MrConfusion
Proxy proxies,
tor and
vpn encrypts.
Have you tried
wine? I dont think the expence of proprietary software is worth your freedom. At least I value your freedom, think of it that way.
Don't you think you're oversimplifying a bit?
Yeah, I forgot you stopped reading at W8 <_< .
So, rehearsal:
My proxy setup
filters every cookie that is not strictly needed
from each and every HTTP and HTTPS request, it also (dansguardian part) prevents requests to major ad and tracker sites, meaning blocks them completely according to site and url regexp (though this could be done with something like ad block plus too... I actually base my scripts on the lists kindly provided by ad block plus). And of course it removes the referrer and it can turn every request as coming from a Mozilla compatible browser called whatever I feel like. In general terms all http headers are alterable.
Starting to see what I meant about being paranoid?-) Yes, it totally
mangles the HTTP headers of all HTTP traffic leaving our home. And because of this the setup unfortunately has to act as a man in the middle (whom I trust) in SSL connections... It also does break things and I need to troubleshoot things once or twice a month, but luckily we mostly browse "regular" sites typically.
So whenever an ad should pop up I instead get a tiny GIF saying "this place has a useless ad". On the browser it looks uglier than ad block plus, but since I know the system I've set up, it doesn't matter to me. Killing cookies and referrer is actually worse, since several sites stop functioning outright... Wife complains.
As for Tor and VPN... Sorry, but I fail to see the benefits of Tor
to myself. VPN I use sometimes, but I use it in the other direction, because I host everything at home and sometimes want to make my laptop a part of the home network while I'm not home. Typically a quick SSH session is quite enough, though...
Https really encrypts when I need to,
it does that properly, end to end, with a certificate chain I can check, verify and be happy with personally.
My thoughts on tor are flamebaity, but honest:
Tor is OK if you want to hide your country or city of origin. It has it's uses. But for most western world inhabitats:
I think it's a toy and a gimmick. OK, it
is very nice for people who do actual crime on the net because it uses masses of clueless "I want security"-kiddies as proxies, though. If I wanted to do something nasty Tor might well be the
first link in the chain... but not even the last one I can think of.
But when the connection has gone through your vpn or Tor tunnel it gets unencrypted again and then traverses the trip from exit node to target site in plaintext (talking of http here). So essentially, like I said, the only thing you win is that the message does not look like it is coming from the "real source", but instead from some distant-to-you location.
I do not believe the NSA is after me. I have no reason to believe every TCP packet I dump to the net is being traced by nasty government agencies co-operating with Google & Co.
Most of the connections I make that are not encrypted no longer contain a cookie to give away even the session id, much less "me" for analysis for the target site (i.e. ad targeting and profiling, which I'm against). So why would I encrypt only "part way" at all?
Where's the benefit?
Tor is about stopping eavesdroppers, I don't care of them once I've cleaned the outbound data of stuff I don't want to expose in the first place.
All in all you don't get
meaningful encryption by using some simple to use software or turning on a checkbox on screen.
Https is about the only solution for which I can currently give the benefit of my doubt in this regard, that's because the browser and server negotiate that stuff for you and it's up to you to decide which rootcerts you trust, if any. Https is simple, but it works
sufficiently well, assuming you trust the judgement of the current big certificate authorities... that is actually a tall order, but works to a sufficient degree...
Well... quite a long explanation for simply saying "I see no role in my life for Tor", eh? Your turn to prove me wrong...
Yes, you bet I've used Wine. Heavy. Next step: My MOTU audio interface and other devices which have no Linux driver?
OSS is
not a "lifestyle" thing for me. And thanks to VMs I no longer have favorites among OSs, only the dogs I kick, like OSX
. I can always use a Linux VM for actual work when I'm done with the fun
.
