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Please note that, in some exceptional instances, we may need to log certain traffic data, for example, in order to detect and diagnose technical problems, prevent network abuse, or if compelled to do so by law.

Please note that, in some exceptional instances, we may need to log certain traffic data, for example, in order to detect and diagnose technical problems, prevent network abuse, or if compelled to do so by law.

Learning to use the traditional remailer network takes some time and effort. And this time and effort pays off handsomely by providing the user with a highly secure method to communicate privately and anonymously. But many privacy-minded folks (and their ranks are increasing daily!) are looking for an easier and less time-intensive approach. Some are even willing to pay for it. To satisfy this niche there have arrived many new products and services that provide various combinations of anonymous email, newsgroup posting and Web-surfing with varying degrees of anonymity.

I have provided URLs for some of these services below. I have categorized them into two groups: free of charge and fee-based. Noteworthy amongst these is the fee-based Freedom Software by the Montreal-based Zero Knowledge Systems (ZKS). Launched in December 1999, Freedom is a 'privacy system' not unlike the traditional remailer network . It allows users to send email, post to newsgroups, chat and surf the Web in total privacy without having to trust third parties with their personal information. Freedom users create multiple digital identities - "nyms" - with which their online activities are associated. All data packets Freedom users send are encrypted and routed through a global privacy infrastructure called the Freedom Network, which is hosted by participating ISPs and other independent server operators. A 30-day free trial is available.

The package has been criticized <http://cryptome.org/zks-v-tcm.htm> for not being open-source. But that is changing. The source code of the kernel module of the Linux version of Freedom <http://opensource.zeroknowledge.com/> has been released; and the release of the Windows version source code is "coming soon."

Free of Charge
GILC Web-Based Remailer <http://www.gilc.org/speech/anonymous/remailer. html>
Hushmail <http://www.hushmail.com>
Safeweb <http://www.safeweb.com>
Zixmail <http://www.zixmail.com>
Anonymouse <http://anonymouse.is4u.de/>
COTSE <http://www.cotse.com/home.html>
Somebody.net <http://somebody.net/>
ANON.XG.NU's Web-Based Remailer <http://anon.xg.nu/remailer.html>
Chicago <http://xenophon.r0x.net/cgi-bin/mixnews-user.c gi>

Fee-Based
ZKS Freedom <http://www.freedom.net>
SkuzNET's The Internet Mail Network <http://www.theinternet.cc/ http://www.mailanon. com/>
IDcide <http://www.idcide.com>

Do you really think it was just the business model of making money, or was it also the fact they probably had to spend tons of money with lawyers, etc. when there was a problem with someone using their system for something wrong.

I can imagine that not everyone was being anonymous just because they didn't want spam, but also cracking websites.....

So how much flack did places like this get? That's something I would like to know.
I had freedom found at www.freedom.net and I thouroughly enjoyed their services and anti-spam and anti-cookie features. Now with an exploit in the browsers where your cookies can be read by a third party, the idea of having a cookie keeper and anonymous surfing was looking better. I hardly used the service, but they also shut down on Nov. 11th.... Well only the anonymous surfing part. They're keeping everything else, so this makes me want to believe that the shutting down of this services was not due to money, but due to lawyer problems and head aches caused by anonymous surfing. I mean really, how much does it really cost to keep a server up... ( I know it can be a lot but these people are charging $50.00 a year each.... )

Just a thought....

I believe that we need to have a competitor for Passport. Well, that is nothing new. I would highly appreciate if Project Liberty has the guts to build private credentials (you might want to look here for more Info by Adam Shostack). This would be THE alternative for specialized identification (you have to be of legal age to see this page, you have to be Mr. Smith to view your taxes, ...). We need identification, but it needs to be untraceable and there must be no way to collect and combine information.

Or you can just use the very cool (and free) RoboForm [roboform.com] which sits in your toolbar and auto-fills forms that pop up in your browser (there are other form-fillers around but I haven't tried them).

Freedom Internet Privacy Suite also has a a good form filler and can be found here:

Freedom.net

Check out Zero-Knowledge and their Freedom.net.

You basically posit an automated (psuedo)Nym system. Zero-Knowledge did up the Nyms, you or someone can come up with the software & dongle/device/whatever/thingie

The solution to all of your problems is ZeroKnowledge Freedom. It supports regex expressions to disallow URLs of ads. I am almost 100% ad-free using it. So far, in about a month and a half of use, it has saved me from seeing 55,646 and has saved me 398870528 bytes worth of downloadable data that I didn't want in the first place. Oh, and add to the fact that it also allows you to manage your cookies on a per-profile basis (it creates "cookie jars" and you just switch to the right jar when needed) and it's a GREAT solution. I love it. Check out http://www.freedom.net.

no sweat. We should all use encryption plus a pseudonymous mix-master such as ZeroKnowledge's Freedom. That way both the contents and your location/identity are masked. not only can the NSA not decrypt the mail, but they have no clue whom to subpeona for keys.

Ugh.. sorry for the typeoh... It's Freedom.

First question... are there only cyber-cafes there?
Second, wouldn't something like Zero Knowledge still work on the home computer?
Screw those guys...

Libraries / Librarians are not going to blithley "give over" their users' reading logs.
The American Library Association (ALA) is right in the front lines saying to "them" (LEAs, etc) back off man, nobody gets to see that.

The only way to connect a book to a reader is if the reader still has a book checked out or owes a fine on it for returning it late. (Note to those iniclined - return your books on time and/or pay your late fines or risk having "them" know what you read)

The only historical data kept is statistical, a librarian can merely say "S/he has checked out X million books" or "that book went out X trillion times" All major database vendors for library circulation systems have effectivly been told - we don't want this logged. If it can be logged, we won't buy it.
Kinda like zero-knowledge technically we *could* track it, but we don't.

I pay quite a bit more for my DSL line, but it is always on and I don't have to worry about usage. I'm not an inordinately heavy user, but the Net is important to me on a day-to-day basis and I much, much prefer not having to think about the minutes I am using.

For this reason I'm resistant to micropayments. I would have no problem subscribing to services I like. I was one of the (idiots?) folks who paid for Slate when it tried to go subscription. I subscribe to several online info sources and am budgeting for twice that much. But I don't like the idea of paying by click because then I have to think about it. It tends to restrain my urge to dig into a new idea or a new site.

I also am very concerned about the tracking capability. Anytime you have a payment system, you must have some method of accurately tracking how the billing and payments are done. That means that, absolutely without question, there is a record of what sites I am visiting. And we all know how long anonymity lasts in the US -- right up until someone gets interested enough to file court papers. Bush has even come out as being opposed to anonymity on the Net, which is horrible.

Anonymity matters. Lack of tracking matters. I won't subscribe to any micropayment system because of that. Yes, subscriptions to online services is a form of tracking, but showing that you subscribe to a site (no matter how politically uncorrect) is not the same as showing that you are actually reading it.

Call me paranoid, but the era of thoughtcrime has already begun, and I imagine it will go a lot further.

