NightOwl, concerning the Rad forum, I've never officially "signed-up" because I didn't see any reason for so doing.  Are there "benefits" of being a forum member about which I am unaware?  (Can I retroactively earn five stars?)  From my own perspective, being a guest on the forum is just a simply way to avoid a login process.  (Yes, perhaps I am guilty of being a bit 'lazy' on this point.)

Total Net Shield, however, doesn't prohibit the user from using websites that require a login.  The tool runs transparently in the background, and your Internet experience appears the same as it always has been – i.e., you can do what you have always done in the way you are accustomed to doing it.  Total Net Shield doesn't filter content or suppress URLs, unlike the security and parental control features of Norton Internet Security 2006, for example.

If you establish an account on a website and then subsequently login, you are – of course – voluntarily relinquishing your confidentiality.  Even in that case, however, Total Net Shield still provides value in so far as it prevents the website from knowing your IP address, your ISP, and your general geographic locale; plus, the content of your transmissions is cloaked to your ISP (because all traffic is encrypted to/from the PC).

One possible caveat:  I would anticipate that any website that authenticates you by IP address (e.g., domain name) would fail when using Total Net Shield.  Usually such websites offer an option, however, to manually login by entering a user name and password as well, and so the problem could be circumvented.  Alternatively, Total Net Shield can be temporarily disabled by right-clicking the icon in the System Tray and selecting "Switch to Insecure Mode."

* * * * * * * * * *
To further elaborate upon the telephone analogy, "Bob" regularly changes his outbound telephone number so that "Charles" would have a difficult time knowing who is "calling."  Correspondingly, Anonymizer changes the IP address of its proxy server no less frequently than once per day, so that any website attempting to block traffic arising from Anonymizer will be hindered.

P.S.:  The content that I have posed in this thread is based upon publicly available information on the Anonymizer website (www.Anonymizer.com), conversations with the company's technical support personnel, and my own usage of Total Net Shield.  Anyone wishing to confirm or probe these issues can call Anonymizer directly at 888-270-0141 (or 858-866-1300).

Pleonasm, I forgot to mention:

3) You have the option in your Profile to NOT make your email address visible.  (for those concerned about Anonymizer etc)

Brian wrote on Feb 5^th, 2006 at 5:39pm:

I concur.  Moreover, I would advocate that you be appointed a in short order.

Pleonasm wrote on Feb 7^th, 2006 at 2:18pm:


And so he should.

UNsticky.

See the paper Timing Attacks on Web Privacy for a description of how your Internet privacy might be compromised through a very clever analysis of the time it takes load webpages.  The bottom line is this:  disable the Internet cache in your browser to circumvent this threat.

Another privacy concern on the web is a cookie replacement system built by United Virtualities, "an Internet marketing company best known for introducing 'Persistent Identification Element' (PIE) technology to store information on user's computers that survives even if the user regularly deletes cookies.  PIE works by using a feature of the Macromedia Flash Player that allows remote sites to store data for future retrieval, namely, 'Local Shared Objects'" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Virtualities).

For instructions on how to circumvent this privacy concern, see:

• How to manage and disable Local Shared Objects
• Cookies and PIE

Threats to your Internet privacy continue to develop, as reported by the Wall Street Journal (June 2, 2006):

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