The things you can do with the IPhone & IPod Touch are simply incredible. A company called Netwurk Solutions (yup, network with a u) created an app that turns your IPhone/IPod Touch into a proxy server. Yeah, I know, kinda nuts, but it actually works!
Basically, what you do is, turn on Pocket Proxy, and configure your wireless router to allow connections to your Pocket Proxy, and that is all. If your router is properly configured, with port forwarding, anyone should be able to connect to your server.
My brother and I decided to test this out. I started Pocket Proxy up, got the server information, and sent the information to my brother (who lives across town). Usually, with proxy servers, the responses can be slow, but with Pocket Proxy, he didn’t really notice a slow-down. He was able to go onto Facebook and MySpace, leave comments, view profiles, and do general browsing. Best of all, it appears to be a Highly Anonymous proxy server, just like Netwurk Solutions said! So, the websites that my brother visited could never know his IP, and only the server IP was left behind.
The only drawback (I guess you could consider it one) was that Pocket Proxy works really really well with Firefox or Google Chrome, but not so well with IE (does anyone still use IE? Is this really a drawback?). Anyway, to avoid network restrictions, I guess that a die-hard IE user could switch to Firefox or Google Chrome.
It seems that this proxy server (while only Wi-Fi) could be incredibly useful in certain circumstance, especially since it is mobile. I suppose that if a random Wi-Fi connection was available, then someone could potentially make random a mobile proxy server and no one would be the wiser. Pretty cool, huh? Although the router would need to be an open router that allows connections, I think it is interesting food for thought.
For those of you who don’t know, a proxy server is basically a server that you use in conjunction with your browser, to hide your IP Address, and also could be used to get around some network restrictions.
Pocket Proxy
Pocket Proxy Running
Some Random Internet Guy reply on February 26th, 2010 9:20 am:
Well, that is why it is portable (you can set it up on any compromised wi-fi router). Plus, setting it up across international boundaries is of great benefit. For example, in Iran, certain United States IP addresses might be banned, but most UAE IPs are not. So, someone in the UAE could set one of these puppies up and help someone in Iran to bypass certain things. Being portable is a great defense.
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