Services like Freedom are important -- support them.

Freedom.

ISP anonymity was a given, anyway.
Using my IP address, timestamp, and a warrant,
the Man can usually 'convince' my ISP to backtrace the IP to a name.

However, there are tools that can provide a decent level of anonymity:

Freedom - Privacy for everyone. Easy to use, relatively fast, and the Linux client is open source.
Based in Canada so Carnivore shouldn't be a problem.

SafeWeb - SSL surfing proxy, so your lan-mates/ISP can't snoop on your traffic.

Anonymous Remailers - MixMaster remailers can provide a very good level of email anonymity.
I don't have a link, but info is pretty easy to find.

There are tons more, these are just a few well-known tools.

--K

- Michigan suddenly having lots less ISP's willing to do business in the state. Onerous data collection and retention requirements that can be nicely bypassed by moving to a bordering state aren't exactly brilliant courtship moves towards commerce.

So again: You choose the route. ZK promises, the logging is completely turned off on any of the machines. The machines are modified RedHat distributions with their software running. It _HAS_ to be a standalone machine. So it's at least nice.

It also masks your email address and indent identity (the email anonymizing is working even nicer than anon.penet.fi -> it's completely transparent to you)

As to technical use of Freedom.net, it is now only available for Windows, which makes me sad, because I don't use Windows. It attaches itself to the IP layer, so no other application-specific changes have to be made. Even sending/receiving e-mails is done on the POP3/IMAP/SMTP layer, not in the user's email agent.

They were promising the Linux version from the beginning, but I can't see it, which makes me sad. This announcement makes me happy, because I hope more people will develop software based on this (very wonderful) standard.

It provides untraceable web surfing, and encrypted, untraceable, pseudonymous email. The government will not be able to decrypt the emails, let alone determine where they come from. Freedom employs 1024-bit encryption to protect route information, and to encrypt outbound and returning emails.

It also provides a Firewall, Cookie Manager, Ad Manager and spam blocker.

This is not an idea. This is a reality.

(I am a Zero-Knowledge employee. I do not represent them in any offical capacity.)

I for one, as I'm sure many people on this site, am against censorship in any fashion. Censorship discourages freedom. Hell, it's practically the exact opposite of freedom.

That aside, I'd like to know the rationale behind some of the things that are on this censored list. Just what is so offensive about www.freedom.net? According to SmartFilter, freedom.net is a sex-filled, illegally drugged, criminal teaching, worthless, sports-related occult site that gambles. How on earth did this site get into all of these ridiculous categories? I've looked at the site and it definitely does not call into any of those categories.

And what's the deal with the beloved babelfish being censored? Could somebody possibly explain that to me in a sensible, logical kind of way? I guess not only censoring web sites is enough, they actually have to censor languages or something.

All universal moral principles are idle fantasies, indeed. But what the hell is so immoral or wrong about poor babelfish?

J

To protect against unauthorized snooping, you can use Freedom from Zero-Knowledge Systems. It offers 4096 bit encryption of web browsing, pseudonymous email, cooie management, ad blocing and more.

ZeroKnowledge's product, although very sophisticated, suffers from a number of drawbacks that make it difficult to use for most people in common situations. It is clearly not a one click solution to privacy that is accessible for everyone, anywhere, for free, without downloads. Online privacy problems affect everyone, yet most publicized solutions are only partial or specialized and consequently impractical and frustrating for the average Internet user. These users then resign themselves to surrendering their online privacy as a technical cost of using the Internet. The result is a flawed Internet community, and governments threatening to regulate the Internet with overtones of censorship.

First, let's address some issues I raised in my original post.

(1) ZeroKnowledge's product, Freedom, costs: $49.95 USD

(2) It is unnecessarily slow, bouncing packets between three 2nd tier ISPs.

(3) It is easy to block at firewalls since it requires fixed ports 5110 through 51113 to be open ( the second to last line on this page describes this incompatibility ).

(4) It only runs on Win95/98.

(5) It does not work with AOL, CompuServe2000, and some free ISPs. Even if you think "AOL sucks" as one commentator said, Internet privacy is a global issue and by protecting the 24M AOL users we protect ourselves by making it more difficult for eavesdroppers in general.

(6) It does not work with popular software such as McAfee's Personal Firewall, FrontPage webserver, Netware Client32. If you are using Nyms, it also does not work with Outlook, Napster, or PCAnywhere. This is documented on the ZeroKnowledge website under the main support page as #3 among the Top 10 Known Issues and detailed in Issue #57: Applications not supported by Freedom.

(7) ZeroKnowlege has difficulty with cookies. Their support page lists two known, unresolved problems dealing with client-side cookies in Issue #222: Websites say I don't have cookies enabled and Issue #223: Some websites won't let me log in.

(8) Most users are simply not going to be willing to (or, in managed networks, permitted to) install Freedom. The office is where users have access to a new computer, fast Internet connections, and a nice laser printer. In the increasingly long workday, many people are forced to attend to personal matters from their workplace. Individuals need private access to the Internet at work just as they need private access to the telephone to conduct their lives.

(9) ZeroKnowledge users must register personal and credit card information. The less information out there about you the more secure and private you'll be online.

I respect and admire ZeroKnowlege for the challenges they took on in addressing Internet privacy issues. However, their product is very specialized in its architecture and designed to solve a particular subset of privacy problems. The ZK folks have been big supporters, educators, and sponsors of privacy, and we owe them our gratitude. Finally, the depth of their technical product speaks directly to their skill set and ingenuity.

I'm posting to inform people about our web-based solution to the privacy problem, a solution that addresses all the issues outlined above and that aims to serve a broader audience. Our approach has many distinct technical challenges just like the download model. We do not claim to have the complete solution, but we feel we are the closest to a practical solution that works for the majority of Internet users. Ultimately the veracity of these claims will be borne out by users: try out SafeWeb and compare it to Freedom. Decide for yourself. Again, if you have constructive feedback in how we can build a better privacy technology we are eager to hear your suggestions. Email us at webmaster@safeweb.com.

Jon Chun
President
SafeWeb

ZeroKnowledge's product, although very sophisticated, suffers from a number of drawbacks that make it difficult to use for most people in common situations. It is clearly not a one click solution to privacy that is accessible for everyone, anywhere, for free, without downloads. Online privacy problems affect everyone, yet most publicized solutions are only partial or specialized and consequently impractical and frustrating for the average Internet user. These users then resign themselves to surrendering their online privacy as a technical cost of using the Internet. The result is a flawed Internet community, and governments threatening to regulate the Internet with overtones of censorship.

First, let's address some issues I raised in my original post.

(1) ZeroKnowledge's product, Freedom, costs: $49.95 USD

(2) It is unnecessarily slow, bouncing packets between three 2nd tier ISPs.

(3) It is easy to block at firewalls since it requires fixed ports 5110 through 51113 to be open ( the second to last line on this page describes this incompatibility ).

