Protect Yourself - Using Proxis

This section will go over using proxies, which mask your IP address when on the web. This is useful for doing things you don't want to be traced to your IP address, or if you just want to hide your IP address from a certain website.

What is a proxy?

Think of a proxy as a man in the middle for the internet. Normally when you open a website, your PC sends your IP address to the website, so that it may then send the webpage to your computer. With a proxy, your information is being sent to the proxy first, and then the proxy is pulling the website for you, then forwarding it to you. This way, on the websites end, they see the IP address of the proxy you used, and not yours.

Where to get a proxy?

Proxies are all over the web, a quick google search will pull up a bunch. Below are some websites you can use to find proxy servers. Note that you may have to try multiple proxies before finding a working one.

http://www.proxy-list.org

http://www.hidemyass.com

How to use a proxy?

This tutorial will go over setting up a proxy in internet explorer, but it should be very similar for other browsers as well.

1. Find a proxy server you want to use. You will need the IP address and port of the server.
2. In internet explorer, click on internet options
3. Navigate to the connections tab and click on LAN settings
4. Check Use a proxy server for your LAN and enter in the proxy servers IP address and port
5. Click apply and you're done! Now when you navigate to a website, it will be through the proxy you entered. To stay 100% anon, make sure you use a proxy server that doesn't log IP addresses. These proxies will usually be advertised as being anonymous proxies.

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Protect Yourself - Clear System Log

The following steps will walk you through clearing the system logs on a windows computer. The windows system keeps a long of what programs you opened, hardware used, etc, along with time stamps, and a bunch of other information you might not want someone to see. This tutorial assumes you're using a Windows based PC.

1. Navigate to Control Panel

2. Click Administrative tools. In Windows 7, this is under System and Security in the control panel.

3. Double click and open Event Viewer

4. In the left pane, you will see all the different things that are logged. Expand these, right click, and choose Clear log for each log you wanted wiped.

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Protect Yourself - Wi-Fi

Another way your making all your accounts easily hacked, is by being connected to an insecure wifi, or connected to a wifi with an easily hacked password.

Use free public wifi at your own risk. Anyone connected to the same wifi as you with malicious intent can sniff the traffic over the network and have access to any account you log in to. Facebook, youtube, online banking... anything. Only access accounts you care about on wifi networks you trust.

DO NOT use WEP for your router security, use WPA or preferably WPA2. WEP keys are extremely easy to hack.

If your router has WPS enabled (wireless protected setup), DISABLE IT. An exploit allows WPS to be cracked pretty quickly allowing the attacker to figure out your WPA2 key.

If you think someone on your network may be trying to access your accounts, browse using HTTPS. Most popular websites support HTTPS (facebook, gmail, etc) and this prevents most network sniffing applications fail to retrieve your account info. You can use the HTTPS version of a website simply by replacing HTTP to HTTPS in the url. Example: https://facebook.com instead of http://facebook.com. Some hacks out there can redirect you from the secure HTTPS to HTTP, so if you're onsure of the network you're connected to, stay aware of the URL.

Don't buy things online while connected to a public network. Just don't do it.

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Protect Yourself - Check For Viruses

All of us know that virus is a malicious and harmful programs which are intended to do some harm to your system.

Therefor now, I'm going to tell you how to check a program for viruses before you run it. Do this with any new software you're unsure about.

1. Buy any good antivirus program, and update it on regular basis so that you get protection from latest harmful viruses 

2. If you don't want to spend money on any software don't worry just Upload the file or file URL to http://www.virustotal.com/

Look at the virustotal scan results. If anything suspicious shows up, delete the file and don't run it.

Simple enough, but most people don't bother to scan things, or have expired anti-virus. If you would like some high quality, free anti-virus software for Windows, I highly recommend Microsoft Security Essentials, and Quick Heal is the best antivirus program I ever had.

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