Did you ever wonder how you can surf your competitors’ website from your corporate office without leaving a footprint? All web servers track IP addresses, where you came from (known as a referral), how long you stayed, where you clicked, and your last page before you exit from their web site.

My first idea was to use an AOL dial-up connection from their analog fax machine with my laptop, as my IP address would show up as an AOL account.

Then I thought of a Proxy Server.

What is a Proxy Server?

A Proxy Server services requests from clients by forwarding requests to other servers.

If you are computer “C”, and you want to access server “S” but it is blocked, point your client’s web browser to Proxy Server “P”.

So C -> P -> S

An example of such a site is www.kproxy.com (ignore the pop-up windows) but if you search the web for proxy servers, you can have a list of thousands. Some are even more specific on what services you want enabled or disabled, such as removing JavaScript, enabling cookies, or displaying images.

As long as your network connection’s ISP isn’t blocking the Proxy Server, you can access those sites. Some get creative by using another standard HTTP port 80. Ports 8080 or 8081 are the most common, so you would enter proxyserver.com:8080 for the URL.

Anonymizing Proxy server

So going back to the original situation, if I was an employee and wanted to check out my competition without them tracking my IP address, then this is an example of an Anonymizing proxy server.

An Anonymizing Proxy server is the correct term for the purpose of anonymity and is an alternate way using your AOL dialup account. Besides, you want to surf at high speeds, don’t you?

Circumventor Proxy servers

However, when “censorship” blocks access to certain sites, you can succeed by getting around it by use of a Proxy server. This is an example of a Circumventor.

A Circumventor is a Proxy servers used for defeating blocking policies implemented by an organization or country. In China, certain websites like BBC and CNN are blocked, and having a known list of proxy servers beforehand would be really helpful if you are planning a trip.

Reverse Proxy Server?

The reverse holds true with a reverse proxy server. Your corporate firewall may have a proxy server where everyone’s internal computer points to a central proxy server, and that server goes out and services requests.

Pros: it does speed up surfing for users, as it caches web site information and images from previously searched sites. It would also reduce the traffic, as the information is already stored and there is no need to go the destination site again. As well, the proxy server adds an additional level of security next to your corporate firewall.

Cons: your company can track every site you surf, and how long you stay on that particular site. Not good if you spend all day checking your hockey pool stats, or surfing questionable sites!

Open Proxies

Caution should be taken as Open Proxies are usually abused for sending spam or even hacking into your own machine. You have no idea what is on the server, including keystroke trackers to capture your keyboard input. So the next time you enter your user ID and password on one of these open proxies, think again.

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