(4) It only runs on Win95/98.

(5) It does not work with AOL, CompuServe2000, and some free ISPs. Even if you think "AOL sucks" as one commentator said, Internet privacy is a global issue and by protecting the 24M AOL users we protect ourselves by making it more difficult for eavesdroppers in general.

(6) It does not work with popular software such as McAfee's Personal Firewall, FrontPage webserver, Netware Client32. If you are using Nyms, it also does not work with Outlook, Napster, or PCAnywhere. This is documented on the ZeroKnowledge website under the main support page as #3 among the Top 10 Known Issues and detailed in Issue #57: Applications not supported by Freedom.

(7) ZeroKnowlege has difficulty with cookies. Their support page lists two known, unresolved problems dealing with client-side cookies in Issue #222: Websites say I don't have cookies enabled and Issue #223: Some websites won't let me log in.

(8) Most users are simply not going to be willing to (or, in managed networks, permitted to) install Freedom. The office is where users have access to a new computer, fast Internet connections, and a nice laser printer. In the increasingly long workday, many people are forced to attend to personal matters from their workplace. Individuals need private access to the Internet at work just as they need private access to the telephone to conduct their lives.

(9) ZeroKnowledge users must register personal and credit card information. The less information out there about you the more secure and private you'll be online.

I respect and admire ZeroKnowlege for the challenges they took on in addressing Internet privacy issues. However, their product is very specialized in its architecture and designed to solve a particular subset of privacy problems. The ZK folks have been big supporters, educators, and sponsors of privacy, and we owe them our gratitude. Finally, the depth of their technical product speaks directly to their skill set and ingenuity.

I'm posting to inform people about our web-based solution to the privacy problem, a solution that addresses all the issues outlined above and that aims to serve a broader audience. Our approach has many distinct technical challenges just like the download model. We do not claim to have the complete solution, but we feel we are the closest to a practical solution that works for the majority of Internet users. Ultimately the veracity of these claims will be borne out by users: try out SafeWeb and compare it to Freedom. Decide for yourself. Again, if you have constructive feedback in how we can build a better privacy technology we are eager to hear your suggestions. Email us at webmaster@safeweb.com.

Jon Chun
President
SafeWeb

ZeroKnowledge's product, although very sophisticated, suffers from a number of drawbacks that make it difficult to use for most people in common situations. It is clearly not a one click solution to privacy that is accessible for everyone, anywhere, for free, without downloads. Online privacy problems affect everyone, yet most publicized solutions are only partial or specialized and consequently impractical and frustrating for the average Internet user. These users then resign themselves to surrendering their online privacy as a technical cost of using the Internet. The result is a flawed Internet community, and governments threatening to regulate the Internet with overtones of censorship.

First, let's address some issues I raised in my original post.

(1) ZeroKnowledge's product, Freedom, costs: $49.95 USD

(2) It is unnecessarily slow, bouncing packets between three 2nd tier ISPs.

(3) It is easy to block at firewalls since it requires fixed ports 5110 through 51113 to be open ( the second to last line on this page describes this incompatibility ).

(4) It only runs on Win95/98.

(5) It does not work with AOL, CompuServe2000, and some free ISPs. Even if you think "AOL sucks" as one commentator said, Internet privacy is a global issue and by protecting the 24M AOL users we protect ourselves by making it more difficult for eavesdroppers in general.

(6) It does not work with popular software such as McAfee's Personal Firewall, FrontPage webserver, Netware Client32. If you are using Nyms, it also does not work with Outlook, Napster, or PCAnywhere. This is documented on the ZeroKnowledge website under the main support page as #3 among the Top 10 Known Issues and detailed in Issue #57: Applications not supported by Freedom.

(7) ZeroKnowlege has difficulty with cookies. Their support page lists two known, unresolved problems dealing with client-side cookies in Issue #222: Websites say I don't have cookies enabled and Issue #223: Some websites won't let me log in.

(8) Most users are simply not going to be willing to (or, in managed networks, permitted to) install Freedom. The office is where users have access to a new computer, fast Internet connections, and a nice laser printer. In the increasingly long workday, many people are forced to attend to personal matters from their workplace. Individuals need private access to the Internet at work just as they need private access to the telephone to conduct their lives.

(9) ZeroKnowledge users must register personal and credit card information. The less information out there about you the more secure and private you'll be online.

I respect and admire ZeroKnowlege for the challenges they took on in addressing Internet privacy issues. However, their product is very specialized in its architecture and designed to solve a particular subset of privacy problems. The ZK folks have been big supporters, educators, and sponsors of privacy, and we owe them our gratitude. Finally, the depth of their technical product speaks directly to their skill set and ingenuity.

I'm posting to inform people about our web-based solution to the privacy problem, a solution that addresses all the issues outlined above and that aims to serve a broader audience. Our approach has many distinct technical challenges just like the download model. We do not claim to have the complete solution, but we feel we are the closest to a practical solution that works for the majority of Internet users. Ultimately the veracity of these claims will be borne out by users: try out SafeWeb and compare it to Freedom. Decide for yourself. Again, if you have constructive feedback in how we can build a better privacy technology we are eager to hear your suggestions. Email us at webmaster@safeweb.com.

Jon Chun
President
SafeWeb

ZeroKnowledge's product, although very sophisticated, suffers from a number of drawbacks that make it difficult to use for most people in common situations. It is clearly not a one click solution to privacy that is accessible for everyone, anywhere, for free, without downloads. Online privacy problems affect everyone, yet most publicized solutions are only partial or specialized and consequently impractical and frustrating for the average Internet user. These users then resign themselves to surrendering their online privacy as a technical cost of using the Internet. The result is a flawed Internet community, and governments threatening to regulate the Internet with overtones of censorship.

First, let's address some issues I raised in my original post.

(1) ZeroKnowledge's product, Freedom, costs: $49.95 USD

(2) It is unnecessarily slow, bouncing packets between three 2nd tier ISPs.

(3) It is easy to block at firewalls since it requires fixed ports 5110 through 51113 to be open ( the second to last line on this page describes this incompatibility ).

(4) It only runs on Win95/98.

(5) It does not work with AOL, CompuServe2000, and some free ISPs. Even if you think "AOL sucks" as one commentator said, Internet privacy is a global issue and by protecting the 24M AOL users we protect ourselves by making it more difficult for eavesdroppers in general.

(6) It does not work with popular software such as McAfee's Personal Firewall, FrontPage webserver, Netware Client32. If you are using Nyms, it also does not work with Outlook, Napster, or PCAnywhere. This is documented on the ZeroKnowledge website under the main support page as #3 among the Top 10 Known Issues and detailed in Issue #57: Applications not supported by Freedom.

(7) ZeroKnowlege has difficulty with cookies. Their support page lists two known, unresolved problems dealing with client-side cookies in Issue #222: Websites say I don't have cookies enabled and Issue #223: Some websites won't let me log in.

