This document will provide information on how to connect to SurfoNym's SOCKS proxy server through an encrypted SSH tunnel.
The SOCKS proxy server has many advantages over a VPN setup, the biggest advantage is: you don't need to run all your network traffic through SurfoNym, but just selected applications which you want to be anonymous.
For example, you want to run p2p applications through SOCKS, but your email and browser with your normal internet provider.
However, SOCKS also has one major disadvantage: it is not encryted. This opens the possibility that someone with access to your path could possibly sniff your network traffic.
SSH tunneling is a great solution to circumvent this!
The idea is to build a highly encrypted SSH session to SurfoNym, run a tunnel over this SSH session and connect to SurfoNym's SOCKS proxy through this SSH tunnel.
OK, this sounds complicated, but the setup is easier than you think.
All you need is an SSH client. We recommend putty, which is a great and easy-to-use freeware tool. You can download from SurfoNym's download area.
Note that putty doesn't need to be installed, it's just a simple .exe file, ready to run. Place it right on your desktop.
When you start putty by double-clicking on the putty.exe, you should see the main screen.
We start by entering SurfoNym's hostname proxy.surfonym.com. Then, click on SSH in the menu tree on the left.
In this screen, it's good to chose the Don't allocate pseudo-terminal and Don't start a shell or command at all options
You may want to chose SSH protocol version 1, because it's significantly faster (but a bit less secure).
You can also chose to Enable compression, which compresses data in the tunnel, thus allowing higher speeds. The drawback is that compression increases cpu usage a good deal, so you might lose more than you gain.
When you're done, click on Tunnels for the next screen.
Here you add the actual tunnel. In the Source port field, enter 1080. In the Destination field, enter proxy.surfonym.com:1080. Chose option Local, then click Add.
Last but not least, you should save your settings! Go to the first, main screen by clicking on Session in the menu tree at the left. Enter surfonym into the Saved Sessions field and click Save.
Now, click on Open to connect to SurfoNym and establish the tunnel.
Login with your SurfoNym username and password.
After that, the tunnel is ready to use! Now configure all your SOCKS applications to use the SOCKS hostname localhost with port 1080 instead of proxy.surfonym.com, since localhost will tunnel all data on port 1080 to proxy.surfonym.com!