Browse Anonymously

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How can I browse anonymously or stay invisible online ? Is these among those questions which bother you for keeping your privacy online. Anonymizers, proxy servers, VPN and VPS are some options that can help you out. All above services are also offered as paid service but for here we will just have our look on free services.

Anonymizers(anonymity server):

Anonymizers are nothing but proxy servers which act as browsers inside browsers for surfing, their advantage is that they digest everything from the page you want to visit and hence can not only protect your privacy but can also prevent you from online malwares. I 'll not recommend you using some specific anonymizer since firewalls block them someday so better visithttp://www.proxy4free.com/ which updates list of anonymizers every hour so that you must get a working anonymity server. Alternatively you can use a TOR browser which really guarantees 100% anonymity. Download TOR fromhttp://www.torproject.org/.

Proxy Servers:

Proxy servers needs some manual settings from your internet configurations. Proxy server lift the limitation that anonymizers had of only being used in browser by making proxy IP available for every application that needs internet connection. Visit http://www.proxy-list.org/ for fresh list of proxies.

Alternatively you always have option of using a proxy generating software, following is brief list of proxy software with their download link have your pick.

Surf Anonymous Free

TOR

Proxy Way

Your Freedom

Ultra Surf

Free Gate

Gtunnel

Gapp Proxy

Hyk Proxy

Gpass

Hot Spot Sheild

Tunnelier

Please don't ask which is best among them, its hard to say since working of proxy depends upon load on proxy server and it may vary with time. As my personal preference I use TOR and Ultra Surf when need proxy level anonymity. Please don't use transactional type browsing like e-mail, social networking or financial transactions over proxy servers, its not safe and still anyhow you want to use them better not use anything else than TOR.

Virtual Private Network:

VPN's are most trusted way of hiding online even secure than proxy servers and anonymity servers. Following is list of some software that provide free VPN services.

Ultra VPN is one of the most used and most trusted free VPN service of world, if you have problem trusting any other free VPN service better opt this.

The Free VPN

Alone Web

Packetix

Always VPN

Cyber Ghost

Open VPN

Security Kiss VPN

usaip

Macro VPN

Its Hidden

The problem with which every VPN suffers it speed and bandwidth penalty. Also they need registration, only usaip can be used without registering by using username and password “demo”. The advantage they have above Anonymizers and proxy servers is that you don't have to bother about transactional browsing.

Virtual Private Server:

Virtual Private Servers are provided by companies in which each concept of running multiple virtual systems on same system is adapted. Though every PC may be residing on same server but for each individual his system acts as completely separate system. These are most reliable source to stay invisible online but are only offered as paid service.

I hope I have covered enough so that you can have your pick. Don't forget to tell us about your views and experience about using above tools. Please note that no matter which tool you use you will have to suffer speed penalty but sorry that is that cheap cost that you have to pay to browse anonymously and stay invisible online.

Dynamic DNS Redirect

Using Dynamic IP as Static IP:

As we discussed in Basic Lab Setup For Hacker a hacker needs a static IP which is really very expensive for a normal person to have. Here we will discus how we can counter this problem. Please note that this solution is temporary and can never really take place of static IP but for now it will work.

For this we will use DNS redirect service from www.no-ip.com alternatively you can also use www.dyndns.com.

First of all register with www.no-ip.com by clicking on “No-IP Free” on home page. After you complete registration form hey will send you an confirmation e-mail, once confirmed, then you can log in to your account.


Now click on “Hosts/Redirect”, then type the host redirect name you want to which Dynamic DNS will redirect traffic after associating your IP. Let other options remain as it is if you don't know what they do.


Now create your host name. Now download “Download Client”. After installing DUC client type your e-mail address and password.

To check its working or not, type www.whatismyipaddress.com and check your IP address now ping the host name you created both will have same IP address.

Note: Most of you might be thinking what is use of this setup, you'll know its use when we will cover Trojans and Spywares. Also note that there are several free as well as paid Trojan Clients and Spywares. But free tools are prone to get detected by anti-virus program so better opt for paid ones.

