Computer Hacking

[rov1200]

If that British computer hacker who got into the US state computers how did they trace it back to the computer he was using? You would have thought he could be an expert in concealing his identity.

[fo3nix]

What makes you think he's an expert?

He probably just read some book or website on 'hacking', and decided to try it for himself, without really understanding the fundamental stuff.

All computers on the internet have a MAC address and IP address. Both can be spoofed or 'hidden', but being truly anonymous is very difficult.

[another-view]

For everyone who thinks they are smart, there is always someone smarter.

[rov1200]

I don't doubt your answer but can't you hide your IP address by logging into your router and specify it to be hidden? Also as each computer has its own MAC address which the user can make use of who designates that address and is it held at the ISP?

[fo3nix]

The MAC address is written into the hardware when the unit is created, by the hardware manufacturer. Your ethernet chip will have one, your wifi chip will have one, etc.

IP addresses can never be truly hidden. IP addresses are required to actually get the data that you're wanting. When you make a request on the web for some website (i.e., you type the address into your browser's address), you're asking for that website, and have to specify where you want the website information sent to. Here, your computer, with your IP address.

This is how the TCP/IP system works. (At that layer, anyway.) There are tricks to hide this (look into Tor for example), but it's hard to do it entirely.

[rov1200]

If its not possible to hide your IP address would using a proxy address work like in this article?

http://compnetworking...s/f/hideipaddress.htm

[fo3nix]

Like I say, check out Tor.

But think of it this way:

Your machine --------------------> Some secret computer.

You don't want the secret computer to get hold of your machine's IP address, so you use a proxy.

Your machine ------> Proxy ------> Some secret computer.

Now, when you reqest information from the secret computer, instead of you having to tell it to send that information to your IP address, instead you can just tell it to send information to the proxy's IP address, so that the secret computer doesn't know your IP address.

So far so good. But how do you intend to get the information from the proxy to your machine (presumably the idea)? The proxy will have a journal on it, and knows that information from the secret computer must be forwarded on to the IP address of your machine.

Anybody who has access to the proxy (e.g., MI5, those type of people), will be able to see where this secret information went.

Tor does things a little differently, but the general idea is to use many proxies, and encrypt some stuff so that no one proxy knows where the entire stream of data went. It works well, but it's still not flawless.

[rov1200]

Thanks I will take a look at Tor