(8) Most users are simply not going to be willing to (or, in managed networks, permitted to) install Freedom. The office is where users have access to a new computer, fast Internet connections, and a nice laser printer. In the increasingly long workday, many people are forced to attend to personal matters from their workplace. Individuals need private access to the Internet at work just as they need private access to the telephone to conduct their lives.

(9) ZeroKnowledge users must register personal and credit card information. The less information out there about you the more secure and private you'll be online.

I respect and admire ZeroKnowlege for the challenges they took on in addressing Internet privacy issues. However, their product is very specialized in its architecture and designed to solve a particular subset of privacy problems. The ZK folks have been big supporters, educators, and sponsors of privacy, and we owe them our gratitude. Finally, the depth of their technical product speaks directly to their skill set and ingenuity.

I'm posting to inform people about our web-based solution to the privacy problem, a solution that addresses all the issues outlined above and that aims to serve a broader audience. Our approach has many distinct technical challenges just like the download model. We do not claim to have the complete solution, but we feel we are the closest to a practical solution that works for the majority of Internet users. Ultimately the veracity of these claims will be borne out by users: try out SafeWeb and compare it to Freedom. Decide for yourself. Again, if you have constructive feedback in how we can build a better privacy technology we are eager to hear your suggestions. Email us at webmaster@safeweb.com.

Jon Chun
President
SafeWeb

ZeroKnowledge's product, although very sophisticated, suffers from a number of drawbacks that make it difficult to use for most people in common situations. It is clearly not a one click solution to privacy that is accessible for everyone, anywhere, for free, without downloads. Online privacy problems affect everyone, yet most publicized solutions are only partial or specialized and consequently impractical and frustrating for the average Internet user. These users then resign themselves to surrendering their online privacy as a technical cost of using the Internet. The result is a flawed Internet community, and governments threatening to regulate the Internet with overtones of censorship.

First, let's address some issues I raised in my original post.

(1) ZeroKnowledge's product, Freedom, costs: $49.95 USD

(2) It is unnecessarily slow, bouncing packets between three 2nd tier ISPs.

(3) It is easy to block at firewalls since it requires fixed ports 5110 through 51113 to be open ( the second to last line on this page describes this incompatibility ).

(4) It only runs on Win95/98.

(5) It does not work with AOL, CompuServe2000, and some free ISPs. Even if you think "AOL sucks" as one commentator said, Internet privacy is a global issue and by protecting the 24M AOL users we protect ourselves by making it more difficult for eavesdroppers in general.

(6) It does not work with popular software such as McAfee's Personal Firewall, FrontPage webserver, Netware Client32. If you are using Nyms, it also does not work with Outlook, Napster, or PCAnywhere. This is documented on the ZeroKnowledge website under the main support page as #3 among the Top 10 Known Issues and detailed in Issue #57: Applications not supported by Freedom.

(7) ZeroKnowlege has difficulty with cookies. Their support page lists two known, unresolved problems dealing with client-side cookies in Issue #222: Websites say I don't have cookies enabled and Issue #223: Some websites won't let me log in.

(8) Most users are simply not going to be willing to (or, in managed networks, permitted to) install Freedom. The office is where users have access to a new computer, fast Internet connections, and a nice laser printer. In the increasingly long workday, many people are forced to attend to personal matters from their workplace. Individuals need private access to the Internet at work just as they need private access to the telephone to conduct their lives.

(9) ZeroKnowledge users must register personal and credit card information. The less information out there about you the more secure and private you'll be online.

I respect and admire ZeroKnowlege for the challenges they took on in addressing Internet privacy issues. However, their product is very specialized in its architecture and designed to solve a particular subset of privacy problems. The ZK folks have been big supporters, educators, and sponsors of privacy, and we owe them our gratitude. Finally, the depth of their technical product speaks directly to their skill set and ingenuity.

I'm posting to inform people about our web-based solution to the privacy problem, a solution that addresses all the issues outlined above and that aims to serve a broader audience. Our approach has many distinct technical challenges just like the download model. We do not claim to have the complete solution, but we feel we are the closest to a practical solution that works for the majority of Internet users. Ultimately the veracity of these claims will be borne out by users: try out SafeWeb and compare it to Freedom. Decide for yourself. Again, if you have constructive feedback in how we can build a better privacy technology we are eager to hear your suggestions. Email us at webmaster@safeweb.com.

Jon Chun
President
SafeWeb

ZeroKnowledge's product, although very sophisticated, suffers from a number of drawbacks that make it difficult to use for most people in common situations. It is clearly not a one click solution to privacy that is accessible for everyone, anywhere, for free, without downloads. Online privacy problems affect everyone, yet most publicized solutions are only partial or specialized and consequently impractical and frustrating for the average Internet user. These users then resign themselves to surrendering their online privacy as a technical cost of using the Internet. The result is a flawed Internet community, and governments threatening to regulate the Internet with overtones of censorship.

First, let's address some issues I raised in my original post.

(1) ZeroKnowledge's product, Freedom, costs: $49.95 USD

(2) It is unnecessarily slow, bouncing packets between three 2nd tier ISPs.

(3) It is easy to block at firewalls since it requires fixed ports 5110 through 51113 to be open ( the second to last line on this page describes this incompatibility ).

(4) It only runs on Win95/98.

(5) It does not work with AOL, CompuServe2000, and some free ISPs. Even if you think "AOL sucks" as one commentator said, Internet privacy is a global issue and by protecting the 24M AOL users we protect ourselves by making it more difficult for eavesdroppers in general.

(6) It does not work with popular software such as McAfee's Personal Firewall, FrontPage webserver, Netware Client32. If you are using Nyms, it also does not work with Outlook, Napster, or PCAnywhere. This is documented on the ZeroKnowledge website under the main support page as #3 among the Top 10 Known Issues and detailed in Issue #57: Applications not supported by Freedom.

(7) ZeroKnowlege has difficulty with cookies. Their support page lists two known, unresolved problems dealing with client-side cookies in Issue #222: Websites say I don't have cookies enabled and Issue #223: Some websites won't let me log in.

(8) Most users are simply not going to be willing to (or, in managed networks, permitted to) install Freedom. The office is where users have access to a new computer, fast Internet connections, and a nice laser printer. In the increasingly long workday, many people are forced to attend to personal matters from their workplace. Individuals need private access to the Internet at work just as they need private access to the telephone to conduct their lives.

(9) ZeroKnowledge users must register personal and credit card information. The less information out there about you the more secure and private you'll be online.

I respect and admire ZeroKnowlege for the challenges they took on in addressing Internet privacy issues. However, their product is very specialized in its architecture and designed to solve a particular subset of privacy problems. The ZK folks have been big supporters, educators, and sponsors of privacy, and we owe them our gratitude. Finally, the depth of their technical product speaks directly to their skill set and ingenuity.

