Need help 'hiding my electronic identity' =)

[ImNeat]

I ran across this site earlier today when looking to measure my bandwidth. I gave the other apps a whirl and came across some scary results.

I scored well on the firewall test - but did horribly on the anonymous test. It was able to find my 'real' IP address, my 'private' IP address, and even where I live!

The site offers some advice about 'proxy servers' and the like - but it's all been going over my head. What are my options? What should I be doing to at least protect my private (i.e. 192.168.1.102) address? Or am I overreacting?

[bigtomrodney]

Anyway who is connected can be (and should be) identified by their QAN address. You can use Proxies to surf and connect but it will slow down your traffic somewhat. Their are options like TOR but I haven't looked at TOR other than when torrenting. As for your local IP 192.168.x.x, well the only reason they even provide a seperate layer is a traditional flaw in the IPv4 system. If my understanding is correct IPv6 does away with seperate internal and external networks, at least in that NAT is no longer required. (I haven't read much on it, mostly word of mouth at this stage so don't take my word on that).

Also they don't identify your location as such, they identify the local exchange that your ISP is using. This is all public information so there is no magic performed here.

You can always be more private but there can be trade offs. Ultimately if you have a secure PC it doesn't matter who knows your IP - they need to know that it belongs to you and how to access it. If it will make you feel better you can use proxies but you can always take solace in the fact that there are in excess of a billion people on the internet. Asides from a few scripts scanning the standard ports someone would want to target you specifically and even then they'll have work to do.

[anomie]

The site offers some advice about 'proxy servers' and the like - but it's all been going over my head. What are my options?

tor + privoxy
Or a paid anonymizing service.

You'll lose speed and some functionality on the web.

What should I be doing to at least protect my private (i.e. 192.168.1.102) address?

Nothing. 192.168.1.102 is on a subnet that is generally not routable across the web, so there is no need to hide it.

Private network - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia