Has anyone used SecurSurf- Surf Anonimous

Has anyone used/know anything about this product? Was thinking of purchasing it. Just wanted to get some opinions.

http://www.securstar.com/cart/customer/home.php

Thanks

 

I never heard of that anonymizer service but that doesn't mean it's not good. It does look interesting. A bit expensive imo. I wonder if they keep logs of where you surf though, you can't just take their word for it when they claim they don't keep logs of your activities. In this day and age of anti-terrorism it's hard to believe they don't keep logs. Personally I prefer a system in which your true ip address is not know, and cannot be traced, by the anonymizing service that your using, e.g. onion routing.

 

Here's what they have to say, bearing in mind the statement about NO logs !

DISCLAIMER

1. Content
The author reserves the right not to be responsible for the topicality, correctness, completeness or quality of the information provided. Liability claims regarding damage caused by the use of any information provided, including any kind of information which is incomplete or incorrect,will therefore be rejected.
All offers are not-binding and without obligation. Parts of the pages or the complete publication including all offers and information might be extended, changed or partly or completely deleted by the author without separate announcement.

http://www.securstar.com/disclaimer.php

Some of the offers on the service and the page sound and look Very similar to on here http://privacy.li/privacy-tunnel.htm Not only that but they also sell DRIVECRYPT too !

See a connection, VPN or otherwise lol.


StevieO

 

Hi StevioO,

I didn't understand your post, please translate in lamin terms. Some of the vendors say they don't keep logs, you don't really know what their doing. I would like to find something to hide everything, and know that it really is.

 

I have been using SecurSurf for some hours now. here's my report/opinion.

- THERE IS NO WAY ANYONE CAN BE 100% SURE THAT SECURSTAR DOESN'T KEEP LOGS. however, securstar seems to be a reputable company with a good history. they also sell enterprise products. note that if the anonymous status of ANY client gets compromised by their logs and their giving them out to courts, SecurStar would be OUT OF BUSINESS WITHIN A FEW DAYS.

- surfing speed is *slightly* slower than without encryption, my estimate is 10-20%

- when using applications that use the internal SecurSurf proxy (IE by default), you appear to the outside world as a member of some Malayesian tribe, i.e. at least you get such an IP. however, you need additional measures in order to be completely anonymous, deleting your old cookies for instance

- SecurSurf only works with applications that can properly use a proxy server, i.e. you will have problems with ICQ and some P2P applications. if you don't configure an application to use the proxy, its traffic WILL NOT BE ANONYMOUS AND YOU WILL APPEAR WITH THE USUAL ISP-IP TO THE OUTSIDE WORLD WITH THAT APPLICATION.

- there seems to be a problem with apps that use more than one port: eMule can only use ONE "internal proxy port", SecurSurf can forward only ONE "external port" to ONE "internal proxy port". I am unable to forward the TWO "external ports" that eMule requires (TCP and UDP) to the ONE "internal proxy port" that eMule uses to access the internal proxy. this may sound a bit strange, as you don't really have an idea of how SecurSurf works if you don't have it installed. however, i just opened a SecurStar support ticket addressing this issue and I am sure they are going to respond and provide a solution. SecurSurf has just been released and any disfunctionality with some P2P apps will be fixed because P2P anonymizing is a MAJOR application of SecurSurf in these uncertain times of IP-logging and court cases

BTW it is a good idea to encrypt your data with SecurStar's other products, as this will prevent the cops from reading ANYTHING from your drives without your password, that you are UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES required to give out

i am not affiliated with SecurStar, this is my own honest opinion.

 

update:

- secursurf does not support SOCKS as a proxy type, and UDP ports cannot be forwarded

- therefore, the UDP port must be disabled in emule. btw, in my case, this led to a MAJOR increase in download speed in the non-anonymous mode (i.e. without Secursurf)

- Securstar told me to select HTTP as the proxy protocol. the emule manual says high id's are not possible with HTTP proxies. however, this situation is a special case anyway and it might still work

- HOWEVER, IT WAS STILL NOT POSSIBLE TO GET EMULE TO WORK WITH SECURSURF. emule checks one server after another, and they all "appear to be dead." this might be a timeout problem, as the server connection might be slightly delayed by the encryption, and then emule has zero tolerance and moves on to the next server

- i am writing emails back and forth and will keep you on the current. i am confident that this is going to work out with help from your reports and securstars

 

I currently use Anonymizer.com's service, and while I've been reasonably happy, I have never been able to get download speeds above 100KB/s (kilobytes) when downloading files in encrypted anonymous mode. I asked them whether they put a speed cap on download speed and they said they didn't, but my results indicate otherwise.