I'm posting to inform people about our web-based solution to the privacy problem, a solution that addresses all the issues outlined above and that aims to serve a broader audience. Our approach has many distinct technical challenges just like the download model. We do not claim to have the complete solution, but we feel we are the closest to a practical solution that works for the majority of Internet users. Ultimately the veracity of these claims will be borne out by users: try out SafeWeb and compare it to Freedom. Decide for yourself. Again, if you have constructive feedback in how we can build a better privacy technology we are eager to hear your suggestions. Email us at webmaster@safeweb.com.

Jon Chun
President
SafeWeb

ZeroKnowledge's product, although very sophisticated, suffers from a number of drawbacks that make it difficult to use for most people in common situations. It is clearly not a one click solution to privacy that is accessible for everyone, anywhere, for free, without downloads. Online privacy problems affect everyone, yet most publicized solutions are only partial or specialized and consequently impractical and frustrating for the average Internet user. These users then resign themselves to surrendering their online privacy as a technical cost of using the Internet. The result is a flawed Internet community, and governments threatening to regulate the Internet with overtones of censorship.

First, let's address some issues I raised in my original post.

(1) ZeroKnowledge's product, Freedom, costs: $49.95 USD

(2) It is unnecessarily slow, bouncing packets between three 2nd tier ISPs.

(3) It is easy to block at firewalls since it requires fixed ports 5110 through 51113 to be open ( the second to last line on this page describes this incompatibility ).

(4) It only runs on Win95/98.

(5) It does not work with AOL, CompuServe2000, and some free ISPs. Even if you think "AOL sucks" as one commentator said, Internet privacy is a global issue and by protecting the 24M AOL users we protect ourselves by making it more difficult for eavesdroppers in general.

(6) It does not work with popular software such as McAfee's Personal Firewall, FrontPage webserver, Netware Client32. If you are using Nyms, it also does not work with Outlook, Napster, or PCAnywhere. This is documented on the ZeroKnowledge website under the main support page as #3 among the Top 10 Known Issues and detailed in Issue #57: Applications not supported by Freedom.

(7) ZeroKnowlege has difficulty with cookies. Their support page lists two known, unresolved problems dealing with client-side cookies in Issue #222: Websites say I don't have cookies enabled and Issue #223: Some websites won't let me log in.

(8) Most users are simply not going to be willing to (or, in managed networks, permitted to) install Freedom. The office is where users have access to a new computer, fast Internet connections, and a nice laser printer. In the increasingly long workday, many people are forced to attend to personal matters from their workplace. Individuals need private access to the Internet at work just as they need private access to the telephone to conduct their lives.

(9) ZeroKnowledge users must register personal and credit card information. The less information out there about you the more secure and private you'll be online.

I respect and admire ZeroKnowlege for the challenges they took on in addressing Internet privacy issues. However, their product is very specialized in its architecture and designed to solve a particular subset of privacy problems. The ZK folks have been big supporters, educators, and sponsors of privacy, and we owe them our gratitude. Finally, the depth of their technical product speaks directly to their skill set and ingenuity.

I'm posting to inform people about our web-based solution to the privacy problem, a solution that addresses all the issues outlined above and that aims to serve a broader audience. Our approach has many distinct technical challenges just like the download model. We do not claim to have the complete solution, but we feel we are the closest to a practical solution that works for the majority of Internet users. Ultimately the veracity of these claims will be borne out by users: try out SafeWeb and compare it to Freedom. Decide for yourself. Again, if you have constructive feedback in how we can build a better privacy technology we are eager to hear your suggestions. Email us at webmaster@safeweb.com.

Jon Chun
President
SafeWeb

ZeroKnowledge's product, although very sophisticated, suffers from a number of drawbacks that make it difficult to use for most people in common situations. It is clearly not a one click solution to privacy that is accessible for everyone, anywhere, for free, without downloads. Online privacy problems affect everyone, yet most publicized solutions are only partial or specialized and consequently impractical and frustrating for the average Internet user. These users then resign themselves to surrendering their online privacy as a technical cost of using the Internet. The result is a flawed Internet community, and governments threatening to regulate the Internet with overtones of censorship.

First, let's address some issues I raised in my original post.

(1) ZeroKnowledge's product, Freedom, costs: $49.95 USD

(2) It is unnecessarily slow, bouncing packets between three 2nd tier ISPs.

(3) It is easy to block at firewalls since it requires fixed ports 5110 through 51113 to be open ( the second to last line on this page describes this incompatibility ).

(4) It only runs on Win95/98.

(5) It does not work with AOL, CompuServe2000, and some free ISPs. Even if you think "AOL sucks" as one commentator said, Internet privacy is a global issue and by protecting the 24M AOL users we protect ourselves by making it more difficult for eavesdroppers in general.

(6) It does not work with popular software such as McAfee's Personal Firewall, FrontPage webserver, Netware Client32. If you are using Nyms, it also does not work with Outlook, Napster, or PCAnywhere. This is documented on the ZeroKnowledge website under the main support page as #3 among the Top 10 Known Issues and detailed in Issue #57: Applications not supported by Freedom.

(7) ZeroKnowlege has difficulty with cookies. Their support page lists two known, unresolved problems dealing with client-side cookies in Issue #222: Websites say I don't have cookies enabled and Issue #223: Some websites won't let me log in.

(8) Most users are simply not going to be willing to (or, in managed networks, permitted to) install Freedom. The office is where users have access to a new computer, fast Internet connections, and a nice laser printer. In the increasingly long workday, many people are forced to attend to personal matters from their workplace. Individuals need private access to the Internet at work just as they need private access to the telephone to conduct their lives.

(9) ZeroKnowledge users must register personal and credit card information. The less information out there about you the more secure and private you'll be online.

I respect and admire ZeroKnowlege for the challenges they took on in addressing Internet privacy issues. However, their product is very specialized in its architecture and designed to solve a particular subset of privacy problems. The ZK folks have been big supporters, educators, and sponsors of privacy, and we owe them our gratitude. Finally, the depth of their technical product speaks directly to their skill set and ingenuity.

I'm posting to inform people about our web-based solution to the privacy problem, a solution that addresses all the issues outlined above and that aims to serve a broader audience. Our approach has many distinct technical challenges just like the download model. We do not claim to have the complete solution, but we feel we are the closest to a practical solution that works for the majority of Internet users. Ultimately the veracity of these claims will be borne out by users: try out SafeWeb and compare it to Freedom. Decide for yourself. Again, if you have constructive feedback in how we can build a better privacy technology we are eager to hear your suggestions. Email us at webmaster@safeweb.com.

Jon Chun
President
SafeWeb

ZeroKnowledge's product, although very sophisticated, suffers from a number of drawbacks that make it difficult to use for most people in common situations. It is clearly not a one click solution to privacy that is accessible for everyone, anywhere, for free, without downloads. Online privacy problems affect everyone, yet most publicized solutions are only partial or specialized and consequently impractical and frustrating for the average Internet user. These users then resign themselves to surrendering their online privacy as a technical cost of using the Internet. The result is a flawed Internet community, and governments threatening to regulate the Internet with overtones of censorship.

First, let's address some issues I raised in my original post.

