Anonymity on the Internet

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Anonymity on the Internet

• Daniel Sarvis

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Anonymity is

• Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the
  majority US Supreme Court
• Anonymity is the opposite of community. Esther
  Dyson
• Anonymity shouldnt be a crime. Committing
  crimes should be a crime. Esther Dyson

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Uses of Anonymity

• Screen Names in chat rooms
• Reporting on unethical or illegal activities in
  government or business
• Anonymous email
• Anonymous surfing
• Political speech
• Business news/False Reports

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Anonymous Email

• Pseudo-Anonymous Remailers can be used to send
  anonymous email.
• Send message to remailer server
• Remailer strips real name and IP
• Replaces data with a dummy address, and forwards
  message appropriately.
• Trust relationshiptransaction is logged.

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Truly Anonymous Email

• Cypherpunk Remailers and Mixmaster Remailers
• Route email through three or more remailers
• Time delay options
• In practice, nobody can force an anonymous
  remailer operator to reveal your identity,
  because the operator has NO CLUE who you are

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Anonymous Surfing
Anonymizer.com

• Configure browser to use a freely available proxy
  server
• It passes the URL to the proxy server and the
  proxy server then retrieves the page you
  requested and sends it back to you.
• Since it is the proxy and not you that is hitting
  sites, all the site will see is the proxy and you
  remain invisible
• Think of the proxy server as a "middle man.
  Sites you visit will see only the country and
  proxy you are using

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Discussion

• Should government be able to restrict anonymity?
• Federal Election Commission and Freedom of Speech
  Issues
• We can send snail mail with no return address,
  should there be more restrictions on Internet
  anonymity than in that context?
• Should anonymity sites be used to allow
  censorship-free internet access?
• Anonymizer.com and free anti-censorship program
  for China
• Should ISPs give up information about customers
  activity to their employers?
• Yahoo disclosing information causing employee to
  be fired

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Sources

• Baase, Sara. A Gift of Fire. Second Edition
• http//www.andrebacard.com/remail.html
• http//mailutilities.com/adr/
• http//sourceforge.net/projects/mixmaster
• http//www.anonymizer.com/
• http//www.worldnet-news.com/prox.htm