https://tails.boum.org/index.en.html This seems interesting. I'm reading up on Tails right now... There's more information on the site, I just copy/pasted the "manifesto", if you will.... I'd love to hear others thoughts. - - - - - "Tails is a live system that aims to preserve your privacy and anonymity. It helps you to use the Internet anonymously and circumvent censorship almost anywhere you go and on any computer but leaving no trace unless you ask it to explicitly. It is a complete operating system designed to be used from a DVD, USB stick, or SD card independently of the computer's original operating system. It is Free Software and based on Debian GNU/Linux. Tails comes with several built-in applications pre-configured with security in mind: web browser, instant messaging client, email client, office suite, image and sound editor, etc." Online anonymity and censorship circumvention Tor Tails relies on the Tor anonymity network to protect your privacy online: all software is configured to connect to the Internet through Tor if an application tries to connect to the Internet directly, the connection is automatically blocked for security. Tor is an open and distributed network that helps defend against traffic analysis, a form of network surveillance that threatens personal freedom and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security. Tor protects you by bouncing your communications around a network of relays run by volunteers all around the world: it prevents somebody watching your Internet connection from learning what sites you visit, and it prevents the sites you visit from learning your physical location. Using Tor you can: be anonymous online by hiding your location, connect to services that would be censored otherwise; resist attacks that block the usage of Tor using circumvention tools such as bridges.
Here is another (possibly outdated) easy to use tool for online privacy. http://proxy.org/ Welcome to Proxy.org Proxy.org is the pragmatic web surfer's guide to online privacy and anonymous web surfing. We give you the information and tools you need to be confident and in command of your web surfing experience. Here you'll find information on the latest privacy issues facing Web consumers and links to relevant privacy technology. Proxy.org has the most comprehensive list of working proxies in the most convenient form. Your right to anonymity Amendments 4 and 5 of The United States Bill Of Rights protect the right to be free of unwarranted and unwanted government intrusion into one's personal and private affairs, papers, and possessions. Article 12 of The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks." Despite some charges to the contrary, anonymous web surfing is not the sole province of criminals. Anonymity also serves whistle blowers, free speech advocates, and people just looking for personal privacy online. Privacy is not a crime and anonymity is not morally ambiguous or wrong, they are your right. Technical challenges to online privacy The Internet did not evolve with privacy in mind. In fact, the protocols that provide the fundamental underpinnings of the Internet are inherently non-anonymous. It's just a simple matter of computers needing to know each other's addresses in order to exchange data. For instance, any webserver can detect your Internet Protocol (IP) address. Other characteristics that a server can detect about you are your referrer (the site from which you are linking), the user-agent (the program you are using to browse the web), and your operating system. What does your IP address reveal about you? Your IP address reveals your point of entry to the Internet and can be used to trace your communications back to your ISP, your employer's network, your school, a public terminal. Though your IP address may not identify you personally, an IP is a unique identifier which represents your computer's digital ID while you are online. It is possible to disguise your IP address on the web by using an anonymous proxy server. A proxy acts as an intermediary, routing communications between your computer and the Internet. A proxy specializing in anonymous surfing, however, uses its own IP address in place of yours in every outgoing request. Approaches to proxy Proxies are commonly used for several reasons: security, load balancing, data caching in order to reduce bandwidth demands, and censorship or filtering. Filtering proxies insulate you from objectionable elements of Webpages such as cookies, ad banners, dynamic content like Javascript, Java Applets and ActiveX controls. Some anonymous proxies encrypt your communications to protect you from monitoring and surveillance. Be careful, though, not all proxies are anonymous or secure! Here is an overview of the basic approaches to proxy: Web Proxies: Web proxies are powered by server-side softwares such as CGIProxy, PHProxy, Glype, and custom proxy scripts. These proxies work entirely through a web browser. Usually all that is needed to hide your IP address and surf anonymously is to visit the service's homepage in a web browser and enter a URL (website address) in the form provided. There is no requirement to download or install software or reconfigure your computer. To work, a web proxy must manipulate the document you've requested and all its associated elements and objects. This can be tricky, and not all proxies are as efficient or effective as others. Some services are slow and may produce errors while rendering the many variations of webpage code. But they are popular, numerous, and easy to use. Open Proxies: So-called "open proxies" are HTTP or SOCKS type proxy servers that are accidentally or maliciously left "open" and accessible on the Internet. HTTP or SOCKS type proxy servers require that you configure your browser's proxy settings in order to use them. These proxies have the advantage of being compatible with most webpages since they do not have to modify the webpages in transport. However, there are significant drawbacks to using open proxies. We strongly discourage the use of open proxies as they provide no privacy or security and using them can result in increased exposure and liability. Anonymity networks: Various anonymity networks (Freenet, I2P, JAP, and Tor) feature layered encryption (sometimes called "onion routing") and peer-to-peer networking to allow their users to communicate anonymously with each other. Rather than operate their own equipment, most rely on end-users to donate bandwidth and other resources to their networks. As with open proxies, this creates significant drawbacks to using anonymity networks. Also, these services have developed a reputation for being relatively slow. Proxy and VPN Software: Other commercial services offer client-side applications to configure your browser's proxy settings or establish a connection to a virtual private network. The quality, reliability and effectiveness of these services vary greatly. Some of these services are merely open proxies dressed up with a fancy interface.
In complete honesty, I'm admittedly an Orwell fan-boy and choose to protect my online identity more for fun, rather than actually expecting a knock at the door from a foreign intelligence agency.
