Many unknown anonymizers

While this forum has been an incredible source of information conserning anonymizers there are still a lot of services which are completely unknown as far as reputation and quality of service goes. I haven't found any reviews for them (or for many others) so I'm basically left with the ad claims from their sites. Here are some I'm interested in:

1) Trilightzone. Many servers in different countries and several other
service options. (Read from this forum that they might be affiliated with
privacy.li. Yikes) Any user experiences?

2) Neomailbox. Mostly an email service but Netherlands and Swiss tunneling
available. No linux compatibility for tunneling software mentioned in the
help section?

3) Anonymouse paid service. Only a proxy but with SSL and other filtering
options. They have been in business for a long time so that should count for
something.

4) Cryptohippie. Sort of a new kid on the block with their service now
available for individuals. A pricey (275$) multihop service.

 

There are along out there and as anonymizers are niche industry, however most information about them are found in forums and usenet and are hard to search for. However from experience many use the same system and there isn't too much difference.

1: Trilightzone are know to use the same servers as Privacy.il a very dodgy service, not only for baiting users but using information gained to silence any protenial bad press. looking around here should reinforce this reputation.

2: Neomailbox has been around a while and hasn't much of a presence on the internet. they offer a ssl tunnel to the netherlands for 29.95 or boxed together with thier mail service for $69.95. however its limited to 500megs a month bandwidth and really is for securing email and light browsing, excess bandwith is really expensive.

3: Anonymouse are quite well known and have quite an extensive presence. However they are only a cgi proxy and as such probably aren't worth paying for, they are only good for anything within active windows and any other windows/pop-ups will show your ip. other providers of cgi paid proxies are megaproxy, proxify and the cloak, all do about the same.

4: Cyrptohippie are the new kid on the block and aren't that expensive for what your paying for. your are paying for a multi-hop VPN that is secured against evedroppings and man in the middle attacks. They are miles ahead of the competition and are only about ~$22 a month. They have servers around the world in politically stable countries with very minimal logging. The only service that comes close is Xerobank and they only have a 2 hop network with exit nodes in canada and netherlands, with is 35 a month or ~400 dollars a year.

So basically your best bet is cyrptohippie, they are a solid service with the backing of experience, they are also a third party of the network, with a whole other company responsible for the network. 2 and 3 are good for light surfing where you have no control over the system and 1 should be avoided like the plague.

 

Thanks for the reply fuzzylogic. I pretty much came to the same conclusions
based on the limited information I found. Like you said they are a niche industry...

 

No problem, don't be afraid to have a good search, a good place to look is groups.google.com, whom you can search through Usenet to find more information, or google.com to search for forum posts. These have been very useful to me and have a great resource; but be prepared for the tinfoil crowd and shift through the paranoia

 

Xerobank has 3 hops.

 

I was sure that Xerobanks personal offered a 2 hop (Your ip - USA - Netherlands/Canada), where the business offered Oynx network offered a 3 hop network.

 

Unless I am just completely off, and I don't think I am, the personal version has 3 hops and the small business runs through the new cryptorouter and goes through the new "blacknet". I don't have enough technical knowledge to understand blacknet, except that it is above and beyond the ordinary 3 hop xerobank network that has been offered. I have seen it discussed and the added benefits mentioned, but I do not understand the terminology yet. I hang out mostly in the "Special Ed" section, LOL! Also, there will be a new low grade version with only one hop soon for $10.

http://forum.xerobank.com/index.php/topic,211.0.html

http://xerobank.com/cryptorouter.php

 

Looking forward to looking at ShadowVPN, but steve seems pretty slow in releasing stuff but does deliver in the end.

I'm pretty sure that it was a 2 hop network, at least at the start anyway. I sure there was an argument here or on usenet about how a 3 hop network was a minimum for a anonymous network. It may of been improved since then, i kinda gave up on following xerobank, too hard to get good information but i long got over that and now just follow the niche of anonymous networks.

Through I'd like to see what cryptonewbie choose in the end. They were all good choices (expect trilightzone) and have good uses in different environments ie cgi proxy in an locked down system ie cybercafe/library/school, stunnel for light surfing and a full on VPN 3-hop network for total solution.

 

Decisions decisions! I am still undecided but partially in the game. Opted for a 3 month package from StrongVPN and the cgi proxy from Anonymouse. Why choose one when you can have two. I have a soft spot for them because I have used their free service for a long time. The SSL proxy is much faster with no ads. Strong is 20$/month. Annual fee with openvpn is 215$. So far so good. Speed is excellent. I notice only a very small lag. Using it right now. I can finally take advantage of wireless which I get free from my employer The price is very steep considering that Cryptohippie is only 60$ more with more countries and hops. It does look very tempting. ShadownVPN looks very interesting also. Hope they get it running soon.

 

I just realized what you are referring to now. There use to be a Plus account. It was just the browser and not a VPN. But is did go through the Xerobank network (not Tor0. I think it was $10 a month. I started off on the Pro and had completely forgotten about the old Plus accounts.

 

I'm still sure their current offer goes through only 2 hops for personal and business/government goes through a 'blacknet/oynx network'. Could steve drop through and answer this?

