Anonymity on the Internet: Myth or a Matter of the Right Tools?

Is anonymity on the internet possible in an era of total surveillance, where every action leaves a digital trace? This question is becoming more acute than ever against the backdrop of a growing number of high-profile personal data leaks, cases of online harassment, and increasing digital censorship — all of which clearly demonstrate the vulnerability of users in terms of privacy. Achieving absolute anonymity on the global network today is practically impossible, as there are too many points of information collection and levels of control. But with the help of effective anonymization tools, you can significantly increase the level of confidentiality and control your own data.

How to do it? We tell you in the article.

What is anonymity on the Internet?

Anonymity on the internet is a state in which a user's personal information cannot be identified, namely their name, IP address, phone number, and other data. In other words, it is the ability to be online without revealing your identity.

There is a conditional division into three levels of online anonymity:

• basic — protection against targeted advertising and tracking by websites;
• intermediate — protection against data leaks and surveillance by state authorities;
• advanced — protection against deanonymization and targeted attacks on your identity (relevant for political activists, journalists, etc.).

Contrary to popular belief, a VPN does not provide you with anonymity on the internet, nor does incognito mode in your browser. Achieving absolute anonymity is very difficult in principle, but if we start from the division indicated above, special tools do exist, and we will analyze them in order.

How to ensure anonymity on the Internet

There are a number of technologies that hide your identity from others. Some of them are enough to hide from the ubiquitous target, while others are only needed for targeted attacks on your anonymity on the internet.

Tools for achieving a basic level of anonymity

To hide from the algorithms of advertising and social networks, you practically do not need special knowledge; it is enough to know which software to choose so as not to show everyone around you your personal data.

Browsers

Chrome, Opera, and Mozilla are real machines for collecting personal information from users. A good alternative to them would be anti-detect browsers like Linken Sphere, which allow you to hide your digital fingerprint. This is achieved by substituting system parameters.

The same can be said for Brave: this is a regular browser that focuses on protecting privacy and blocking third-party trackers. Brave blocks advertising banners, third-party cookies, and attempts by sites to collect your unique fingerprint.

Privacy settings and plugins

In addition to browsers, you can use local tools to ensure privacy. For example:

• Privacy Badger. An extension created by the human rights organization EFF analyzes the behavior of the sites you visit and blocks hidden trackers along with attempts to take a fingerprint.
• uBlock Origin. The plugin has a huge database of trackers and stops attempts by web resources to use them. Blocking advertising scripts is also included.
• NoScript. This extension blocks Java, JavaScript, and other potentially dangerous elements of sites by default. To use the internet without restrictions, it is enough to add the web resources you need and trust to the white list - this is how NoScript works to prevent any possible vulnerabilities.

Privacy-first search engines

Google or Yandex allow you to get a huge array of the data you need in a second, but for this, search engines issue you an invisible invoice: all information about your activity is collected into a single digital profile and then used to show relevant advertising. But there are also search engines that do not monetize every user click:

• DuckDuckGo. The site does not store your search history and does not associate it with your IP address. It collects search results from many sources, including its own crawler robot, crowdsourced data, and partnership agreements with other search engines.
• Startpage. This search engine is, in fact, a full-fledged intermediary between you and Google: it redirects your request there, but on its own behalf. And using the proxy function, you can go to sites from the search results under the IP address of Startpage itself.

Both DuckDuckGo and Startpage are a breath of fresh air in the field of online search: no contextual advertising and data collection 24/7.

Password managers

Today, every user has dozens of accounts on various sites. It is difficult to remember everything, and keeping one password for all personal records is unsafe for obvious reasons. But there is a solution — password managers:

• LastPass;
• 1Password;
• Bitwarden;
• built-in managers (Google Chrome, iCloud Keychain), etc.

The data in the managers is stored in encrypted form: even if they are hacked, attackers will only see a meaningless set of characters. The main thing is to remember the master password from the manager, through which you have access to all data combinations.

Alternative email services

Email is one of the main obstacles to obtaining complete anonymity on the internet. It is through it that passwords are recovered and registrations on websites are confirmed. And in Gmail, Yahoo and other mail agents, letters are stored in unencrypted form and analyzed to display targeted advertising.

An alternative is to use mailboxes on ProtonMail and Tutanota. They provide customers with end-to-end encryption: a technology in which a letter is encrypted on your device even before it is sent to the server. And protection against tracking guarantees complete confidentiality of your data from all sides.

