Publishing Anonymously

Whether you are an activist operating under a totalitarian regime, an employee determined to expose some wrongdoings in your company or a vengeful writer composing a bitchy portrait of your ex-wife, you need to protect your identity. If you are not collaborating with others, the focus lies on anonymity and not encryption or privacy.

If the message is urgent and the stakes are high, one easy way to just get it out quickly is going to an internet cafe one usually does not frequent, create accounts specifically set up for the task, deliver the data and discard those accounts right after that. If you are in a hurry, consider MintEmail (http://www.mintemail.com/) or FilzMail (http://www.filzmail.com/), where your address will expire from 3 to 24 hours respectively. Do not do anything else while you’re there; do not check your Gmail account, do not have a quick one on Facebook and clear all cache, cookies and history and close the browser before you leave.

If you keep these basic rules, the worst – though highly improbable – thing that could happen would be that the offered computer is compromised and logging keystrokes, revealing passwords or even your face, in case an attached webcam is remotely operated. Do not do this at work or in a place where you are a registered member or a regular visitor, like a club or a library.

If you want to maintain a constant stream of communication and maybe even establish an audience, this method quickly becomes quite cumbersome, and you might also run out of unused internet cafes. In this case you can use a machine you own, but, if you cannot dedicate one especially to this purpose, boot your computer with a different operating system (OS). This can be easily done by using a USB stick to boot a live operating system like Tails (https://tails.boum.org/), which comes with Tor enabled by default and includes state-of-the-art cryptographic tools. In any case, use Tor to disguise your IP.

Turn off all cookies, history and cache options and never use the same profile or the same browser for other activities. Not only would that add data to your topography as a user in the Net, but it also opens a very wide window for mistakes. If you want extra support, install Do Not Track Plus and Trackerblock or Ghostery in your browser add-ons menu.

Use passwords for different accounts and choose proper passwords or even passphrases (more about that in the basic tips section). Protect your entire system with a general password, change it often and do not share it with anyone, especially not your lover. Install a keystroke logger to see if someone sneaks into your email, especially your lover. Set up your preferences everywhere to log out of every service and platform after 5 minutes of non-use. Keep your superhero identity to yourself.

If you can mantain such level of discipline, you should even be capable of using your own internet connection. But consider this: not using a dedicated system makes it incredibly difficult to keep all the different identities separated in a safe way, and the feeling of safety often leads to carelessness. Keep a healthy level of neurosis.

Today there are many publishing possibilities, from cost-free blogging sites (Blogspot, Tumblr, WordPress, Identi.ca) to PasteBins (see glossary) and some specifically catered to anonymous users like BlogACause. Global Voices Advocacy recommends using WordPress through the Tor network. Keep a sane level of cynicism; they all act in commercial interests that you use for ‘free’ and so cannot be trusted at all, especially in that they may be bound to the demands of a legal jurisdiction that is not your own. All providers are, when it comes down to it, traitors.

If registration with these services requires a working email address, create one dedicated solely to this purpose. Avoid Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail and other big commercial platforms with a history of turning over their users and go for an specialized service like Hushmail (https://www.hushmail.com/). For more on anonymous email, please find the chapter Anonymous email in the previous section.

Several Don’ts

Don’t register a domain. There are services that will protect your identity from a simple who is query, like Anonymous Speech or Silent Register, but they will know who you are through your payment data. Unless you have the chance to purchase one in BitCoins, limit yourself to one of the domains offered by your blogging platform like yourblogname.blogspot.com and choose a setting outside your native country. Also, find a name that does not give you away easily. If you have problems with that, use a blog name generator online.

Don’t open a social network account associated to your blog. If you must, keep the level of hygiene that you keep for blogging and never ever login while using your regular browser. If you have a public social network life, avoid it all together. You will eventually make a mistake.

Don’t upload video, photo or audio files without using an editor to modify or erase all the meta data (photos contain information up to the GPS coordinates of the location the photo was taken at) that standard digital cameras, SmartPhones, recorders and other devices add by default. The Metadata Anonymisation Toolkit or ExifTool might help you with that.

Don’t leave a history. Add X-Robots-Tag to your http headers to stop the searching spiders from indexing your website. That should include repositories like the Wayback Machine from archive.org. If you do not know how to do this, search along the lines of “Robots Text File Generator”.

Don’t leave comments. If you must, maintain the levels of hygiene that you use for blogging and always logout when you’re done and for god sakes do not troll around. Hell hath no fury like a blogger scorned.

Don’t expect it to last. If you hit the pot and become a blogging sensation (like Belle de Jour, the British PhD candidate who became a sensation and sold a book and mused two TV shows about her double life as a high escort) there will be a legion of journalists, tax auditors and obsessive fans scrutinizing your every move. You are only human: they will get to you.

Don’t linger. If you realize you have already made any mistakes but nobody has caught you yet, do close all your accounts, cover your tracks and start a totally new identity. The Internet has infinite memory: one strike, and you’re out of the closet.