Here's some "cool stuff" sent in by a reader, who cares a lot about privacy and security.

Tor is a rebuilt US Navy castoff system of hiding the sources of your network traffic, including web browsing and publishing, instant messaging and all the chat you can send.

The system is co-funded by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), an advocacy group focusing on defending freedom of speech using new technologies, with its main patch being the World Wide Web.

First, you need to download the free anonymising Tor software (http://tor.eff.org). You should also install Privoxy (www.privoxy.org), a filtering web proxy that integrates well with Tor's abilities.

With Tor alone, sites can still collect information on your browsing. Privoxy is one of a number of web proxies that blocks cookies and withhold information from sites you visit.

Once installed Tor software provides a distributed network of servers, called "onion routers", through which you send your traffic. The network randomly bounces communications between users through three stages of routers, making it hard for recipients and others to track the source.

So, why would you need Tor? The network focuses on protecting the transport of data and so mainly protects you against a common form of Internet surveillance known as "traffic analysis".

Using traffic analysis it is possible for observers to infer who is talking to whom, opening the way for them to track your online behaviour and interests. For companies Tor could be used to hide communications if an employee is visiting a "sensitive" country where their identity needs to be hidden when communicating with headquarters.

"You can inadvertently reveal your national origin and professional affiliation to anyone observing the network, even if the connection is encrypted," the EFF warns.

Tor was originally developed as part of a program called onion routing by the US Naval Research Lab. In 2002 the lab turned over the code to two Boston-based programmers, who made it open source, allowing other developers to work on improving its capabilities.

The downside is Tor will slow your connection down. How much, depends on the sizes of files being sent and the number of available servers in the distributed network.

PCWorld's 100 Best

If you're looking to have the best of everything digital then check out PCWorld's "100 Best Products of 2005".

It seems mighty early to be doing a "best of" feature, but each one of these computer magazines want to get the jump on their competitors.

The "Product of the year" award goes to the free Mozilla Firefox web browser.

"Is it merely a coincidence that Microsoft finally plans to give the aging Internet Explorer the major overhaul it has needed for years?" says the magazine in extolling the browser's open source features.

The magazine notes that the last major feature addition to Explorer dates back to August, 2001. Meanwhile Firefox, Netscape, and Opera have developed to offer tabbed browsing for juggling multiple Web pages, and built-in pop-up blocking,

For businesses, Internet Explorer still remains the best choice as it operates well in controlled security environments.

Here then are the rest of the top ten products out of the 100 offered as the best at www.pcworld.com. After Firefox, PCWorld gives high marks to Google Gmail, Apple Mac OS X Version 10.4 (Tiger), the Belkin Wireless Pre-N Router and Notebook Network Card, Dell Ultrasharp 2405FPW 24-Inch Wide-Screen LCD, Alienware Aurora 5500 desktop, the Seagate USB 2.0 Pocket Drive portable hard drive, Skype VoIP Service, the Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT Digital SLR camera and the PalmOne Treo 650 PDA phone.

By the way the Alienware Aurora 5500 ($3,500) computer wins in the desktop category by holding the magazine's speed-record.

Contact Ahmed at ahmed.elaminwanadoo.fr. Go to www.SecureBermuda.com for security updates.