HushMail, is an email service that was known above all else for it’s privacy. They market themselves by claiming “not even a Hushmail employee with access to our servers can read your encrypted e-mail, since each message is uniquely encoded before it leaves your computer.” This service has been around for a long time, and as far as I know, it was respected and trusted for providing private email services. Not anymore. According to this article, Hushmail has cooperated with government agencies by granting them access to over 12 CDs worth of e-mails from three Hushmail accounts. Sounds pretty secure to me… What do you think?

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No, not free porn for Australian families… It’s the other way around.

Australian internet users: Guess what? You don’t have to make decisions regarding what websites you’re going to view anymore - The government will do it for you! John Howard, the Prime Minister of Australia, will be spending $189 million in his quest to clean up the web. In doing so, he’ll be blocking access to “pornography, violence, and sexual predators” as well as “terror sites”. You can read more about John Howard’s internet porn crusade here. I would tend to think that Australian web surfers would still be able to access whatever they wanted by using web-based proxy sites. This is unfortunate, but we’ll have to wait and see how it pans out.

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If you’re one of those people that is paranoid about who has access to your information, you may already be familiar with CIPAV (The Computer and Internet Protocol Address Verifier). If not, it’s basically spyware that was developed by the FBI. It captures sensitive information such as a user’s IP address, MAC address, open ports, running programs, operating system, last visited URL, and more.

You may wonder how the FBI could get away with developing and deploying such a program. It was ruled that the information gathered by CIPAV is “the legal equivalent of dialed phone numbers”, and therefore the government can obtain this information without needing to show probable cause or obtain a wiretap warrant. Shocking, isn’t it?

While most of us may not have a whole lot to hide from the FBI, we all deserve privacy. This article will explain to you how to “detect and deter” CIPAV and other similiar programs. If the FBI can develop and deploy garbage like this without us knowing, we should be able to protect ourselves from it.

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Protect your privacy with… A foot pedal?

The StealthSwitch “hides in the shadows and just a light tap of your toes will let it work its magic. Based on your preferences, it can hide the current window, hide all windows, or hide all windows except for specified windows. Not just minimize, mind you, but totally erase from your screen. The Stealth Switch can also mute the sound, hide the taskbar, hide the desktop icons, and password protect the restore function.” Another foot tap, and you’re back to whatever you were doing before.

If nothing else, it’s an interesting and unique approach to privacy. But I wouldn’t risk bringing something like this to the workplace… If you’re interested, you can get one here!

If you’re legitimately interested in privacy while surfing at work, a better bet would probably be using an anonymous surfing site, or maybe checking out some of these Firefox extensions.

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If you are even the least bit familiar with web-based proxy sites, you know that there is no shortage of them. A simple Google search will reveal thousands of them. If you’ve ever wondered why there are so many of them, the answer is simple: money. People create these sites and put ads on them in order to make a profit.

The ad program that is most commonly used on proxy sites is Google’s AdSense. For those of you out there that use AdSense on your site(s), this article may be of interest to you. It summarizes an experiment where less adsense ads on a site resulted in more money in the long run. This happens because if less ads are shown, higher bidding advertisements will appear in those ad spots. The opposite of this is also true, where if you show more ads, lower bidding ads will appear on your page, resulting in a lower CPC - It’s worth a shot, right?

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Webmasters: Are you looking to increase your Google PageRank? It’s common knowledge that PageRank is all about backlinks: The more pages on the web that link to your page, the higher your PageRank will be… And if those sites linking to your page have high PageRanks themselves, that’s all the better for you. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, check out Wikipedia’s page on PageRank.

Anyway, one way of getting backlinks to your site is by posting in forums. I don’t necessarily mean joining a forum and just making posts that have your links in them - But by putting your links in your signature. Not only is this easier, it will tend to be less frowned upon than the aforementioned method, as it seems to be an accepted practice (at least on some forums, to a certain extent).

Some forums require you to meet a minimum number of posts.., I’ve seen forums where you are unable to post hyperlinks until you have made at least 20 posts, but come on, it’s not that hard to do, is it? Find a forum that genuinely interests you. Check that forums PageRank. If you are happy with the PageRank (I’d say anything with a PR of 3 or higher is a good start), become a contributing member. Take part in conversations, and even start new threads. If you show up, make two posts, and then start spamming links, you will most likely have your links removed and/or be banned without a second thought. But if you become a contributing member, and make some relevant posts, a forum moderator won’t be likely to ban you for having a couple links in your signature.

