Are proxies Safe to use?

[hack12]

Hi, I am new to trying to surf anonymously though I do it only at times. I just wanted to find out if proxy's are safe. I mean can proxy's record passwords etc when someone is surfing through them. Or can the owner place a sniffer and sniff out the content or hijack the connection. Could someone please help out with this. Thx

In addition i remember some time back I had found a site where I could search through all the possible proxy's based on port, country. it was a huge list. I am not able to find that site again. can someone please point me to that site. I have been trying to find a proxy for some time and every proxy I go to is down and hence I can't surf.

Can someone outline the method they use to search for proxy's. i am going mostly with US based proxy's. No particular reason except I think they might be safer. I know that might not be true but ....

Thanks for your help.

[Terry]

Try to search on these sites:

Code:

http://www.antiproxy.com/proxysearch.php
http://www.proxylist.net/list_search.html

Sometimes you have to try several times because too many people are requesting this page:

Code:

http://www.aliveproxy.com/

[Terry]

I just wanted to find out if proxy's are safe. I mean can proxy's record passwords etc when someone is surfing through them. Or can the owner place a sniffer and sniff out the content or hijack the connection. Could someone please help out with this. Thx

It all depends on the proxy administrators. They can easily do that if you want...

[hack12]

Hi Terry,

Thanks for replying. I tried those sites and mostly found dead proxies. There was a site that gave details on when was the proxy queried, if it is alive or not, location and all this was searchable. Do you by any chance know which site that was?

With regards to the security Is there a way to avoid giving away sensitive information to the proxy or atleast encrypting the information. Are there any tutorials on how to find proxies and use them from start to finish  with security in mind. Thanks

[Terry]

There was a site that gave details on when was the proxy queried, if it is alive or not, location and all this was searchable.

Maybe this one:

Code:

http://www.hidemyass.com/free_proxy_lists.php

Is there a way to avoid giving away sensitive information to the proxy?

It will be safer if you use a proxy to access a SSL (https) site.

So it's usually a choice: whether you allow the web site to know your IP or the proxy know your information. It's lucky that most proxies won't record or use your information. They only transmit and receive data for you.

But some proxies may record and analyse your behavior on the Internet. They are called dangerous proxies, which are usually owned by FBI or Army.

[katmando]

^^ Not a very good, or even accurate answer, to his question Terry.  You can surely do much better than that. 

[hack12]

Hi Terry,

Thanks for the replies but how can I or anyone else browsing through a proxy be certain that they are not recording information and are "dangerous proxies". Is there any way to know for certain that someone hasn't put up a proxy just to glean information about people.

One more question and i do apologize for all of these questions since they may be trivial to most of you.

Why do people put up proxies? I mean why go thorugh the headache of putting up a public proxy and letting people browse through it? In addition if someone decides to abuse this proxy than the owner of that proxy might face some legal issues as well. So why does someone setup a proxy? Community service -I don't think so :-)

[hack12]

Hi Katmandu,

Why do I get the feeling you meant something more when you said "You can do a lot better than that" to Terry. Something I am missing here guys :-). Hmm wonder if there is something to my questions and if its really true that proxies do collect info on whoever uses it. :-)

[Terry]

You can surely do much better than that.

Anything I missed?

[katmando]

Anything I missed?

Quite a bit actually, but since I'm not getting paid to build your website or sell your products, I'll just let you study it awhile longer.