What download speed can you get with SecurSurf in encrypted anonymous mode ?

I'm also about to try out Tor which uses the onion router method. Can anyone who's used Tor tell me what sort of download speeds to expect ?

 

Hahaha, sorry not laughing at you, but I couln't help to laugh after reading your question about how fast does Tor download. Just try it and see. It's slower than a snails pace. Better to use a regular connection if your used to high speed, otherwise I would consider the purchase of a cryogenic chamber of some type, so you can freeze yourself while your waiting for your download to complete. Unless you don't mind waiting 200 years till your download of the latest Star Wars movie is complete.

 

I noticed a serious bug in SecurSurf. Eventough port forwarding rules are deleted in user interface they still exist in Windows XP registry. Connection will be a mess up after few trials. It's easy to fix, just edit HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SimonTatham\PuTTy\Sessions\sam.hitrust.net\Portforwardings with Regedit. Yesterday I sent a ticket to SecurStar customer service about this, but haven't got any reply yet.

 

I never heard of it myself.

 

Miracla, do you have any further updates reagrding your experience with Secursurf and Emule please?

 

Hi Mapex, Defenestration,

nice posts! Have you guys heard anymore news on your tickets that were submitted?

When running a program like SecureSurf, do you have to set every program/app you have running on your computer to work through SecureSurf? Or just security related programs.

I use Firefox and Opera, I know Firefox can be set up with a proxy but I don't know about Opera?

Happy Holidays Everyone!

 

Miracla, do you have any further updates reagrding your experience with Secursurf and Emule please?

 

Yeah, it works with Emule. Time to time speed is incredible fast 7 kb/s . Usually connections can't be initialized or they will soon broke down. I would say it is practically useless with Emule or BT.

The choice of proxy provider is a matter of trust. Wilfried is now CEO of SecurStar and Shaun is their chief programmer. You can take it as a good reference or .....

 

Thanks Miracla for your reaction. In the mean time I've bought Secursurf and although it works quite allright with firefox I can't get it to work at all with emule.

Could you please post your setup in Secursurf for emule so that I can try it out your way? I specifically installed the new emule 0.47a as that is reported to have updated their proxy capabilities but to no effect up to now.

By the way I noted that the bug you reported regarding the "old" port forwarding rules, which are deleted in user interface but still exist in Windows XP registry, is still there and I see secursurf opening them at startup. I'll go into the registry now to solve that in the way you mentioned.

 

Bump

 

@Eternalbeta

So what do you think of the program? Because I have been seriously considering buying it. Any info is appreciated.

Thanks

 

Indeed, I bought the Secursurf but up to now I only scratched its surface due to time restraints. First of all I wanted to use it on my laptop behind the company firewall. No success there, it uses port 22 for SSH tunnels and apparently that’s blocked by our firewall and I didn’t find any possibility to change that fundamental parameter.

Out of curiosity I also bought Anonymizer 2006 which is only 25$ compared to the 99 Euro of Secursurf and, although much less sophisticated, to my surprise I was surfing the internet, encrypted from behind the company firewall in a few minutes after downloading the program. Then again, this one uses the “traditional” SSL protocol on port 443 which was open in our firewall to permit protected connections.

I then installed Secursurf at home and after setting up the consequent rules in Tiny Personal firewall pro 6.5, I was up and running encrypted as if out of Malysia and in addition there is a corresponding anonymous, encrypted email address in this package.

Setting it up with Firefox, Copernic etc went smoothly. Surfing speed is somewhat slower than without encryption but variable. File download speed with SecurSurf in encrypted, anonymous mode varies from low up till > 200 kb/s ( and the same goes for Anonymizer). By the way, I’m on Adsl 5mega.

