Privacy & rlz.dll
I hope all you guys using chrome have deleted it long ago.
A bug in the latest version of the Google Chrome browser could leak the identity of users trying to surf anonymously, developers warn. The flaw means that domain-name queries are made by a user's local network even when Chrome is configured to used a third-party proxy. Users typically use proxies to conceal their local IP …
There are probably dozens if not hundreds of applications which don't perform DNS lookups over the proxy they're configured to use. Usually because of an oversight by the developer of the app. This is why you can't just blindly install random apps like Google Chrome and expect them to work with Tor. The only browser recommended by the Tor project is Firefox, and even then you have to install a special plugin called TorButton and you probably want to stick Privoxy in the middle.
I expect there are *many* other flaws in the way Chrome would work with Tor, regarding plugins like Flash and Java and anything else which can create Internet traffic.
If you want all apps to be anonymised, then you need to configure the OS to route all outgoing traffic through Tor. Configuring individual apps to do it can lead to leaks. There is plenty of documentation and discussion on how to do this.
If you read the Tor documentation and understand it, and are careful about how you configure and use it, then you can get a decent level of anonymity. Anything less than that, and all bets are off.
As I understand it Tor offers very robust anonymity, the encryption of each layer coupled with the random routing mean it's extremely hard to determine who someone is and what traffic belongs to them. Short of knowing a specific user is running Tor and managing to get their node to route only through nodes you control it's probably impossible to trace someone's activities back to them.
Given Google CEO Eric Schmidt's well-known attitude towards privacy I'd say this is not a bug, it's a feature. After all, wouldn't he just say that if you're browsing anonymously you're probably browsing something you shouldn't be?
We need Eric is angel/evil icons to go with Bill and Steve down there. Though I can't see the angel one getting used much...
That's not a bug.. IT'S A FEATURE! ;p
According to Google's CEO, All of these innocent, law-abiding people must have something illegal to hide. RIGHT? It's GOOOOOOOGLE! Your supposed to have your email scanned and your privacy out in the open. That way it's EASIER for Big Brother, Secret Police, Geheime Staatspolizei(Gestapo), DHS, HQ to zero in on you at their leisure.
It's what google is there for. It's the least they could do for all of their unsuspecting valued customers. " }:> "
I (to some extent) agree with all of you who say "you must have something to hide" when it comes to denouncing TOTAL privacy.
However, TOR is used in China to circumvent the Great (fire)Wall of China so that free-thinking citizens can have free speech and access to sites which apparently are "violating public morality and harming the physical and mental health of youth". (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/24/tibet_china_youtube_ban/)
IMO, all of you who discourage this kind of activity and the development of systems such as TOR are no better than the commie dictating tosspots over in China.
Anyone who thinks that privacy is not inherent as a basic human right should walk around wearing cling-film, have no password on your email and leave your front doors unlocked with an "Open All Hours" sign hanging on it.
Look at the way photographers are being treated by the police in this country.
Think yourself lucky that you are not in a country that would shoot you for disagreeing with their law officials online or otherwise.
Now remember why anonymity is so important.
Not everyone in the world is as lucky as us.
Surely when you use a Web proxy server, it looks after that stuff for you? You tell the.browser where the proxy is and it does everything including name resolution, your PC doesn't need to +now addresses?
Workaround therefore: don't assign a domain name server on your PC, or disable it, or set it to 127.0.0.1.
I think.
... don't take advice from confused people who haven't got any idea what they're talking about.
Signs of this include when the entire first half of the advice consists of questions like "Surely ....?" followed by something that either isn't the case or doesn't make any sense.