Basic lab setup for hacker

In this tutorial we will discus how you can setup a lab for yourself to practice hacking on your system. At very basic level a hacker is in need of 2-3 systems with a Wired LAN or Wireless LAN. But if you are the one who has started just like me with just one laptop or computer then possibly there's no way you can match this setup. So following was my solution to start practicing with only one laptop or PC meeting above criteria of multiple computers connected in LAN. At most basic level following are your requirements.

Requirements:
A Computer:
First of all a computer which must have minimum following configuration.
A processor with 1.7GHz clock speed,
120GB + Hard disk
2GB RAM, Please note than your RAM must be above 1GB for practicing. If your RAM is less than 1GB or 1GB I 'll highly recommend you buy 512MB module extra or 1GB gigs for you.

A Virtual PC Emulator:
A virtual PC emulator is needed since I assumed you don't have multiple PC's to setup your lab, even if you have it I would prefer to advice you to use a Virtual PC Emulator. There are several options to pick from but our pick is “Oracle's Virtual Box”. Reason its open source means free, low on resources, supports all kind of network types, no problem to setup screen options, it automatically setups resolution once you install guest installation and have nearly all that features that a professional virtual PC emulator may have. Following is download link to virtual box latest version.
http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

A professional choice is VM-Ware. You can purchase it from following link if you want to run it on Mac.
VMware Fusion4


Though VM-Ware have several advantages over Virtual Box, virtual box is just good to go. Prefer it if you want to shed money.

An Online Synchronization Service:
If you think even that needs shedding money, then I want to assure there's again a free alternative available, its name is Drop Box. Go to www.dropbox.com and create your personal free account then download its setup file and install for synchronization.

A Static IP Address:
Now that will be problem to get a static IP address since a static IP Address may cost you nearly $100 I.e approximately Rs.5000. But don't worry about it we have a free alternative solution to counter problem of static IP. So when there'll be need I 'll clear how to tackle it else even if you have money to shed I will not recommend it.

A PC restore utility:
There are no free alternative to PC Restore Utilities so we will work out on evaluation version. Download Farconics Deep Freeze from following link
http://www.faronics.com/en/DownloadEvaluationEditions.aspx

IP Address Hiding Utility:
Proxy Servers, Anonymizors and VPS are some IP address hiding options. We will discuss them when their need will come in to play.

High Speed Internet Connection:
Of course when you want to learn hacking you need a high speed Internet connection. Opt for a USB dongle by BSNL, TATA, Reliance as mobile broadband and BSNL land-line broadband is just much better option. If you don't have high speed connection and you work on slower connection like GPRS and dial-ups its hard to learn hacks done over Internet.

Procedure:
Before you proceed create a separate partition for installation of Virtual system, the partition must be at least 15GB in size. First of all download latest version of Oracle's Virtual Box and install it on your system. While installation it'll ask several times about installing various components just press OK for all of them because you'll need them all.
Watch following video tutorial on how to setup and install OS in Virtual System.

Once installation is done virtual box will come up with several pop ups when you'll be using it, please read each pop up because they are your tutorials to master “Virtual System Environment”. Please please please, don't skip any of those pop ups. When your installation will be over you'll see virtual system isn't really working in full screen. To tackle it run virtually installed system click on devices and “Install Guest Additions”. From next time it will run in full screen.

Setting up virtual system is done, now jump up to the next part start your virtual system open web browser of virtual system and download Drop-Box application and sign in to it. Now onwards whenever you'll download any software for hacking paste it into Drop Box default folder, it'll synchronize it with your online storage. After installing and signing up Drop Box download Deep Freeze don't install it now. Shut down your Virtual System and copy virtual hard disk as backup in another folder, start system and install Deep Freeze, before installing it read its online manual so that you should not get problem using it. Now when your Deep Freeze evaluation time expires just delete older hard disk and copy the backup and start over again. This will keep your evaluation copy last forever. If you haven't yet understood what we actually did with virtual box then I should clear we just setup a Virtual LAN for our practice using just a single computer. So you can't now boast you don't have a LAN to practice or a remote host to practice. You can run two virtual systems simultaneously if you have at least 2GB RAM. This not only solves our problem of private LAN to practice but it indirectly also offers you remote host to attack on. Our personal say is don't install virtual system on Windows XP or Vista, get Windows 7 or Server 2008.