 

Plus = 2 hop
Pro = 2 hop
--------------
Personal = 2+ hop
Onyx = 3+ hop
Onyx Advanced = 4+ hop

 

Okay. I guess I was wrong about the 3 hops for a pro or XB2 account. I don't know how I got confused about that.

 

Well, it's 3 hops to your destination for Pro and XB2, it's an easy mistake.

You -> Node 1 -> Node 2 -> Destination

The reason is that more than 2 nodes are needed if the control of the nodes is decentralized, meaning you need to obfuscate the traffic from one operator to another. In a network where node operators can't be trusted, like Tor, you need 3 nodes to obfuscate identities from each other. The first two are obviously needed, but why the third? Because if you are the first party, and you're handing off to another node, you know not only who's traffic it is, but you also know the node it is exiting from, which defeats context obfuscation, and greatly lowers anonymity. We don't have that problem because we control all the nodes.

 

thanks for the steve, i thought as much. another quick question, is the onyx network your network or an extention of the cyrtohippie network?

 

also does the onyx network use the same exit nodes as the regular xb (paid) network?

netherlands, u.s. or canada?

Basically I'm wondering if the onyx network has different IP's than the regular xb (paid) network and if they use different servers.



Thanks

 

Onyx uses none of the same exit nodes that xb2 uses. The most basic level of onyx provides >1000 USA IPs, in addition to other countries. For onyx advanced with large contracts, clients get access to 5,000 to >100,000 IPs. However, remember that lots of IPs != anonymity. Infact, quite the opposite. Those who need lots of IPs are those who have adversaries who try to filter by IP address.

 

How can I get more information on the onyx network, pricing, etc.. I'd also like to know if there are any additional features than xb2 and a list of which other countries you have exit nodes/IP's in.


Thanks

 

Mr Paquette and Mr Estes handle onyx sales, but I do know the spec details. Pricing starts at $2900/year, and includes a free cryptorouter. The exit nodes are USA, Germany, France, Switzerland, Russia, Netherlands, and we can add exit nodes countries per contract.

 

I have not been able to find Cryptohippies website after googling for it.

Three more little known anonymizing services:

Hideway, Jondos and VforVPN

I've used all three of them, and I had only a problem making Hideway
work with Vista 64 bit, but Jondos and VforVPN worked great, two
different privacy approaches, the former using a chain of proxies and the
latter using a single proxy (OpenVPN or PPTP).

 

Did you notice the owner of VforVPN is a high school student? Pretty cool if you ask me. But I will never use a US vpn. That pretty much defeats the purpose.

 

I had not seen the owner of VforVPN is a high school student, probably not someone you would want to trust your privacy to.

But most times You get to know very little of who is running the VPN you are using. Maybe not high school students, but you can find all kind of strange personalities out there too.

I often read this, I would not use a US based VPN, but there aren't too many alternatives, Germany,Switzerland,Sweden,Denmark...basically it is between the US,Europe and some proxy servers in Hong Kong/Malasya(SurfSolo).

As for location, Guardster located in Nevis (West Indies) seems to be the best, regarding privacy laws.

 

From a privacy aspect a US proxies isn't good, but for watching hulu and nbc then its another matter.

I wonder how good of a proxy in japan would go?, it has good international peering, no data retention laws and fairly good privacy laws, i mean www.anonymousspeech.com works out from there for anonymous email (hosting is from malaysia).

 

Fuzzylogic,

I am responding to your post on Neomailbox. I just discovered their website, the services do look interesting and it seems Neomailbox is a serious company.

Could you knidly enlighten me on the following aspects, as I'm in the learning stages:

1. its limited to 500megs a month bandwidth and really is for securing email and light browsing.
   This refers to download/upload speed, or means that we're alowed to download a total amount of 500MB of data during one month?
   Light browsing: does your comment imply that going through the Neomailbox tunnel affects the ability to download a lot of data (such as torrents for ex) or does it imply that simply browsing (downloading internet pages) is slow?
   
2. no control over the system and 1 should be avoided like the plague.[/QUOTE].
   What do you mean by this?
   
3. I am residing in Switzerland. In this precise scenario, is there an advantage of passing through a tunnel with servers in Switzerland?
   Is it correct to say the closer the tunnel's servers are to one's computer and to the servers of one's ISP, the better the speed and performance?
   Or does locations and distances between computer-ISP servers-VPN tunnel servers have no effect on browsing speed & download capability?

Thanking you in advance for anytime you may give in sharing knowledge.

Best regards.

 

hey, yeah neomailbox have only just recently in the last few month offering tunneling services along side their email services. I'll answer the questions as numbered;

1, light browsing is basically only surfing simple webpages and email once and again, 500 meg is burned pretty quickly with streaming media/flash games. Torrenting wouldn't be a good idea over this system.

2, no control over the system would imply a system you dont' own or know whom's used it or controls it. this includes public cafes/wi-fi. these tunnels give you protection against evedroppings.

3, you wouldn't gain must in the way of benifits from someone outside the country. proformance/speed maybe. Usually one looks for a proxy outside of their country as to make it harder for court orders or people to findout what you've been looking at. Europe has a better peering between countries so i wouldn't believe you'd bee worse off speed wise with a proxy in another european country.