Proxies and "Honeypots"

I've started looking into ways to better anonymize my internet usage as of late. Proxies seem to be a great way to do this, but what bothers me is something I came across on hidemyass.com (a directory of free proxy servers): "If a high-anonymous proxy supports keep-alive you can consider it to be extremely-anonymous. However, such a host is highly possible to be a honey-pot.".

I did a little looking around for what this term "honeypot" meant, and came to find that basically it's a mischievous way of using what is advertised as a "secure" HTTPS proxy server, yet they log all your activity and either use it as information for spamming your email among other possible reasons and mischievous uses.

This concerns me as far as my privacy and search for better anonymity is concerned. Is there a way in which I can identify whether a proxy server listing I come across that APPEARS to be secure is a honeypot or not?

 

Orrr I completely misunderstood what exactly a honeypot is xD. Not totally sure. I'm beginning to wonder if it is just something used to trap hackers...which isn't a concern of mine at all because I have no clue how to do that kind of thing and can't imagine why I would want to lol. Should this be something I should be concerned about still?

 

One of the best anonymity progs is Tor as it gives a false IP address.

https://www.torproject.org/

One thing to remember is when using a Proxy it will slow down the PC to a considerable degree, also be aware that you will get to places you may not like as Tor is not regulated the same as Google.

 

For one not all proxies are anonymous, check out this article.
http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-providers-really-take-anonymity-seriously-111007/?


And a honeypot is usually a system setup for hackers to attack and you can watch them. The hacker think they are attacking a real system, not just a trap set for them. The honeypot is not a mission critical system, more a petrie dish.

Also there have been stories about rogue exit nodes on the TOR network, where they do monitor everything. Food for thought.
http://www.andrewlih.com/blog/2007/09/11/using-tor-assume-exit-nodes-are-monitored/