Private messengers

Messaging applications collect a huge stream of everyday data and, of course, also use it for commercial purposes. Many of them still offer end-to-end encryption, but only on request, and do not include it by default. And in WhatsApp, for example, even with encryption enabled, there is a continuous collection of metadata: who you communicate with, what devices you use, and from which IP address you are sitting.

The solution is to switch to messengers with a focus on privacy. Signal and Wire do not have internal advertising, which means there is no motivation to collect your data, and end-to-end encryption works by default. For those who are used to classic tools, there is the option to stay in Telegram, but then it is better to switch to secret chats that exist only on the devices from which they were created and have a self-destruction function.

Tools for achieving an intermediate level of anonymity

If the basic level is not enough and you want to have more reliable protection against data leaks, consider the following set of tools.

VPN

This technology hides your real IP address and encrypts all traffic between your device and the network. But a VPN does not give you anonymity on the internet by default, but only redirects the focus from your provider to its own. At the same time, its server still sees your data and keeps logs - a log of your online activity.

Some VPN services do not keep logs, which means they do not follow you. This can be afforded by companies registered in neutral jurisdictions: Panama, British Virgin Islands, Switzerland, etc. It is better to contact them than services from other countries, whose local laws require platforms to collect and store user data.

Another important point is protection against leaks through two channels:

• DNS. In this case, your device, due to some kind of failure, sends a request to connect to the site not through a VPN, but directly to the provider. To exclude such excesses, you need to enable the option to block DNS leaks in the VPN service or write the addresses of private DNS services in the network connection settings.
• WebRTC. This technology allows browsers to communicate directly using Javascript. Because of it, your browser can give the site your real IP address and other information. To block this leak, it is enough to use special extensions like the uBlock Origin or WebRTC Leak Prevent described above.

Special operating systems

Windows, MacOS, and even Linux were not originally designed with anonymity in mind. They cache data, store logs, and inevitably leave traces behind. But there are operating systems that solve this problem, and in completely different ways.

Tails is a live system that is not installed on a hard drive, like Windows, but literally runs from a flash drive or disk. All work in it takes place in the computer's RAM. As soon as you turn off your PC, Tails erases information about everything that happened during the last session, and all internet traffic is directed through the TOR network, which we will talk about below. Tails also has many additional tools for anonymity on the internet built in: from a messenger with encrypted messages to a password manager.

Qubes OS is an operating system that is characterized by low performance, but maximally isolates and hides all internal processes. This is not a single system, but many isolated virtual machines based on Xen. To put it as simply as possible, you are as if you are sitting simultaneously from several different computers. And even when one of them experiences a data leak, you generally do not reveal yourself and can continue to safely use the network.

TOR

This is perhaps the most famous tool for ensuring anonymity on the internet. It operates on the basis of The Onion Router, software and a network of proxy servers of the same name, which provides anonymity on the internet by multi-layer encryption of traffic. "Onion routing" hides the user's IP address and protects against analysis of network activity, passing data through random nodes, while each node decrypts only its "layer", like an onion, without knowing the full route. None of them sees the whole picture of the user's actions, and due to such distribution and isolation of data, relative anonymity is achieved.

To use TOR correctly, follow a few important rules:

1. Do not change the size of the browser window. A strange piece of advice, but in fact it is one of the key parameters of a user's digital fingerprint. If you expand the window to full screen or change it manually, your browser will become unique and can be tracked.
2. Do not install additional extensions. No AdBlock, Privacy Badger, LastPass, etc. - they all break the protection. And their analogues, as a rule, are already included in the functionality of TOR.
3. Always activate the highest level of security. This may disrupt the operation of sites based on Javascript, but it will provide you with a high level of anonymity.

Additional anonymization methods

Let's add two more tools to the above technologies, which can be used to supplement bundles to achieve anonymity on the internet:

• Virtual machines. These are programs that emulate the operation of other computers on your device. As a result, you use a standard PC, but for the site server you are on a completely different computer.
• 2FA. This is the use of TOTP applications to obtain confirmation codes instead of SMS. This does not add anonymity, but it significantly increases the reliability of working with all accounts.