(1) ZeroKnowledge's product, Freedom, costs: $49.95 USD

(2) It is unnecessarily slow, bouncing packets between three 2nd tier ISPs.

(3) It is easy to block at firewalls since it requires fixed ports 5110 through 51113 to be open ( the second to last line on this page describes this incompatibility ).

(4) It only runs on Win95/98.

(5) It does not work with AOL, CompuServe2000, and some free ISPs. Even if you think "AOL sucks" as one commentator said, Internet privacy is a global issue and by protecting the 24M AOL users we protect ourselves by making it more difficult for eavesdroppers in general.

(6) It does not work with popular software such as McAfee's Personal Firewall, FrontPage webserver, Netware Client32. If you are using Nyms, it also does not work with Outlook, Napster, or PCAnywhere. This is documented on the ZeroKnowledge website under the main support page as #3 among the Top 10 Known Issues and detailed in Issue #57: Applications not supported by Freedom.

(7) ZeroKnowlege has difficulty with cookies. Their support page lists two known, unresolved problems dealing with client-side cookies in Issue #222: Websites say I don't have cookies enabled and Issue #223: Some websites won't let me log in.

(8) Most users are simply not going to be willing to (or, in managed networks, permitted to) install Freedom. The office is where users have access to a new computer, fast Internet connections, and a nice laser printer. In the increasingly long workday, many people are forced to attend to personal matters from their workplace. Individuals need private access to the Internet at work just as they need private access to the telephone to conduct their lives.

(9) ZeroKnowledge users must register personal and credit card information. The less information out there about you the more secure and private you'll be online.

I respect and admire ZeroKnowlege for the challenges they took on in addressing Internet privacy issues. However, their product is very specialized in its architecture and designed to solve a particular subset of privacy problems. The ZK folks have been big supporters, educators, and sponsors of privacy, and we owe them our gratitude. Finally, the depth of their technical product speaks directly to their skill set and ingenuity.

I'm posting to inform people about our web-based solution to the privacy problem, a solution that addresses all the issues outlined above and that aims to serve a broader audience. Our approach has many distinct technical challenges just like the download model. We do not claim to have the complete solution, but we feel we are the closest to a practical solution that works for the majority of Internet users. Ultimately the veracity of these claims will be borne out by users: try out SafeWeb and compare it to Freedom. Decide for yourself. Again, if you have constructive feedback in how we can build a better privacy technology we are eager to hear your suggestions. Email us at webmaster@safeweb.com.

Jon Chun
President
SafeWeb

ZeroKnowledge's product, although very sophisticated, suffers from a number of drawbacks that make it difficult to use for most people in common situations. It is clearly not a one click solution to privacy that is accessible for everyone, anywhere, for free, without downloads. Online privacy problems affect everyone, yet most publicized solutions are only partial or specialized and consequently impractical and frustrating for the average Internet user. These users then resign themselves to surrendering their online privacy as a technical cost of using the Internet. The result is a flawed Internet community, and governments threatening to regulate the Internet with overtones of censorship.

First, let's address some issues I raised in my original post.

(1) ZeroKnowledge's product, Freedom, costs: $49.95 USD

(2) It is unnecessarily slow, bouncing packets between three 2nd tier ISPs.

(3) It is easy to block at firewalls since it requires fixed ports 5110 through 51113 to be open ( the second to last line on this page describes this incompatibility ).

(4) It only runs on Win95/98.

(5) It does not work with AOL, CompuServe2000, and some free ISPs. Even if you think "AOL sucks" as one commentator said, Internet privacy is a global issue and by protecting the 24M AOL users we protect ourselves by making it more difficult for eavesdroppers in general.

(6) It does not work with popular software such as McAfee's Personal Firewall, FrontPage webserver, Netware Client32. If you are using Nyms, it also does not work with Outlook, Napster, or PCAnywhere. This is documented on the ZeroKnowledge website under the main support page as #3 among the Top 10 Known Issues and detailed in Issue #57: Applications not supported by Freedom.

(7) ZeroKnowlege has difficulty with cookies. Their support page lists two known, unresolved problems dealing with client-side cookies in Issue #222: Websites say I don't have cookies enabled and Issue #223: Some websites won't let me log in.

(8) Most users are simply not going to be willing to (or, in managed networks, permitted to) install Freedom. The office is where users have access to a new computer, fast Internet connections, and a nice laser printer. In the increasingly long workday, many people are forced to attend to personal matters from their workplace. Individuals need private access to the Internet at work just as they need private access to the telephone to conduct their lives.

(9) ZeroKnowledge users must register personal and credit card information. The less information out there about you the more secure and private you'll be online.

I respect and admire ZeroKnowlege for the challenges they took on in addressing Internet privacy issues. However, their product is very specialized in its architecture and designed to solve a particular subset of privacy problems. The ZK folks have been big supporters, educators, and sponsors of privacy, and we owe them our gratitude. Finally, the depth of their technical product speaks directly to their skill set and ingenuity.

I'm posting to inform people about our web-based solution to the privacy problem, a solution that addresses all the issues outlined above and that aims to serve a broader audience. Our approach has many distinct technical challenges just like the download model. We do not claim to have the complete solution, but we feel we are the closest to a practical solution that works for the majority of Internet users. Ultimately the veracity of these claims will be borne out by users: try out SafeWeb and compare it to Freedom. Decide for yourself. Again, if you have constructive feedback in how we can build a better privacy technology we are eager to hear your suggestions. Email us at webmaster@safeweb.com.

Jon Chun
President
SafeWeb

ZeroKnowledge's product, although very sophisticated, suffers from a number of drawbacks that make it difficult to use for most people in common situations. It is clearly not a one click solution to privacy that is accessible for everyone, anywhere, for free, without downloads. Online privacy problems affect everyone, yet most publicized solutions are only partial or specialized and consequently impractical and frustrating for the average Internet user. These users then resign themselves to surrendering their online privacy as a technical cost of using the Internet. The result is a flawed Internet community, and governments threatening to regulate the Internet with overtones of censorship.

First, let's address some issues I raised in my original post.

(1) ZeroKnowledge's product, Freedom, costs: $49.95 USD

(2) It is unnecessarily slow, bouncing packets between three 2nd tier ISPs.

(3) It is easy to block at firewalls since it requires fixed ports 5110 through 51113 to be open ( the second to last line on this page describes this incompatibility ).

(4) It only runs on Win95/98.

(5) It does not work with AOL, CompuServe2000, and some free ISPs. Even if you think "AOL sucks" as one commentator said, Internet privacy is a global issue and by protecting the 24M AOL users we protect ourselves by making it more difficult for eavesdroppers in general.

(6) It does not work with popular software such as McAfee's Personal Firewall, FrontPage webserver, Netware Client32. If you are using Nyms, it also does not work with Outlook, Napster, or PCAnywhere. This is documented on the ZeroKnowledge website under the main support page as #3 among the Top 10 Known Issues and detailed in Issue #57: Applications not supported by Freedom.

(7) ZeroKnowlege has difficulty with cookies. Their support page lists two known, unresolved problems dealing with client-side cookies in Issue #222: Websites say I don't have cookies enabled and Issue #223: Some websites won't let me log in.

(8) Most users are simply not going to be willing to (or, in managed networks, permitted to) install Freedom. The office is where users have access to a new computer, fast Internet connections, and a nice laser printer. In the increasingly long workday, many people are forced to attend to personal matters from their workplace. Individuals need private access to the Internet at work just as they need private access to the telephone to conduct their lives.

(9) ZeroKnowledge users must register personal and credit card information. The less information out there about you the more secure and private you'll be online.

I respect and admire ZeroKnowlege for the challenges they took on in addressing Internet privacy issues. However, their product is very specialized in its architecture and designed to solve a particular subset of privacy problems. The ZK folks have been big supporters, educators, and sponsors of privacy, and we owe them our gratitude. Finally, the depth of their technical product speaks directly to their skill set and ingenuity.

I'm posting to inform people about our web-based solution to the privacy problem, a solution that addresses all the issues outlined above and that aims to serve a broader audience. Our approach has many distinct technical challenges just like the download model. We do not claim to have the complete solution, but we feel we are the closest to a practical solution that works for the majority of Internet users. Ultimately the veracity of these claims will be borne out by users: try out SafeWeb and compare it to Freedom. Decide for yourself. Again, if you have constructive feedback in how we can build a better privacy technology we are eager to hear your suggestions. Email us at webmaster@safeweb.com.

Jon Chun
President
SafeWeb

The idea here is not that you trust us. The idea is that you don't have to. The name isn't just self-deprecation: the Freedom system is designed to protect us from knowing things about you, as well as protecting you from having us -- and others -- know things about you. The whitepapers cover this approach[*], and the limitations of it, so I won't bore you with the details here.

[*] though they focus on the 1.0 technology, the issues remain largely the same. The biggest change is in the mail system, where the removal of ``reply blocks'' removes the chain-of-warrants attack from that part of the system.

I see a lot of people are a little confused about the implications of this. First, realise that Zero-Knowledge is a *privacy* company. By implication, they do some security stuff as well, but mainly they do privacy. A lot of people make fun of the name, but it comes from the fact their privacy network is designed so that even they can't link the real identity of their users to the pseudonymous identities the software allows them to create. And that sort of explains why they released the linux source. They want to be able prove that there are no NSA backdoors, and that the product actually works the way they say it does.

Don't confuse Freedom with PGP. PGP will keep the contents of your messages a secret, but Freedom will also keep the origin of your communications a secret. In that respect, it's a little like a mixmaster remailer. Except it anonymises the http and telnet protocols as well. And it's much easier to use than the mixmaster remailer. :)

It's not a perfect system. One of the white papers on their site talks about the security vulnerabilities in the product. Another issue is performance. Performance is always traded for security, and that's the case here as well. I think that over time, things will get faster though.

Some people are complaining because it actually costs money to use. Well, the software itself is free. Anyone can download it. They are actually charging for people to access the network. Last time I checked, that's what every single service provider in the world does. (Except those free ISP companies, but they keep ending up in fuckedcompany.com.)

I see a lot of people underestimating what Freedom is. It's not just a remailer. it's not a standalone application (just think, *how* in the world could a standalone application protect your privacy?) Go read: The architecture paper. A version that doens't go into protocol details. Please don't compare this to anonymizer.

I see a lot of people underestimating what Freedom is. It's not just a remailer. it's not a standalone application (just think, *how* in the world could a standalone application protect your privacy?) Go read: The architecture paper. A version that doens't go into protocol details. Please don't compare this to anonymizer.

"Freedom uses an untraceable transaction system that prevents the association of user identity information revealed during the purchase of a Serial Number
(for both cash and credit card transactions) to be connected in any way with any Nyms that are created."

read their privacy statement

The best solution available is Freedom (www.freedom.net), by Zero-Knowledge systems. It offers 4096 bit encryption and pseudonymous email.

ZKS Freedom already has a network of servers designed to obfuscate routes- it would probably be not terribly hard for them to encrypt everything.

Time for a comment to the developers, I guess!

--Perianwyr Stormcrow

Zero Knowledge has a commercial product called Freedom that provides several different anonymized internet services.

Freedom Network. Look into it.

They're apparently coming out with a version for linux soon, and the next version for Winblows will support "Internet connection sharing", so you can still use your linux box by just point to the crappy windows gateway.

Bit slow mate, It's been passed now and is an Act

So as soon as they install the hardware the gov't will be able to read _anyones_ email....

which is why i got Freedom

Slight/Tolan

It's preferable if these are open source, but they don't have to be to suit your purpose; for example Metrowerks PowerPlant is the most popular application framework for the MacOS, and although it is a commercial product it is inexpensively available and when you do buy the Codewarrior development system you get the PowerPlant source code on the installation disk.

You can even develop an open source framework yourself and publish it openly, and invite in contributors publicly, and distribute non-subversive demo and test programs. Alternatively, you can add functionality to frameworks that almost suit the purpose and submit your patches back to the original maintainers.

This will save you work, although you may have to write "adapters" to be able to use someone else's library for your own purposes, it will increase reliability of your product, because the framework will have already been debugged by someone else and also tested under a wider variety of circumstances than it will encounter in your code, and you can concentrate your work on the particularly subversive parts.

Then you post only the "interesting" parts of your source code, and provide hyperlinks to the needed application frameworks in your build instructions. Be sure to include the version numbers needed for this build of your program, and if the sources to any of the frameworks are signed with a public key, include the key which those sources were signed with when you got them. That way you can be sure future programmers can rebuild the same program as you did.

It may well be that you have a large application but only a few source files and some build instructions to upload, which could be done off a floppy disk at a public access terminal. If you upload these to a few free webhosting service pages, then email the URL to a bunch of warez site maintainers, your code will be looked after.

Note: to find lots of warez sites (and even more serialz sites) go to Altavista, click on "Advanced Search" and enter:

download and warez and photoshop and illustrator and crack

Note that if you want to build a Windows application you can build it with Cygwin (a GNU shell environment for Windows including gcc) so you can be sure Microsoft doesn't embed Globally Unique Identifiers in your code. I'd also suggest that when you make a windows build, you buy a brand-new copy of windows 98 (pay cash), install it on a freshy formatted hard drive, build your binary, upload it, low-level format the hard disk you built it on and throw away the Windows 98 installation disk and all the materials that came with it. It's probably hard to get away with installing a development system on a public access terminal.

If you don't want to use a public access terminal (after all, you might be recorded on a surveillance camera, or the coffee shop waiters might remember you skulking around), then use Zero Knowledge Systems' Freedom to anonymize your web access.

Note that the way Freedom works is your HTTP packets are multiply encrypted with the public keys of the Freedom Network's servers, then "unwrapped" one by one as they pass through up to three servers until they are passed unencrypted to the public net at a faraway place.