The enigma is properly emule and I’ve tried emule plus and the new emule 0.46a which had the proxy option improved and used HTTP as the proxy protocol (including trying the others) but to no avail up to now. The frustrating issue is that emule now downloads its ipfilter.dat through Secursurf but it just checks one server after another, and they all "appear to be dead.

As mentioned by Mapex, SecurSurf can forward only ONE "external port" to ONE "internal proxy port" and it is impossible to forward the TWO "external ports" that eMule requires (TCP and UDP) to the ONE "internal proxy port" that eMule uses to access the internal proxy. Therefore, the UDP port must be disabled in emule. It seems that Securstar is working on this but they didn’t want to put a planning to it.

As reported by Miracla, there is still a serious bug in SecurSurf. Even tough port forwarding rules are deleted in user interface they still exist in Windows XP registry. just edit KEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SimonTatham\PuTTy \Portforwardings.

One last thing is an error which pops up at irregular intervals: Network error – this caused the software to abort the connection, necessitating to start up the Secursurf connection again.

In conclusion, so far, mixed results while trying to use the extra capabilities of Secursurf, while a straightforward program like Anonymizer 2006 does the job behind the company firewall.

Hopefully Miracla could share his emule and Secursurf setup so that at least I can see how it can be made to work and take it up from there.

 

Hmm, it's interesting you have had file download speeds greater than 200 KB/s when in encrypted anonymous mode with Anonymizer, since I could never get speeds much above 100 KB/s (usually a constant 96 KB/s). I haven't used it for a few months but will probably give it another go due to it's low price (BTW, the last time I toyed with buying Anonymizer you also get a free licence for DivX 6 Create when you sign up). However, you mentioning the ports used got me thinking that it may have been my ISP who was limiting the speed instead of Anonymizer. I'll look into it and post back here with my findings when I get a chance.

 

Thanks for the info eternalbeta, I've also been researching this product. If it's not too much trouble could you post a screenshot of this software? Also, how is this software in terms of system resource usage?

 

OK se7engreen here you go. Both apps seem to be very light on system resources so no problems of that kind.

Looking forward to hearing your experience

 

eternalbeta

My hints to get it work:

You have version 1.2.1 installed. It should have the registry issue fixed. I have not checked it, but they told me so.

In the SecurSurf screenshot you are missing Emule settings. Please add

Local port: Choose freely, e.g. 4800. Should be same as the proxy port in the Emule
Target server: localhost
Target port: Your SecurSurf Server Port (The One they gave to you)​

The Emule settings

Proxy type: HTTP 1.0 or HTTP 1.1, both works (equally bad)
Proxy host: 127.0.0.1
Proxy port: Choose freely, e.g. 4800. Should be same as the local port in SecurSurf​

Remember to disable Kad in Emule. Otherwise your connection leaks UDP. Good luck...

 

Up and running finally with emule. Thanks Miracla.

Somehow I was to fixed on not using the same ports for the different apps and the manual wasn't too clear on that. Using the same SecurSurf Server Port was the trick that got emule running.

I got a low ID as predicted but during the first try out I've seen downloads up to 16.2 KB/s. Not too bad, certainly better than I expected.

What did you fill in on the options/connection tab? I disabled UDP there and for the moment I filled in also client port 4800 TCP (same as the proxy), just to be sure, but the firewall log showed emule complaining that it couldn't open that port but no ill effect up to now.

The same firewall log shows that the registry issue is certainly not fixed with Secursurf v1.2.1 still opening ports which were eliminated. The only way is still eliminating those manually as you described.

 

Some more experience now.

Could be coincidence but I have the impression that results are better with emule 0.47a compared to emule plus 1.2 With emule I had downloads up to 33 KB/s, then switched to emule plus and for a whole day I just got up to 7 KB/s.

Switched back to emule and immediately afterwards I got a "record" 36 KB/s so for the moment I'll stick with emule even though I've no explanation what may cause the difference, if any.

Both had HTTP 1.1 proxy enabled at port 4800 with on the next tab disabled UDP and for the moment also client port 4800 TCP (same as the proxy) as it doesn't allow you to keep it blank. The log showed both progs complaining that they couldn't open that port, as it was already occupied by the proxy, but no ill effect up to now.