exactly precise in all cases, but remember,
technology improves daily!).

Every time you surf the Internet, your IP address is publicly visible to everyone on
target network resources, therefore, your actual location and even name and age can
be tracked as well. Of course, this costs something (they need to contact web site
owner or hosting provider, and ISP or WiFi access point owner), but interested
parties can implement this fairly easy. This is very serious point to consider. For
example, you submit blog article, and express your opinion about politics, criticize
something or make really controversial statements. That´s was just an opinion,
relax, everybody. But someone, being, for example, a religious fanatic or simply
paranoid, can find you and shoot you right at your home. What´s the hell, why?
That´s true, simply because he knows EVERYTHING about you, your IP address, and thus
your name and physical location, since all web sites keep logs of IP addresses
accessing them (once you submit your post, web site records a number of entries in
its log file, putting together your post and your IP address).

Just for demonstration, 4 simple steps to know everything about specific person:

Retrieve web site logs (not a problem for site owners, they already have them). How
can these logs be retrieved by anyone? Simply by contacting web site owner, and many
of them will give theirs logs away with easiness, don´t worry. Just send e-mail
using published contact information (click link like \"Contact Us\"), write words
like: \"Some guy who is using your site is suspected in credit card fraud, he has
stolen my money already!\", or \"The person with nickname ´blackjack´ from your site
is promoting child porn, we need your web site logs for investigation, thank you.\"
and 99% - you´ll receive desired logs.
Analyze logs. For example, get timestamp of specific blog post and search for
records matching this timestamp, then compare URLs of web site request and extract
IP address from log entries.
Obtain IP address owner (the Internet Service Provider, ISP). Use
www.ip2location.com, it displays ISP. For well-known ISPs like Verizon - you´re
almost done. Otherwise try looking it up in Google and find their web site. Half an
hour and you´ll surely find it.
Contact ISP, supply IP address, and say something like you did in step (1), and
they´ll easily reveal user of their IP address, because they don´t want problems
with that user. That´s it.

Is there any way to protect you against this? Relax, really good solution exist and
the rest of this article will point you right there.

Basic idea of all privacy solutions is faking of your real IP address. How is it
accomplished? Solution is based on intermediary computers, which are placed between
you (the person who wishes to hide himself from everyone) and target web sites (and
other network resources - such as instant messaging, file sharing etc). Those
computers are called ´Proxy Servers´. How does Proxy Server work? Very simple: it´s
just like a very simple tunnel between you and web site, all data sent by you to web
site or received by you from web site are passed through proxy server as is, using
special SOCKS protocol (don´t mess with foot socks, it´s just a coincidence :).
What´s the difference? Exactly, target web site sees Proxy Server IP address, but
not your real IP. And web site logs keep Proxy Server IP but not your real one as
well. Sound great, but how to use this?

Anonymous Proxy Server lists are published throughout the web on special web sites,
for example www.proxyblind.org. Actually, proxy server list looks like a simple
sequence of IP address : port number pairs, for example:
123.43.12.96 : 1080
98.15.13.17 : 1080
150.19.87.31 : 1080

Choosing proper Proxy Server from such lists can be a tedious task, some of them may
be valid, and some are not. You just test them one by one, select valid ones and
save them for further usage. This work must be repeated each time you want to use
proxy, since Proxy Servers get closed very often. After choosing proper Proxy
Server, you have to connect your application (web browser, instant messenger,
whatever) to it and work. Try configuring your application for use with proxy
server. For example, MSN, Yahoo! and ICQ support SOCKS proxies, but some programs do
not. Microsoft Internet Explorer and Firefox web browsers also support this, but you
must select another kind of Proxy Server - HTTP proxy (in opposite to SOCKS proxy).

Special software was developed to address the issues listed above - NetConceal
Anonymity Shield, it keeps you free from manual proxy server checking, SOCKS
configuration and supports ALL applications. Actually, a few clicks to hide IP
address and become anonymous.

Download NetConceal Anonymity Shield now and try it. Once the installation is done,
NetConceal Anonymity Shield is started automatically, now click the ´Launch Web
Browser´ or ´Launch Other...´ buttons. Proxy selection is done within a minute, then
application is started and you can use the Internet fully anonymous, since your real
IP is invisible to everyone. Too good to be true? Please try it before criticizing.

To learn more about NetConceal Anonymity Shield software, check out the
www.netconceal.com web site and contact us if you need more help, we are really glad
to help you with evaluation and ongoing usage.

Web Site: http://www.netconceal.com

Contact Details: Address: , N/A
United States

Phone Number:
Email: submit@netconceal.com