Can hackers bounce signals around the world?

Images of hackers on television or in a movie rarely reflect true. Often, hackers build images with a black hooded jacket knocking on a black device, before saying, "Okay".

Will Hollywood ever portray a true hacker? There are sometimes.

Don't believe everything on screen

Both dramas and movies describe hackers who can change their internet connection to anywhere in the world to avoid being detected. Although the image shown on the film has been painted a lot more vividly, it still has a bit of reality in it.

Perhaps an example of the ridiculous fiction of the screen is the 2001 Swordfish movie starring Hugh Jackman. During the climax of the film, a former hacker, Stanley Jobson transferred the stolen money through many stolen bank accounts around the world, an account representing an IP address.

"The account number was encrypted with the 1024-bit code. I could not even break the firewall," Jobson said, the dialogue took the Hollywood technology world to a new level.

The cut in the 2001 movie Swordfish.

VPN chain

So what will it look like in reality? Is this really possible? There is actually a solution if someone wants to move their digital traces across different jurisdictions, it's called "VPN chaining", also known as multilayer VPN or leap VPN .

The VPN chain has the exact form with its name. You will connect to many different virtual private networks and you will transfer your connection flow through each server in order before reaching the destination.

So what are the advantages of this method? Perhaps the biggest advantage is that only one server knows your real IP address. Other VPN servers only know the IP address of the previous server in the chain. This method eliminates the risk of personal information being exposed if only a single VPN server is used.

However, the great benefit would certainly do much harm. Navigating through multiple VPN servers will increase the latency significantly. If you play online games, this is almost a critical point. In addition, VoIP services will be affected more or less. At the same time, network speed will also slightly decrease.

Many VPN services also offer a VPN chain option, though it is quite limited and usually only has a maximum of 2 VPN servers in the chain. Some also offer VPN hops, with up to 5 hops.

There are still a few notes you should grasp before you intend to sign up for the service. Firstly, this service offers a limited feature, so the provider will also offer a higher price than usual. Second, the line hop points will still belong to the same provider. If you want to connect to multiple servers from different vendors, you will need to prepare yourself with some technical expertise.

Will you need to do anything? The first is that you need a router with a configuration that allows you to connect to a VPN, and then configure it on your computer. You also need another computer to run the virtual machine, which is the device you will use to browse the web. It sounds complicated, but the reality to do is even more complicated.

A less complicated approach

Sorry, real life hackers are not what Hollywood describes. (Photo: Gorodenkoff / Shutterstock).

That is using the Tor browser, ie or The Onion Router. These names are less common because they are related to illegal activities on the darkweb such as smuggling or exchanging stolen data.

But what's important is: the core version of Tor was developed in the 1990s by the U.S. Naval Research Department to protect its intelligence operations abroad. A non-profit version was created later and has now evolved into Tor. This browser has received a considerable amount of funding from the US government, of course for good purposes. While this technology allows people to trade opium in secret, it also helps protect dissidents living in dictatorship.

Tor will transfer your connection over multiple points randomly on an encrypted network. So maybe it's that it will bounce around the world. The starting point and destination will be removed from each of the intermediate points until the line reaches the endpoint. The line will then be routed outside the network.

However, using Tor does not guarantee anonymity for you. A piece of malware running on your device could make the whole effort conceal the spill. Your data may be leaked out through a malware endpoint, which can be analyzed to find the entire outbound path from your device.

Reality

Most films often show the end of a hacker being handcuffed to a police car. This is often said to be the most realistic aspect of the hacking world.

In recent years, authorities have improved their ability to solve transnational cyber crimes. The cooperation of the units in the international police is very tight. The cooperation is also supported by organizations such as Interpol, Eurojust and Europol, as well as other legal documents such as the European Arrest Warrant.

So, the answer is that not only can hackers redirect you around the world, but internet traffic is not the only way investigators can track you.

Perhaps the most typical example is Ross Ulbricht. Using the alias Dread Pirate Roberts, Ulbricht runs a darkweb shopping website multinational. Despite using Tor to conceal his real name, Ulbricht was arrested after using his real name on the online technical support site.

The conclusion is that no single sophisticated technique can overcome the most fundamental error, the human being itself .