Lab setup tutorial is over now go and setup your systm to get started. Please ask if you have got any problems related to setup, if everything is fine please don't forget to convey me. Thanks for reading keep visiting.

Steps Involved In Hacking

As mentioned earlier ethical hacker takes same steps as malicious hacker. Following are different steps that are performed during hacking.

1.Reconnaissance:
This step involves gathering potential information about target system. In fact hacker spends 90% of time for this phase only and next 10% time for rest of the steps.

2.Scanning:
During this phase network is scanned for vulnerability.

3.Gaining Access:
This is the step where real hacking takes place. Hacker takes advantage of vulnerability found in scanning phase and penetrates the victim system.

4.Maintaining Access:
After gaining access hacker makes provision to come back by planting root-kit and backdoor.

5.Covering Tracks:
In this phase hacker removes all traces of his/her presence in system by removing log files and event logs.

skills required by hacker

Skills Required For A Hacker

Following are some must know things for a hacker or you can say requirements of hacker.

Operating System:
As a hacker you must have upper hand skills in Operating systems Windows, Linux and Unix. Once you master Linux and Unix you'll hardly face problem getting yourself on MAC. As we'll move further we will cover both of them in short and then slowly move our level to advanced.

Networking:
A hacker must have expertise in field of networking even if you don't have them you must be knowing about some basic terms used in networking. Please click on following links and try to grasp topics as thoroughly as you can.
OSI Model/Internet Protocol Stack
Network Topology
The reality is that a hacker should know networking to best level. Just knowing above terms is not sufficient though you'll not encounter that much problem while learning. We still recommend you buying a book on networking that should cover networking to level of pin points. My personal favor is to book Data Communication And Networking by Behrouz Forouzan if you want to start. Click on following link to know more, read people's view or if you want to purchase.

Data Communications and Networking (McGraw-Hill Forouzan Networking)


Knowledge About Setting Up And Configuring Servers:
Yes that is necessary for a hacker so when we will move ahead with flow. We will cover configuring IIS 7, Apache, Vertrigo on Windows and Apache on Linux. Both HTTP and FTP servers will be covered.

Programming:
Absolutely no one can deny all best hackers in world have master hand in programming. Following are must know programming languages but you can even make things work even if you don't know them. In any case I would recommend you learn programming.
HTML, C, C++, Java, SQL, Python, Perl, PHP and Ruby.
At most basic level my advise will be you must know HTML, C, SQL, PHP and ruby.

Tools:
Backtrack is platform which is specially crafted and designed for penetration testing. Metasploit is framework that is used to create and experiment with exploits and payloads. Both are must for a hacker today. Alternative to Backtrack is Knoppix Security Edition and Mautrix, if you master Bactrack you'll easily master both of them. So I will not leave them apart from our list, we'll also cover them.

Introduction of hacking

Ethical Hacking | An Introduction

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Whenever term hacker comes before many people consider it as a guy sitting inside a room or garage with a bottle or beer and a Laptop or Desktop doing wonders on click of buttons. But the reality check is hacking is not that easy as portrayed in movies and television and term hacker doesn't mean a computer criminal.

So here first of all we'll clear all our misconceptions related to words hackers and hacking.

From Where This Word Came:

The word hacking has history in late 1960's, the time when computers were nothing but mighty pieces of machines and a computer just meant a machine that can compute. Electrical and Electronics geeks used to optimize circuits to make any system/circuit work faster, better and reliably. The job they used to do on circuits was known as hack. With time computer geeks also started finding way out to optimize their system to work better so in fact hacking was nothing but always a kind of reverse engineering. With time in professional world a word hacker got meaning, a person who is highly skilled in hardware, software and networking components. Then movies started portraying hackers do only dirty works and hence today the word hacker has a negative face according to people. No matter how the word met to a dreadful end a hacker always had all qualities that was first put forward in its definition may the be criminal or ethical. Criminal hackers are also known as Crackers.

