Slashdot Mirror
Anonymous Online Diaries With Invisiblog
An anonymous reader writes "The Cypherpunks have finally caught on to the blog phenomenon: enter Invisiblog. This blog system allows users to register accounts and update their weblogs using Len Sassaman's Mixmaster anonymous remailer program. Now you can post all those tales of late-night dumpster diving, without fear of being branded a terrorist!"
... or just a cool place to post those secrets you've been dying to shout out to the world.
isn't the whole point of a blog to give the world a small peek at what you're doing? If it's anonymous, there's nothing to stop someone from posting absolute fiction. I might as well just write short stories and post them on usenet...
I think this could turn out to be a very interesting project. Think of the people who can now share their story -- Chinese dissidents, drug dealers, hitmen, etc. Society will definitely gain from this.
This is my digital signature. 10011011001
Perhaps I can be of some assistance.
Here's a novel thought in this day and age.
Maybe, just maybe, you shouldn't write about things that would get you in trouble.
I understand the desire to invisibly post, but everything you do can (and someday probably will be) traceable back to you. Remember that and the golden rule and you'll be set.
Sent from your iPad.
It would be funny if this was set up by the gestapo to catch criminals. obviously not your standard doughnut eating gestapo but maybe the NSA or something
There is no god
I guess the good thing about the invisblog site being slashdotted offline is that they'll learn from their mistake have better servers next time around a 13 year old doesn't like what someone said on their site and decides to DDoS it.
"I filter at +6, and have yet to miss out on an important comment." (#822545)
Providing anonymity is only half the battle, you have to base yourself someplace that U.S. law reach to.
There's already a couple of posts to the effect of "don't post anything on the net that you don't want traced back to you." But, that's not an argument against having anonymous publishing forums. Security agencies want to eliminate anonymity as a route to engaging in criminal activity or, more ominously, as a route to expressing dissent. In some countries, the suppression of dissent is explicit. In others, it's implicit. If these countries allow access to the Mixmaster remailer, and individuals use tools to which security agents don't have access, then "nym" weblogs could be a way of publishing information that governments (and other organizations) wish to suppress. The worst they could say is "you sent an encrypted email to someone" (which is bad enough in some places).
Saying "it's pointless to hide your tracks, so don't even try" is giving in to those who wish to be able to track down every dissenter, and I'm not sure we should do that quite yet.
While your advice is sound... thank god people don't follow it... much of history would be lost.
-pyrrho
With google buying that blog company recently and the recent posts about how "the second superpower" term was coined, anonymous blogging will probably die because of all the usual scum--spammers who abuse trackbacks, googlebombers trying to raise their relevancy ratings, and then the RIAA citing every hyperlink on the anonymous postings that points to an MP3 file.
Well, I can see the Homeland Security boys freaking over this one. Anonymous blogs are sure to be a hotbed of terrorist steganography.
"Your Honor, we need a court order to seize their network logs for the last 6 months, and a gag order so they can't warn their potentially unlawful users." [insert rubber stamp sound]
Right now there are two groups that use Freenet: the cautiously-paranoid and the rightfully-paranoid. The cautiously-paranoid is the group that (with good reason) fears the intrusion of not only government censorship but increasingly corporate censorship, as the line between Corp and State thins... The CP posts content that is unlikely to get them in much hot water if posted to the 'net, but that makes them feel better about supporting a system that will one day (supposedly) protect us from a surveillance-state gone mad.
The rightfully-paranoid are those that use Freenet to post content that is so heinous and illegal (i'm thinking kiddie porn here) that no one would ever host them, and leaving any non-cryptographically-secure trail, no matter how obfuscated, that leads back to them is an invitation for law enforcement to track their asses down and lock them up for a long time. In other words, they use Freenet because, for all the inefficiency and general-lousiness of Freenet as a distribution system, the expected value is still better than getting their ass in stir.
That's pretty much the problem. There's nothing to attract most users, who might appreciate anonymity but would much rather have pseudo-anonymity (which is more just the appearance of anonymity), and have content that might actually be read by someone. The only thing a new user is likely to find on Freenet was posted by tinfoil-hats or child pornographers. This is not likely to endear them to the system (unless they're into that sort of thing).
My argument is that, after the initial fascination with the power (read: geek-coolness factor) of the anonymity of the system wears off, most non-clinical tinfoil-hats would rather have their content read by someone, and will find a new distribution system. The only people who won't make that choice are people who can't afford to make that choice. I expect that will eventually leave the FreeNet as the network of kiddie porn, with a few ultra-paranoids hiding among them.
I'm not sure what the legal standing of Freenet will be if/when it will be used mostly for the dispersal of obscene material, but it will certainly be an easy target in the Ashkroft justice system... and if your intent is to preserve a means of communication when the State outlaws badthinkspeak, you're never going to be able to organize on something as inefficient as Freenet.