Freedom provides both anonymous web browsing and anonymous email send and receive.

Some sources for open source libraries:

• Available C++ Libraries FAQ
• The Apache XML Project
• The Free Software Foundation software page
• Walnut Creek CDROM Free Software Archive
• SourceForge
• Freshmeat
• Gnome

On the other hand, when you write new code, it is definitely worth while to snip out little bits and make sure that they will compile and run on their own, or depend only on other readily available libraries. That way you can create a library yourself.

The book More C++ Gems has some articles on Large-Scale Software Architecture that discusses reducing cyclic dependencies in software projects, in part so that the projects can be rebuilt faster but also so that they can be unit tested in smaller parts and the parts can be extracted out and reused in other programs - although the claim is often made that object-oriented software is more reusable, this claim is baseless unless good engineering practices are observed.

From the Freedom FAQ:

A concerted court ordered attack on multiple Freedom Server Operators, could result in a nym's privacy being compromised. If multiple server operators were forced to reveal their keys, it would be possible to determine a particular nym's e-mail address or IP address. In addition, a sufficiently powerful organization could, if so desired, retrieve the informational content of mail sent to regular Internet users by monitoring Internet network access points around the world. Significant resources would be required to mount such attacks, and they would also require that third-party Freedom Server Operators be forced to reveal the keys that they control. For more details regarding the strength of Freedom's privacy implementation, see the Freedom Papers.


IOW, while Freedom is really cool, I wouldn't rely on it alone to protect me if I were to become an (forgive me for the cliché) enemy of the state or of a well-funded corporation.

1) E-mail

Setup a nym account with one or more of various nym servers out there:

nym.alias.net
redneck.gacracker.org

OR, you can get a paid for nym account with ZKS:
ZKS Freedom Net (They are taking applicants to beta test their Linux port now)

This takes care of having an anonymous bi-direction e-mail account that people can contact you through and will be secure from the attacks of a determined foe (be sure to change your reply blocks often though).

2) Publish the code somewhere publicly available, like the web or usenet.

The next problem is distributing your code. What you need is a means to publish the code anonymously.

Web

To contact sites like sourceforge anonymously, which provide you with a nice mechanism for releasing the code and storing it somewhere, you need a web anonymizer or an anonymous routing scheme like ZKS.

Several solutions exist to do this. In order of highest security:

ZKS Freedom Net

CROWDS

Anonymizer

Usenet:

Usenet is means of publishing your code that is even more resistant to censorship attacks than publishing the code on a website:
mail2news gateways. These allow you to post an e-mail message to usenet, preferably after you have anonymized it thru several remailers. Posting to usenet is an EXCELLENT mechanism for getting past the most determined censor. As long as you don't start spamming your distribution, and thereby driving your BI up, you can be pretty sure that your post will not get robo-canceled. If you want to be really fancy, you can encrypt the message, publish the password in another forum, and then post the conventionally encrypted message to aalt.anonymous.messages. This will defeat efforts to automatically find your post on usenet and then issue a third party cancel for it.

Here is a list of known mail2news gateways:
mail2news AT nym.alias.net
mail2news AT zedz.net
mail2news AT mixmaster.shinn.net

Send a message to one of the above e-mail addresses with "help" in the subject for instructions on how to use the gateways.

Python

1) E-mail

Setup a nym account with one or more of various nym servers out there:

nym.alias.net
redneck.gacracker.org

OR, you can get a paid for nym account with ZKS:
ZKS Freedom Net (They are taking applicants to beta test their Linux port now)

This takes care of having an anonymous bi-direction e-mail account that people can contact you through and will be secure from the attacks of a determined foe (be sure to change your reply blocks often though).

2) Publish the code somewhere publicly available, like the web or usenet.

The next problem is distributing your code. What you need is a means to publish the code anonymously.

Web

To contact sites like sourceforge anonymously, which provide you with a nice mechanism for releasing the code and storing it somewhere, you need a web anonymizer or an anonymous routing scheme like ZKS.

Several solutions exist to do this. In order of highest security:

ZKS Freedom Net

CROWDS

Anonymizer

Usenet:

Usenet is means of publishing your code that is even more resistant to censorship attacks than publishing the code on a website:
mail2news gateways. These allow you to post an e-mail message to usenet, preferably after you have anonymized it thru several remailers. Posting to usenet is an EXCELLENT mechanism for getting past the most determined censor. As long as you don't start spamming your distribution, and thereby driving your BI up, you can be pretty sure that your post will not get robo-canceled. If you want to be really fancy, you can encrypt the message, publish the password in another forum, and then post the conventionally encrypted message to aalt.anonymous.messages. This will defeat efforts to automatically find your post on usenet and then issue a third party cancel for it.

Here is a list of known mail2news gateways:
mail2news AT nym.alias.net
mail2news AT zedz.net
mail2news AT mixmaster.shinn.net

Send a message to one of the above e-mail addresses with "help" in the subject for instructions on how to use the gateways.

Python

Zero-Knowledge Systems, the company that developed freed0m, has a fantastic work enviroment -- it is an open loft, huge desks, computers, toys, food -- apparently, it is quite good at encouraging good work =) (You can see more pictures and details here.)

However, I believe that I have a pretty good job myself -- I'm an admin on GameSpy Arcade, and I work from my house! =)

--
CitizenC

But beyond amusement, this wouldn't serve much purpose IF you could pull it off. On a large enough scale, it might amount to a form of protest, but why? Okay...Doubleclick has become the poster child of the profiling evil empire. And now Coremetrics has received the brunt of the privacy policy ignorance of its clients, putting the spotlight on third party data-mining. In either case, cookies represent an essential tool to get their jobs done. If you don't like it...your options are simple:

• Configure your browser.
• Use a local proxy or filter. Adsubtract is a good one. I like Proxomitron.
• Use a browser "companion". IDcide works well. It's free.
• Use a proxy service that manages cookies like Privada or Freedom (yep, sneaking my affiliate ID in that URL). Zapada is a clever Java applet approach to keeping Doubleclick et.al. out.
• Periodically clean out your cookie files, either manually or using any number of file tools like Webroot's WindowWasher.
• Just install Doubleclick's opt-out cookie. I've assembled the URLs in one convenient location at http://webveil.com/optout.html.
• Or physically edit your cookie file/directory to be read only...after installing the cookies you want in order to get personalized service...like here at Slashdot.

Too many images floating back and forth, or accidently using an image thats available elsewhere (so the oppressor can do a comparason and determine that stego is being used) and the opposition is likely to use what I believe Bruce Schneier termed "Rubber Hose Cryptography"... That is where they get a rubber hose and beat the key (or the message) out of you.

With stego, deniability becomes the most important aspect, that that a much harder to measure factor.

Hopefully, one day, anonymous communications mechanisms like Zero Knowledge's Freedom system will become common enough that we can all find solace somewhere.

would that it worked under Linux... sigh

One word: ZeroKnowledge