How does a Proxy Server manage different Protocols?

You can find a proxy server in many forms on the internet,but they all face similar challenges in how to handle the different protocols that are being used on the internet.

A proxy server typically operates at the Application layer of the OSI model and typically has two ways of handling protocols - either be proxied or tunneled.

A proxy operating at the Application we basically means that the proxy server actually understands what is happening. At this point we can do neat things like filter the protocol, perform logging and operate access control.

If a proxy doesn't understand a protocol however it will generally just tunnel this information between the client and the server. This relaying happens generally with any protocol that the proxy doesn't have specific support for it, examples are things like SSL protocols which are normally just tunneled by most proxies (but many don't support SSL at all) including many of the web based proxies you'll find on the internet.

Examples of protocols that do operate at the application level and which are truly proxied are things like HTTP and FTP, also Gopher

From http://www.codeghost.com/gopher_history.html

"Gopher is a protocol system, which in advance of the World Wide Web, allowed server based text files to be hierarchically organised and easily viewed by end users who accessed the server using Gopher applications on remote computers. Initially Gopher browsers could only display text-based files before developments such as HyperGopher, which were able to handle simple graphic formats though they were never used on a widespread basis as by this time the World Wide Web and its Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) were gaining in popularity, and had similar and more extensive functions"

So, the important thing to remember for privacy is that ever piece of data you send through the web browser while using a proxy, goes through that proxy server. Please ensure that it is secure and managed properly

Can I encrypt connections to the Internet myself?

Well, this is a interesting topic and yes, well within the realms of possibility for one who is reasonably technical.Using a commercial service will cost you some money and if you do it other wise you are going to sacrifice in speed.

Now lets talk about a nifty little tool that can be used on either windows or linux to encrypt your communications.

Typically, the problem with most protocols is that they are simply not designed to be secure and many do not have a good idea of encryption or SSL. This tool called "Stunnel" actually allows you to encrypt TCP connections within an encrypted SSL tunnel
You can then use it to encrypt unsecure protocols. So this works by either receiving unencrypted data and sending it on to an SSL server or receiving encrypted data and sending the decrypted data to a port on another machine.

Almost all connections can be secured using stunnel. Below is an example of making a VPN over PPP using Stunnel, which is part of the functionality you'll find in Identity cloaker, introduced in a earlier post

Setting up VPN ove PPP

Give it a Whirl!

Yauba - Search Engine

Yauba is an search engine letting you search the internet safely and anonymously. While major search engines (e.g. Google, Yahoo) collect information on browsing habits of their users, Yauba supposedly ensures absolute privacy and doesn’t collect any personally identifiable information (visited websites, search history, IP address, physical location… etc.) on its users. All records are automatically deleted from their servers.

Features:

    * Provides you with anonymous searching.
    * No user records are stored on the servers, all information is deleted.
    * Search the whole Internet or search only blogs, images, PDF files, social networks etc.
    * Visit external sites anonymously through Yauba’s proxy servers.
    * Similar tools: CTunnel and Prime Proxies.

I tried their search engine, though the "anonymou" implementation seems reasonable, the search results are not up to scratch. Maybe things will improve over time. Take a drive and check it yourself if  you feel so inclined at :www.yauba.com