paris3.htm: How to search the web, by fravia+ (¯`·.¸(¯`·.¸ Paris, ecole polytechnique ¸.·´¯)¸.·´¯)

fravia @ Paris
Ecole polytechnique, 6 February 2001

You smear traces everywhere ~ Anonymity matters and efficient tools

Relative anonymity is better than nothing (hiding in the crevices of the system)

Yep, when you travel around the web you smear your datas allaround. It does not look nice at all.

A first intersting question for you. You know very well that there are "free" page hosting services, where anyone can publish his rubbish for free, eventually having to accept some crappish and (soit dit entre nous) easy to eliminate advertisement banner.
You know that on the web there are tons of "free" email addresses, of free "agendas", free "filedepots", free messageboards, free maillists... and so on and so on.
Now the question is: WHY?

In your opinion: why does someone take the hussle to deliver you mighty search engines like Altavista, or Google, or Fast?
You think it's done in order to get some money through advertisement? False.
You think it's done to demonstrate the power of a given hardware structure? False.
What could it be... what could it be?

The real and only reason so many different 'providers' are 'providing' you with these "free" search engines, email addresses, messageboards and so on is that YOUR DATA ARE USEFUL!

Of course every goddam search you do is registered and analysed.
Of course every email you send through yahoo is grepped.
Of course every "free homepage depository" is continuosuly checking and grepping the whole material he gets.

Imagine you're Altavista, or yahoo or your own future search engine proprietor.
And you'r (of course) grepping the data you get. Now let's say that -all of a sudden- ten million bozos look / search / email / chat about -say- akamai (just an example, don't worry: once learned how to search you'll easily find out what akamai is).

Let's say that three million bozos write an email to their pen-pals saying "Heya, i'm going to buy tomorrow some akamai-shares!" (or 'sell', for data gathering purposes it doesn't matter a crumb which way the zombies are going).

You dig it? Insider trading is NOTHING in comparison.

Yes, your emails, your personal pages, your searchstrings... EVERYTHING you do on the web is used for (somebody else's) profit purposes. The same applies in everday life as well of course... see for instance the supermarket's 'advantage' cards, which are only a cheap way of gathering all possible data about somebody for profit maximizing purposes... only on the web it's easier and cheaper... and more rewarding.

I'll explain this better: I have on my own sites a very nice and powerful local engine: namazu, that allows people to search my site for specific keywords they might be interested in.
And indeed my visitors do search a lot -oh boy- they do. Now I can tell you that even on such a relatively small scale the targets of their searches can -at times- be pretty important for me: for instance a special new software I didn't even know existed, but someone presumed I would have been dealing with. Or a given project I never knew about, but someone just wanted to see if I had written or gathered something about it... and so on, and so on.

You dig it? All these 'free' offers are just made in order to fish your own data out of the web sea. You'r like a tuna fish for them, and the more creative and clever you are, the better for those hosting your emails and pages.

A relative degree of anonimity
A relative degree of anonimity is of paramount importance on the web. You cannot be completely anonymous, of course, but the more you are, the better.

Each time somebody asks you for some personal info... do a mix from the following:

NEVER give real info, no matter how pressing they are - unless you really - and I mean REALLY - know what you are doing. You can bet they are going to use those data / sell them / throw them to the wolfes.
ALWAYS lie so much that your falsehood cannot possibly be outdone. It's great fun and, as you will see, it is pretty useful - surfing to-day's web.
To begin with, you should already have found some "alternate" personalities - best choice: somebody that 'almost' really exists: fetch data from any of the zillion personal pages on the web... see geocities and fortunecity for hundreds of ready made "dull" lifes, you'll get delivered -on a silver plate- their "visited schools", "year of birth", name of the beloved one, even photos and everything else... those personal homepages are real goldmines in order to fetch valuable lusers' info and whatever else you need to get -if needs be- a faked bank account in Groenland... ahah, I'm just kidding: faked bank accounts are reserved for entrepreneurs and politicians.
The oldest trick for generating false credible data is indeed quite effective: just take a book from your library and have a look at what's'in there. I'm sure you dig it: find three-four LOCAL (adapted to wherever you live) COMPLETE REAL EXISTING ADDRESSES and learn them by heart. You 'll be (on the web) one of those avatars.
You'll use the faked identity from now on for EVERYTHING you do on the web, unless you are really compelled to give out your real name (which should NEVER happen if you are clever enough :-)
First thing you do with your new "faked" identity: you open half a dozen addresses on -say- yahoo.com and/or other "free" email providers. You'll not need to give much info away (you'll give faked info and access them from a proxy anyway: webcafé are also good places for anonimity mayhem).
Don't believe this will protect you really: they will find out who you are nevertheless THROUGH THE EMAIL YOU WILL WRITE and THE CONTENT of your deeds (duh). Of course no one here is so naïv to believe that 'free' email providers provide email possibilities for altruistic reasons... of course they are "reading" everything you write (actually grepping: no human but your destinatary is ever going to read what you write in this phase)

This is not -by far- "real" anonymity, it is just a "preparation phase". To begin with, just play with them. Use those "free" email addresses (chained or through the autoresponder / autoforwarders) as feedback for page providers or sites that require you to have a "working" email address. Let a LONG trail of faked or half-baked addresses. The more smoke, the better.
You should ALWAYS give completely faked credit card numbers when you do not buy anything: use an ad hoc program if you don't know how to fake credit card numbers on the fly by yourself (the algos are very easy to crack). In general I have found Eurocard/Mastercard with a "valid thru" date 4-6 months from your current time to work best.
You should NOT feel bad in the least to lie like a madman to anyone who dares asking your data: such people are just scum that will use EVERYTHING you will tell them for profit the very moment you do, and they don't even have the decence of admitting it. Screw them black and blue, such clowns deserve far worse than that: their 'privacy - pleads' about how they will "never use your data" are just cheap sarcasm.
Alternatively, when you (have to) "choose" some options from a menu ("Your income", "Your profession", Your "State" and so on) ALWAYS choose the first option you encounter, whatever it is: State=Afganistan, Income=less than 15 USD per year and so on. Screw them. If you want to play with them, there are some funny logistical options like "American Samoa" "Fortune and Wallys Islands" and so on... the possible option "other" that you may find on the menus is also a great choice, because you will get the commercial webmasters thinking hard about updating their options' palette, adding even more idiotical crap to the possible choices.
An exception to the above: When you decide to use a bogus 'predetermined' identity (i.e. for instance Nescio N. Nomine, 11711, North College Avenue, Carmel, Indiana, 46032, United States), then keep COHERENT with the (faked) data you give, stick to them. This will make things even more difficult for those that want to steal and sell your data.

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