Anonymity on the internet is a systematic job: it is important to take into account every little thing. All layers of protection can fall before one imprudent decision, for example, ignoring two-factor authentication, which makes it much easier for an attacker to hack your account.

Tools for achieving an advanced level of anonymity

We are gradually moving on to more complex data encryption technologies. They will come in handy if you are being targeted by attacks and need to protect your identity as reliably as possible.

Protection against traffic analysis

Suppose that the content of your messages is securely protected. But they can still be analyzed by metadata: who you communicate with, at what time, what amount of data, and with what frequency you transmit. To encrypt this information as well, you can use two different methods.

• Firstly, Onion Routing, which we talked about above. In this case, the message passes through many layers of encryption, while each node does not have a complete picture and simply transmits information with a certain degree of encryption. At the output, an observer sitting on one point of the chain sees only encrypted packets leading nowhere.
• Secondly, I2P is an anonymous network for internal services (sites, files, chats, etc.). Here, several messages are added to one packet, sometimes even for different recipients, and some random bytes are also added to them, which makes the information completely depersonalized. Messages in I2P are transmitted through tunnels that work for 10 minutes, after which they are recreated with new encryption keys.

Hiding metadata

All files that you use have certain information about themselves. For example, for photos this is:

• GPS coordinates;
• phone model;
• date and time of shooting;
• shooting settings;
• copyrights, etc.

To maintain anonymity on the internet, you need to delete them too. Special programs will help with this, for example, Metadata Cleaner, ExifCleaner, AnyEXIF and MetaStripper. Use them before uploading files to the internet, because it will be impossible to clean metadata in already uploaded photos and videos.

Secure communication

Cryptographic methods can help to increase the confidentiality of your data, making it virtually invulnerable to opening. So, Pretty Good Privacy is a program that uses two methods of cryptography at once to encrypt user messages. It has open source code and no central server that could be hacked or shut down.

And Off-the-Record Messaging (OTR) is a protocol that mimics a conversation between two interlocutors in a closed room: you can be sure that you are communicating with the right person, and no one else will know what you were talking about. OTR does not support group chats and does not encrypt file transfers, but it works great for personal chats and instant messages.

Hardening operating systems, risk assessment and taking appropriate measures

Hardening is the process of configuring the OS to maximize its security. It is based on a number of clear principles:

1. The principle of least privilege — a user or program should have exactly as many rights as they need to perform the corresponding functions, and not a jot more.
2. Minimalism — the fewer programs and services installed, the fewer potential holes for leaks on the device.
3. Security by default — any changes that increase the convenience of working with the system must be made taking into account security requirements.
4. Segmentation — the separation of networks into isolated elements. For example, if an attacker hacks your Wi-Fi, they should not immediately gain access to the home network storage.

Hardening can be called the final act of anonymization, but in fact it should come first. Break down any possible risks and threats, analyze what measures you will need to take to protect yourself from them, and start taking action.

Strategies for maintaining anonymity on the internet

Regardless of the tools used, do not forget about simple and effective measures to protect confidentiality:

1. Regular password changes and software updates. This is basic information hygiene, which closes most holes and cuts off attackers' access to long-existing vulnerabilities.
2. Caution when publishing personal information. If the data can be used against you, do not post it in open access, this will deprive you of any negative consequences.
3. Checking the permissions of applications and websites. Analyze what rights various clients require from you, for example, a simple calculator is unlikely to need access to contacts.
4. Using different accounts for different purposes. Use one account for work, another for personal communication, and so on. This can best be implemented through the anti-detect browser infrastructure.
5. Fighting the digital footprint. Take the time to clean up previously published information about you from forums and social networks, because each such account can be hacked and used against you and your loved ones.
6. Regularly checking privacy settings and tools. Technologies change every day, and it will not be superfluous to check and improve your protection methods at certain intervals.
7. Using secure payment methods. Use cryptocurrencies and prepaid cards to pay for services on sites that do not inspire confidence, so as not to compromise your main payment details.

It is important to understand that anonymity on the internet is not a one-time setting, but a constant and systematic process. Its success directly depends on how much time and attention you give it.

Conclusion

Anonymity on the internet and the use of appropriate tools must be approached competently and consciously - first of all, it must be ethical and safe, and you will still have to be responsible for illegal actions committed anonymously. But if you value the confidentiality of your personal data, just use the technologies discussed in the article and regularly check their operability. Good luck!