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Internet Anonymity thoughts

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by phildlight

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First, this is my first post. I've looked around for this and haven't really found anything on it, and thought this might be a good place to ask.

Second, understand that I have no interest in doing this or even being involved in it since I don't understand it or know if it's even legal, and the idea only came about because of all the recent news on traffic shaping, throttling etc and the snooping of the **AA.

could an application be developed that could take individual packet requests, be it http or otherwise, and re-route each packet out through other pcs with the same application installed? So, in other words, i make a request to view a website, it goes out through this application to another person's machine running the same software. The packet is then altered with the new person's IP, then sent back out for the request. The request comes back to the new person's pc and is re routed back to me. By breaking up all the transmissions, the individual packets would be going out and coming into different IP's, so there would be no way to track anything online since there would be no continuous strings of transmission. A simple webpage viewing session would go out through thousands of different pcs all over the cloud and back in through all those different pcs. Since there is no direct connection to any service other than from the secondary users, and only in broken transmission form, the person sending the original request would be completely anonymous right?

Since each packet only contains pieces of the end product as requested by the original requester, there would be no liability of any users on the network for each other since nobody except the invisible requester would have the entire piece of the puzzle. Sort of like how a tracker isn't liable for giving information out on how to get to pieces of the data.

I don't claim to know much at all on tcp other than what i've read online. It just bothers me that the big companies are threatening entire systems based on their own financial agenda. It's all the non pirated content on the web that is best transmitted via p2p that will die if something isn't done to prevent throttling that bothers me.

I guess this is really on my mind since I really want to download Ubuntu tonight and try out the new gnome 2.22, but as I'm with Com.... I know that my speed will be slowed to a halt because my upload speed will be non existent. So I'll be forced to download all the new software via ftp which god knows how long that will take.

More or less curious if this is a. legal, b. already out there?

5 replies

by older mycroft

The Internet is far more sophisticated than that now. Computer magazine cover discs contain demo and full versions of exactly what you are describing.

The downside of using this software is that your surfing speed suffers. Many sites detect your 'anonymity software' and refuse you entry due to lack of cookie-contact with your IP address.

by magic alex

I read a very interesting article a while back where a professor was using a similar program so he could teach his class about it. The college network security found out about it and requested that he "cease and desist" for fear of their network being used for unlawful reasons (apparently another person on the network had been caught using the same type of program to hide the identity of his mail spam bot) He stuck to his guns however despite several requests from security. I'll see if i can find the article.
*edit* the article escapes me right now, I'll post it when i get a chance to check the report I wrote about it.

by seanferd

For a P2P client, I would suggest that you limit your own upload speed so that you don't get stomped. Try turning on Outgoing Protocol Encryption. If you can't do these, get uTorrent
(very small app) so you can. Either that, or quit and resume some time later.

by phildlight

I was able to download everything via ftp last night. For p2p, I only opened it to try it out. I actually use utorrent when i need something, but haven't used in a few months. Comc... is preventing uploads w/out downloads on their network, and while I tried encryption, the seeds I had for upload just kept getting dropped. They are injecting rst packets into the header for orphaned uploads. It seems to upload the current download OK, but the loan seeds just aren't allowing sustained uploads.

Interesting that this exists. I'm still looking for info on it. I did find an app that works in a similar way, except they seem to use servers that "mix" the IP's up. It's also a pay model, so I'm cautious that it's actually what they claim.

As far as browsing/downloading speed reduction via some sort of p2p IP masking scheme, I would imagine if the app could act like a router and find the best/fastest paths through the swarm, speed wouldn't be reduced that much. Though, you'd have to assume a tradeoff in speed for anonymity.

As for sites refusing entry due to cookies/ip resolution etc. since it would take place on the packet level, and assuming the payload is only a portion of the entire request, and that the only thing modified in the packet is the src IP/port and the dest IP/port, how could it prevent access to the site? Unless the IP is contained in the cookie? I don't know how security certs work exactly, but I guess they would have a fit since the ip from the src would be different.

Just wanted to see what people's thoughs were on it.

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