#swag's Guide to staying anonymous [Local Injection]

#Swag_mybb_import6403 · 04-22-2012, 05:27 AM

First off, I am no security professional. These are things I've picked up over my years on the internet. I have learned from other peoples mistakes and also my own mistakes. This guide will teach you how to stay anonymous when doing things that are illegal in your country and is meant for semi-n00bs (only 1337 speak I'm using). This is completely written by me and for the new unofficial group I am in (Local Injection). Check this thread out if your interested in joining the group!: http://www.hackcommunity.com/Thread-Join...-Injection

Please do not copy this guide to any other place on the internet. This is for HackCommunity and HackCommunity only. Seriously though, I am on a lot of other forums and if I find it copied I'll be pissed.

The truth is that eventually if the FBI tries their hardest to find you they will succeed but you can prolong the time it takes them to do this by trying your hardest at being anonymous. There are a few things to keep in mind when trying to be anonymous:

do they keep logs of my activity?
Is my IP hidden?
Could that be used to track back to me in the future?

Your Internet Service Provider (ISP) keeps logs of all your activity. If the FBI finds out your IP and then your ISP they will demand all these activity logs. Your ISP no matter what is required to give them these logs which will basically condemn you for whatever crimes you've committed online.

Well, if you used a proxy to hide your IP you'd be safe from the feds finding your ISP right? Nope. Almost all proxies, especially public ones, keep activity logs with your real IP address. So all the FBI would have to do is find the owner of the proxy, get their logs, find your IP, then contact your ISP and so on. Even if you find a private proxy that doesn't keep logs, your ISP can still see all your activity and will report you to the feds if they find you doing anything illegal. In the end proxies alone will not keep you anonymous.

How about a VPN? Wouldn't that keep me hidden since it encrypts my usage data from my ISP and hides my IP? Kind of. If your VPN provider keeps logs it doesn't help at all. Free VPNs keep logs and also have poor performance. If you don't have any money your better off just using tor even if it's not fully secure. If your provider doesn't keeps logs it works but it may still not be fully secure. If you'd like to learn how to fully secure your VPN check here. Also for a list of VPN providers that keep logs and don't keep logs check here. If your not concentrated on performance then using a VPN + Tor is a good idea. If your not sure about the VPN you can use tor to sign up for it and pay for it using bitcoins(which is a completely anonymous currency). Again, for more on all of this check this article out.

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Along with all of the things above, when doing something against the law, do not use your own internet. Maybe use your neighbors or drive around and find unlocked wifi or wifi you can crack into easily. Wifi with WEP security is the easiest to crack and there are many tutorials/methods all over the internet to accomplish this. Make sure though, that if you use someone else's internet, to make sure they won't figure out your using it. If you overuse they're internet and it gets incredibly slow when they are on they'll figure that something is up.

Not only do servers keep logs but your computer does too! I'm not sure about vista and earlier versions of windows but here's a way to clear them on windows 7:

Code:
Start menu -> Administrative tools -> Event viewer -> Windows Logs and right click on any listed and select Properties, from there you can clear, disable and set other aspects of logging.

Spoiler:

Other OSes including some forms of Linux keep logs as well. If your unsure if your OS keeps logs or how to delete them just google it.

Another good rule is when your doing something illegal, don't do it on your physical computer. I recommend using virtual machines which can be made easily in VMWare Workstation. This isn't free software but can be found on thepiratebay. From your virtual machine you could setup a secure VPN and maybe even connect to a RAT victim from their and use their computer to do your illegal things. Then once your done you can delete all the logs off your RAT victim's computer and get rid of his computer from your control, delete the virtual machine (which will delete all the logs you just made), and lastly delete the logs on your computer that says you used vmware (if your really paranoid). If you don't know what a RAT is you can google that too but I'm not going into that in this thread.

Spoiler:

The last thing I'm going to touch on in this guide is maintaining a new identity online. I know it is obvious but never use your real name online. If your making an email address don't use your name in the username and password! Whenever you sign up for something while anonymous use completely fake details, no matter what your signing up for. You can make up your own fake identity on fakenamegenerator.com and use that for details. Use temporary email services whenever you can. A couple temporary email sites I know that aren't that well known at the moment are fakeinbox.com and tempmailer.com. Don't sign into your personal(not fake) facebook or twitter or whatever social networking account you have while under your VPN! If you do, that website will have the VPN IP you've logged in with and your real IP, which can be used to track back to you. Always keep in mind that websites (especially forums) will log your IP.

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In conclusion, there's a lot you need to keep in mind to stay anonymous or really just hidden as long as possible. It's basically a game that you always need to be 10 steps ahead on. The real trick is to use common sense to figure out how they could find you. Try putting yourself in the feds shoes, and see what you would look for to find a criminal. I hope this has helped you and good luck!

PS: This guide took me a couple hours to write. The least you could do is leave some feedback/opinions/or questions you have! I've proofread this but it's 12:30AM here so I might have missed some grammatical errors. If you find any just tell me and I'll fix it.