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Anonymity: Index
Sometimes you want to send something without having your real name attached
to it. For example, you are an official spokesperson for a company, and
now you want to say something "off the record". Or maybe you want to
discuss something that is going on in your company, without identifying
yourself as the sender of the message. Perhaps you just don't want your
boss to find out you are posting to alt.sex.bondage during working time.
Simply changing or clearing the "Real Name" field in your newsreader setup
won't help you much in those cases. It's still trivial to trace a message
back to its originating site, and of course the system administrator there
can easily look up the sender's real name.
A better solution is to use an anonymous remailer. These systems either
give you an anonymous address, to which other people can send you mail,
which is then forwarded to your real address (this is sometimes referred to
as a pseudonymous server), or they post or mail your message
without any trace of the sender's name or address.

Anonymity: Pseudonymous servers: Anon.penet.fi
- Anon.penet.fi is probably the most famous anonymous server on the Internet. There are
over 500,000 users in the database. It assigns each user a unique ID, which is used to allow
others to send you e-mail anonymously. It also offers a mail-to-news posting service, so that
you can also post Usenet messages anonymously. The level of security is
rather low, since it does not use encryption and keeps a plain text
database.
Anonymity: Pseudonymous servers: alpha.c2.org
- The alpha.c2.org pseudonymous server functions similar to
anon.penet.fi, but it is more secure. It supports encryption, use
of remailers and reply blocks. This
makes it impossible to know who is using which account, even for
the admin.
Anonymity: Remailers: Cypherpunk remailers
- Cypherpunk remailers (sometimes referred to as "Type I") simply take your
message, strip off all headers and send it to the intended recipient.
This means that no one will be able to reply in e-mail to your
message, but it gives you an almost intraceable way of sending messages.
Nym.alias.net
AS-node
pseudonymous remailer
- To fill the gap left by the demise of anon.penet.fi and
alpha.c2.org, a new type of pseudonymous
remailer has been created. Nym.alias.net is the most popular of this
type. A similar service is the German AS-node pseudonymous remailer.
It is strongly recommended that you use premail (for
UNIX) or Private Idaho
(for Windows) when setting up an account at these remailers.
Nym creation for mere mortals
- This document explains in great detail how to set up an account
at nym.alias.net, complete with examples and sample syntax. Mac users
can use these two NYM Applescripts to
automate usage.
Remailing over the World Wide Web
- A very convenient way to remail messages is with a WWW form. It is
not as secure as composing the message yourself off-line, since the
information for the remailers is sent in the clear to the server.
Anonymity: Remailers: Mixmaster remailers
- Mixmaster remailers, also known as "Type II" remailers, were
designed to be even more secure than cypherpunk
remailers. Most of the attacks that work against Type I remailers
are useless against Mixmaster remailers. It requires a special client
to compose messages.
Anonymity in the press (By Avi Baumstein)
- Due to several cases of people abusing remailers, the concept of
digital anonymity often gets bad press. This site contains several
articles and documents about anonymity as it is presented in the press.
The Anonymous Fallacy (By Phil)
- When someone posts to Usenet anonymously, a typical reaction can be "I
don't listen to what you write, because you didn't use your real name". Phil
explains why this is not a valid way of dismissing someone's arguments.
A postscriptum to this essay, with a less scholarly approach, is
available as well.
There's also an anonymous(!) essay which
counters Phil's explanation.
List of mail-to-news gateways
- A mail-to-news gateway allows you to post to newsgroups via email. This
can be very convenient if you want to use a remailer, or simply can't post
to a particular group because it isn't carried on your news server.
Last modified: 20 Jun 1998
Author: Arnoud "Galactus" Engelfriet
Comments: galactus@stack.nl
This document was generated with Orb v1.3 for OS/2.