4

I wonder how easy or difficult it is to find out who I am, using information security's most advanced techniques. And what can I do that will not affect my browsing experience too much, as a lambda internet user, against that?

Mike Ounsworth
  • 58,107
  • 21
  • 154
  • 209
Rodolphe
  • 141
  • 2
  • Thanks for the link, which points out some interesting keywords for me to search further. – Rodolphe Mar 15 '16 at 15:46
  • I personally emphasise the anonymity part – Rodolphe Mar 15 '16 at 15:53
  • As well as the fact about not being a power user but still being in demand for ways to not give up too easily personal information to people that will use it for god-only-knows objectives. – Rodolphe Mar 15 '16 at 16:04

2 Answers2

2

Yes, there are many ways that your ISP, your DNS provider, the web sites you visit, third-party content providers, advertisers, government agencies, etc. can track your web browsing and identify you. The methods that they use are based on your IP address, cookies, super-cookies, browser fingerprinting methods, and the like.

To make it more difficult to be tracked, you may want to consider using the TOR network, or TAILS.

mti2935
  • 21,098
  • 2
  • 47
  • 66
  • What do you mean by "more difficult" ? Do you imply that is still possible to be deanonymized even if I use such tools ? – Rodolphe Mar 15 '16 at 15:48
  • 1
    I used the term 'more difficult' because some people suspect that government agencies may have the ability to monitor traffic on the TOR network. See http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/115361/why-hasnt-anyone-taken-over-tor-yet – mti2935 Mar 15 '16 at 16:07
  • As far as supposed anonymity goes, there's also issues like http://motherboard.vice.com/read/how-the-nsa-or-anyone-else-can-crack-tors-anonymity. – Oskar Lindberg Mar 15 '16 at 17:25
2

If you do not like the experience of TOR or other routing networks, you can enable some browser plugins which give you an idea of who is tracking you and prevent them from doing so. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has a handy plugin Privacy Badger which you can use to visualize and manage various trackers on a site-by-site basis.

  • It may be worth adding that these plugins do not protect you from being tracked by your ISP. I'm not sure if the OP cares about that, but the question is so unspecific, it's hard to tell. – Neil Smithline Mar 15 '16 at 23:07
  • True. The OP's question does mention "will not affect my browsing experience too much", so I believe he is looking for a solution which is not drastically different from the normal. Such plugins do provide you with some basic idea that you are being tracked, but of course do not use onion routing or other techniques to take it to the next level. –  Mar 15 '16 at 23:13