Another general rule to consider is to keep it relevant. Don’t join a Christian Forum and post links to sites about death metal bands. If you are advertising proxy sites, try and find a site that would be frequented by high school teens. Think bands like Good Charlotte (ugh) and maybe a Honda Civic tuning forum. This seems like it’d be common sense to me.

Don’t expect to see immediate results. PageRank has been said to be updated roughly once every 3 months, so put some time into this, and then sit back and wait. Hell, you might forget about it entirely, and then one day a few months down the road it will be a pleasant surprise when your PageRank has suddenly jumped from 0 to 4.

I have not verified that each and every one of these forums does not have nofollow, and that they allow links in signatures - But I feel that most forums do allow this. Pick one (or ten) that interest you. Sign up and make some posts. After you make 20 or so posts, introduce the links to your signature. This is a simple and effective way to get quality backlinks.

Music Forums

Slumz of Boxden (Rap Forums)   PR: 3
Megadeth Forums   PR: 3
SMN Forums   PR: 3
PA Hardcore Forums   PR: 3
Sputnik Music & Musician Forums   PR: 3
The Noise Boston   PR: 4
Bravewords Forums   PR: 4
Official Linkin Park Forum   PR: 4
Ultimate Metal Forum   PR: 4
SOHH.com Forum (Rap   PR: 4
Realest Niggas (Rap)   PR: 4
Hip Hop Universe Underground   PR: 4
OnSmash Forums (Rap)   PR: 4
RapFlava Forums   PR: 4
RapBasement Forums   PR: 4
Siccness Network (Rap)   PR: 4
Guitar Tab Universe Forum   PR: 5
Music Banter   PR: 5
LiveDaily Community   PR: 7

Teen Forums

FaceTheJury   PR: 3
TeenSpot Message Boards   PR: 4
Bored of Studies   PR: 4
RateMyBody   PR: 4
LiveWie Teen & College Forums   PR: 4
Nexopia   PR: 4
GovTeen Forums   PR: 4
IdolForums (American Idol)   PR: 5
The Student Room   PR: 5

Video Game Forums

TSR: The Sims Resource Forums   PR: 4
XS Gaming Forums   PR: 4
Final Fantasy Shrine Forums   PR: 4
Game Addicts Forums   PR: 4
GTA Forums   PR: 5
IGN Forums   PR: 6
Neverwinter Nights Forum   PR: 6

Web Design Forums

Dev Shed Forums   PR: 6
DigitalPoint Forums   PR: 6
SitePoint Forums   PR: 7

Automotive Forums

Bimmer Forums (BMW)   PR: 3
Civic Forums   PR: 3
AudiWorld Forums   PR: 4
C6 Corvette Forums   PR: 4
E46 Fanatics   PR: 4
Ford Truck Enthusiasts   PR: 4
NASIOC Forums   PR: 4
Car Forums   PR: 5
Automotive Forums   PR: 5
VWVortex Forums   PR: 5

General & Misc Forums

Catholic Answers Forums   PR: 5
Christian Forums   PR: 5
HipForums   PR: 5
Ask An Expert   PR: 5
JREF Forums   PR: 6
Anandtech Forums   PR: 6
DPReview Forums   PR: 8

Obviously, this isn’t all of the forums out there. There are thousands more, and it’s likely that I missed a lot of the big ones. Do some searching on your own and find one that suits you and the site(s) you are trying to market before you spend time making posts. Good luck!

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Do you have an old PC lying around? Don’t let it gather dust, put it to use! I came across a blog titled simply ‘Recycle Your Computer‘, and it offers various methods of doing just that. Some of the more interesting guides on the site were:

How To Creating a Reverse Proxy
How To Create a Linux Firewall
How To Create a Linux Router
and
How To Create a CUPS Printing System.

Now you have no reason to kick that old PC to the curb!

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All posts on this blog will be auto-submitted to Free2Surf’s Technorati Profile. Technorati is a great site - As of March 2007, the site indexes over 70 million blogs, so if you’re looking for something, regardless of whether or not it’s proxy-related, you can most likely find it there.

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