[OU] How to anonymize Opera?

Sat Jul 26 20:08:57 UTC 2008

Hi, I'm Balázs, sorry about the missing introduction.

I'm not on opera developer team or associated with the company any way.

The link you have provided to the privacy optimized FF profil. States in  
the second sentence, the following:
"We recommend using JonDoFox together with JonDo"
So they admit that even with that profil you are not "safe".

As I have said before that information is required for normal site  
operations, also that information can be used to track your activities.
You can remove that information useing proxy servers, but it will cause  
issues with some sites.
Nowdays sites are using javascript to determine the capabilities of your  
browser and lots of other information regarding your browsing session. So  
even behind proxies you can be identifed and profiled. You only make it a  
bit harder for them and much less inconvinient for yourself. Forget the  
top of the page and see the bottom of it, there are lot more interesting  
data regarding you that is apparent at first.
Also there is the IP address, which simply can't be filtered out. You can  
however use anonimizer networks to hide it like Tor, or JonDo. But even  
those network can't protect you completly. Traffic analysis are one of the  
possible methods to break them.

As you can see, with external software and settings you can make yourself  
less profilable. But this way you will be give up correct rendering and  
speed (Tor and such networks are not very fast). But you can rest assured,  
if they want to track you, they will track you. Internet is like  
interpersonal communication, if you are interacting with people (or  
servers) you will leave traces. In both cases it can be used against you.  
If you want to avoid that, have a life that can't be stained, after  
reassembling those information, live without regrets.

If you think you can't have fine grained control in Opera than in FF  
regarding information sent to the page you are completly wrong. Just rigth  
click on the page and choose site preference. If you want to do this  
before visiting sites, modify the global defaults CTRL-F12 / Advanced, and  
use the previously mentioned site specific settings for sites you trust.

The only sure identification method I know of on the internet is the IP  
address. The information in the header or the top of the JonDoes website  
is irrevelant by itself. Whey is it hurt you that the site you are  
visiting wants to know that how many of their vistors useing windows, or  
opera or any other browser?
Without the ip address it is problematic to link it to you, and nothing  
more just a nameless statistical data (if that brothers you use a proxy,  
global and site specific settings).
For hideing the IP you can use Tor or some other networks, if it is big  
enough and useing appropiate criptografic algorithm and you are not too  
important you can get lucky and not be traced. If you are interesetd,  
recently even skype's encryipted voice traffic can be reconstructed,  
without breakingg the encryption, over 50% accuracy, thanks to the  
variable bit rate encodeing.

Also I will rest my case with the following information. The "Optimized"  
profile is nothing more than a javascript. Since Opera supports user  
scripts that profile can be applied in Opera as well. Unortunalty you need  
to addapt it to be Opera specific, or use it to rewrite the opera6.ini.

On Sat, 26 Jul 2008 20:30:55 +0200, macintoshzoom  
<macintoshzoom at lavabit.com> wrote:

> Hi ?...couldn't find your name! ... opera team?,
>
> Thanks for your mail, you are understanding the issue.
>
> If you try Firefox, tweaked as per the pre-designed for privacy Firefox
> profile Jondofox, that you can use with their anonymizer, with tor, or
> without proxy at all (just setup the proxy settings), you will see how
> results are different than your best Opera, with proper explanations,
> and how this Firefox JONDOFOX tweaked REALLY respects your privacy.
> Of course, you need to reduce this privacy level when in need of a
> javascript, flash or referrals specific site browsing.
> Using privoxy http filtering tool, you can avoid some dangers even when
> javascript enabled, I think.
> The cookies filter on this Firefox Jondofox, cslite addon, can allow
> specific cookies per site, and allow them only forthe session so as not
> to create a profile from your browsing next day when browsing again th
> site. (of course, you will lost your personal site settings that are
> stored in the cookie, if you really need them, you can selectively allow
> the cookie forever.
>
> All this new browsing habits requires a bit of practice, but its only an
> hour or two and for the childs its a question of even less.
>
> Blabla you said "Again this information is not sent to comprimize your
> privacy". This is Blabla, yes it is creating a profile of my browsing
> habits that will stay in who knows what databases (Google, Feds,
> Mormons, Mafias?) and who knows in a near future if someone is calling
> at my mail to ask for money if I want they not say my family, friends,
> associates, coworkers, employees, public blogs, that from year x to year
> x I was chating in gay's portals, or if I go on politics, who can know
> how my rivals will use this information to send shit over my name and
> over our politic party forces,.. and so on ...
> I DONT WANT SO, I DONT WANT THAT EITHER FOR MY SONS.
>
> The N#1 addon (millions downloads) for Firefox is Noscript, a javascript
> selective and customizable barrier to avoid the javascript (and other
> plugins) dangers (they can execute code (virus.trojans, pass stealers,
> ..) on your PC in the background) and some privacy breaks you talk
> about, but as you said, many sites including youtube make extensive use
> of javascript to do you never know what.
>
> Jondofox profile includes this one Noscript addon, preconfigured, plus
> some other ones to protect privacy, non-censorship, non-surveillance,
> freespech all first class human civil rights promoted by the UN, and by
> todays still violated even by such advanced browsers as Opera.
>
> You can download this special pre-set Firefox profile from
> https://www.jondos.de/en/jondofox
>
> I am an Opera lover from when it was a paid browser, but you are losing
> the battle about respecting users life and privacy rights.
>
> Mac.
>
> � wrote:
>> The site is specialized on provideing "anonimizer" software, so don't be
>> supprised with the "results". The other browsers are sending identically
>> detailed user agent information. Visit the site with different browsers,
>> you get similar results. This information is reguired by websites to  
>> serv
>> the correct page to you, also for web statistic purposes as well. You  
>> can
>> try to change this, but in this case you can expect sever site rendering
>> issues. Again this information is not sent to comprimize your privacy,  
>> but
>> to provid you with enjoyable browsing experince.  Unfortunyatly, this
>> information can be used for browser tracking and advertiser sites as  
>> well.
>> But there are other ways to track your online activities and identifly
>> your browser (like the page rendering technologies it supports) and
>> operating system. This requires mostly javascripts, so don't forget to
>> disable them as well and enjoy the results.
>>
>> If you realy want to do this, you can use their software (which is  
>> basicly
>> a TOR like network, just like OperaTor) or use a proxy sever (like
>> Privoxy) to remove the information. But don't be supprised if some sites
>> will behave undeseiredly. And remember the javascript will still tells
>> everything about your browser, so for more privacy disable it as well.  
>> F12
>> and disable javascript and your privacy will be safe with the proxy  
>> server
>> of course.
>>
>> On Sat, 26 Jul 2008 18:37:10 +0200, macintoshzoom
>> <macintoshzoom at lavabit.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Yes, a similar approach is what use, but there are lots of
>>> privacy/anonymity issue yet that those doesn't know how to resolve.
>>> The worst one is that Opera sends its proper user-agent "opera 9.xx"
>>> when required via https, and says the OS you are running, all that
>>> without your permission nor giving you any clue that this it's
>>> happening, nor giving you the option to address it if you want.
>>> Someone said in this mailist (I los its mail!) that this is forged in
>>> opera code binary, perhaps they do this for propaganda and statistics,
>>> as they are now paid (seems) by google and advertised links that  
>>> detects
>>> this way that the request is from an opera browser.
>>>
>>> Sengor wrote:
>>>> Have you seen http://archetwist.com/en/opera/operator
>>>>
>>>> On Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 1:22 PM, macintoshzoom
>>>> <macintoshzoom at lavabit.com> wrote:
>>>>> How to anonymize Opera?
>>>>>
>>>>> The https://www.jondos.de/en/anontest test site from JONDO (formerly
>>>>> Jap) anonymizer network warns me about lot of issues on my opera, the
>>>>> worst one is that it informs about the browser and my OS (even when
>>>>> using the opera built-in useragent tweaker, set to firefox or
>>>>> explorer).
>>>>> This useragent tweaker don't works for https.
>>>>>
>>>>> Some one told in this mailist that I should reverse engineer opera
>>>>> (hexdump editor? to tweak something, but i lost my mailbox recently.
>>>>>
>>>>> Any help welcome!
>>>>>
>>>>> Mac.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> Unsubscribe: mailto:opera-users-request at opera.com?subject=unsubscribe
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>
>>
>>
>

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