Public proxy servers are out there, and deciding whether or not we should use any one of them is on par with deciding whether we should eat a piece of candy handed to us by a smiling stranger. This method also doesn’t necessarily encrypt traffic, block cookies, or stop social media and cross-site trackers from following us around on the upside, it’s the method least likely to prevent websites that use cookies from functioning properly. This provides us with some anonymity, as the website we’re trying to reach will not see our originating IP address however, the proxy server that we choose to use will know exactly who originated the request. The proxy server attempts to anonymize our requests by replacing our originating IP address with the proxy server’s own IP. Use a proxy in your web browserĬertain web browsers, including Firefox and Safari on Mac, allow us to configure them to send our Internet traffic through a proxy server. (Those steps are beyond the scope of this article, but you can get started with the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s (EFF) Surveillance Self-Defense resource.) For the average user, however, here is a small menu of options ranging from least to most anonymous. It’s important to know that these methods offer differing levels of anonymity, and that no single method will really provide true anonymity if others are actively seeking to find you on the Internet, for whatever reason, further steps should be taken to make your activity truly difficult to identify.
There are a few ways that we, as the client, can use a proxy server to conceal our identity when we go online. All of the user’s Internet traffic appears to come from the proxy server instead of their machine. What’s a proxy server, anywayĪ proxy, in the traditional English definition, is the “authority or power to act for another.” ( Merriam-Webster) A proxy server, in the computing context, is a server that acts on behalf of another server, or a user’s machine.īy using a proxy to browse the Internet, for example, a user can defer being personally identifiable. Like being enshrouded in the layers of an onion, we’re using one or more proxy servers to shield our slightly sulfuric selves from third-party tracking. The underlying mechanism of both these methods is the same. There are ways to add some layers of obscurity, like using a corporate firewall that hides your IP, or using Tor.
While your next-door neighbor may not know how to find you online (well, except for through that location-based secondhand marketplace app you’re using), you can be certain that at least one large advertising company has a series of zeroes and ones somewhere that represent you, the specific details of your market demographic, and all your online habits, including your preferred flavour of LaCroix. Thanks to tracking cookies, browser fingerprinting, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) selling our browsing logs to advertisers, and our own inexplicable inclination to put our names and faces on social networks, online anonymity is out like last year’s LaCroix flavours. This, to make a gross understatement, is no longer the case. As Internet usage became more popular, users became concerned that other people could represent themselves online in any manner they chose, without anyone else knowing who they truly were.
Only later did the ominous and slightly frightening allusion to online anonymity touch the public consciousness with the icy fingers of the unknown.
When Peter Steiner’s caption was first published in The New Yorker in 1993, it reportedly went largely unnoticed.
“On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.” Let’s explore what makes proxy servers an important piece of cybersecurity support.
Proxy servers are a useful thing to know about nowadays, for developers, software product owners, as well as the average dog on the Internet. One core aspect of online privacy is the use of a proxy server, though this basic building block may not be initially visible underneath its more recognizable forms. Both Internet users and Internet-connected applications can benefit from investing in cybersecurity.