The current trend in hacking at present concerns the average surfer in quite a different manner than the possible theft or destruction of your personal data. It is similar to identity theft. It is known as IP hijacking.

When you log on to the internet, your internet service provider assigns your connection a number that is used to identify you. This number is referred to as your IP#. This number accompanies you throughout your surfing expedition and can be used to identify you in the event you engage in any illegal or malicious activity.

Every site you visit has the capability of recording your IP#. This, unless you are engaged in anything illegal, is not worth concerning yourself with. Your internet provider does keep track of your internet surfing habits, but does not do so in order to report your habits unless it is legally required that it do so. This fact is what concerns the hacker.

Hackers are probably more aware of security measures than are the average surfer. The reason for this is that they fear discovery, detainment and prosecution. One method they can use to allay suspicion away from them is to impersonate some poor unsuspecting soul. What happens in short is that they can gain access to your IP # and use it as their own.

What this means to you is if your IP is hijacked, every activity that is performed by the hacker using your IP will lead back to you. This can prove to be an inconvenience at least, should that hacker break into a site and pilfer through and use stolen credit card numbers, or engage in some such other illegal activity.

In the worst case scenario, you could be visited by plain clothed and or uniformed officers who place you in handcuffs and confiscate your PC.

It will eventually be proven that you are innocent, but in the mean time you will have to worry about lawyer bills, posting a bail bond and having your PC studied forensically for quite a while.

A proxy server is essentially another internet server that is located remotely from your own. The benefits in doing this are that, if you choose a proxy server that is anonymous, (One that will not reveal any information about you) your IP number will be safeguarded from hackers and rogue web sites.

Secondly, some proxy servers cache the data of often visited sites, making the speed at which these cached sites load onto your browser much faster.

There are a variety of ways in which to do this. There are certain programs you can download which, when configured with your browser will connect you automatically to an anonymous proxy. These programs do require some maintenance, such as checking to make sure that the proxies it is configured to use are both working and anonymous.

You can surf through a connect to type of program. There are a variety of sites available which will allow you to connect to them and then surf through their web site. The only drawbacks in doing this is that you will have to put up with the banner ads they place in your browser until you sign up with them. Two of the best that I can recommend are ZeroKnowledge and Anonymizer.

You can do it your self. It is possible to search the web for proxies and then configure them to your PC. While this way is fine, it requires quite a bit of searching in order to first find proxies and then test them one by one until you find one that will work , is fast and is anonymous. The biggest drawback in this is that the proxy you have found today that is fast and anonymous may not be so tomorrow. Which will leave you back where you started from.

In the event you choose to use a downloaded program or to do it your self, you will need to know a little about how to configure your PC in order to accomplish this.

If you are using a downloaded software program, it will require that you enter 127.0.0.1 in the HTTP. Secure and FTP boxes and then the port number it will use to access the internet for you. In this case it is port 80.

If you have found a fast anonymous proxy on your own, you can simply enter the proxy number in the address box and the port that that particular proxy uses. In this case, it was port 80, but it could be 3128, 8080, 1028 or 8088.