Types Of Hackers:

White Hats: White hat hackers are good guys who use their hacking skills for defensive purposes. Organizations and industries pay them high salaries to protect their systems and networks from intrusion.

Black Hats: Black hats are actually bad guys in filed. Their main job is to breach security and make money. They make money by using their hacking skills for offensive purposes.

Grey Hats: Gray hats are hackers who work for offensive and defensive purposes depending on situations. They are hired by people to intrude and protect systems.

Hactivist: A hacktivist is kinda hacker who thinks hacking can bring out some social changes and hacks government and organizations to show his discomfort over some trivial issues.

Suicide Hackers: Suicide hackers are those who hack for some purpose and even don't bother to suffer long term jail due to their activities. They can be bad as well as good.

Script Kiddie: A script kiddie is a person who boasts breaking system using scripts and codes written by others though he hardly knows what the code does.

Phreak: It is a person who tries to intrude systems for fun or malicious personal activities. Mostly they are children of age 12-15 who don't even know wrong consequences of hacking.

Types Of Hacking:

Local Hacking: This type of hacking is done when a hacker has full access to the system to implant a virus, keylogger and RATs

Remote Hacking: Remote hacking is done on a remote system using Internet.

Social Engineering: Social Engineering is kinda interacting skill that a hacker uses to manipulate people giving out sensitive information. Its kinda trick done using good verbal, social skills and understanding.

Terminologies Used Under Hacking:

Threat: A threat is an environment or situation that could lead to a potential breach of security. Ethical hackers look for and prioritize threats when performing a security analysis.

An Exploit: An exploit is a piece of software that takes advantage of a bug, glitch, or vulnerability, leading to unauthorized access, privilege escalation, or denial of service on a computer system.

Vulnerability: A vulnerability is an existence of a software flaw, logic design, or implementation error that can lead to an unexpected and undesirable event executing bad or damaging instructions to the system. In easy word vulnerability is weakness in system.

Payload: Payload is agent that helps in taking advantage of vulnerability in remote hacking.

Attack: An attack occurs when a system is compromised based on a vulnerability.

Types Of Attack:

1.Operating System Attack      

2.Application level Attack

3.Shrink Wrap Code Attack

4.Misconfiguration Attack

Operating system attack is attack done on specific type of OS. Such attack is done using flaws in programs and services shipped with OS. Application level attack is done over faulty coding practices done over software during its development. Shrink Wrap Code attack are attacks done over UN-refined scripts used for making task simpler. Last is misconfiguration attack, it is kinda attack which is done over mis-configured system or a system with default settings.

Work Of An Ethical Hacker:

Job of an ethical hacker is to use all his skills and tools used by malicious hackers to find vulnerabilities in system and then provide it security against those vulnerabilities.

Conclusion: At last what I want to tell, nothing happens in clicks of buttons. A hacker is highly skilled person in field of computing who usually have ample knowledge about software, hardware, OS, networking and programming. A hacker may it be criminal or ethical has immense patience, determination, organization, discipline and persistence. An attacker may spend months of time planning, analyzing and executing an attack. This shows his level of dedication to achieve whatever goal he/she has set. A person can never become a good hacker unless he have all above qualities.

Note: Now onwards we will cover hacking as our main stream topic on this blog. Real hacking is never done over lamers who hardly knows about security, it is done over a person who is highly skilled as you are. You can never learn hacking until you do some practical and gain knowledge about field so now onwards I urge you to perform practicals that will be now posted on this blog on your own system. Next no tutorial will be taken as a lamer so they will be in possible higher details, so this may happen that you may not understand something. Rather than keeping yourself mum I plea you to please ask whenever you encounter a problem or get bothered by topic. Whenever I 'll post on hacking I 'll try to keep a theoretical and one practical tutorial, you are requested to read both and grasp matter completely. Thanks for visiting and please tell are you clear with all points discussed or need some explanation on your difficulty.