On the other hand, there are so-called “anonymous communitities” that provide allowances to blog on a particular subject or topic. On such example is Tangst, found at http://tangst.blogspot.com/, an anonymous community, run on Blogger, by teens and for teens. Posts are made anonymously (more often than not) by all its members, then one of the admins publishes the post to the main site, where it is discussed at length.

Everything is allowed to be anonymous; even many of the admins remain anonymous themselves. Some people choose to use an alias or name when posting, but many delightfully engage without care as to who each other may be.

This community is limited in scope, to be sure, but the concept is valid. The admins make a point not to record identifying traffic and tracing data beyond that which is collected by the Blogger server transaction logs. The users can post anonymously, and remain that way.

It would be interesting to see this concept spread to other venues of the web. Conceivably, a community could be used as a sham for one’s own blogging, but if really truly used, the concept provides a strong, intricate relationship among its readership.

To use the public-access internet in Rome requires that one produce a passport or national ID card. I believe the goal of this is to fight terrorism, but it also means it would probably be well-nigh impossible to run an…

To use the public-access internet in Rome requires that one produce a passport or national ID card. I believe the goal of this is to fight terrorism, but it also means it would probably be well-nigh impossible to run an…

The latest issue of 2600 (Autumn, 05) has a script that will randomize your supposedly unique MAC address on unix systems.

In the first case it is very easy (with technical knowledge of the Internet) to blog anonymously. Like suggested above, you can setup fake yahoo or gmail addresses and setup an anonymous blog account. You want to be careful that the email service doesn’t put your originating IP address in the headers of the email. Ask a geek for help with that.

Now, if you want to do something that might generate a subpoena (or for that matter any of the various instruments of the PATRIOT Act) you need to be much more careful. You definatly need to use web anonymizers – proxies that encrypt your traffic and change the IP address you are coming from. Use several. If the Government or a plaintiff is motivated enough they can trace you back through each link in the chain. Making one or more links in that chain reside overseas is helpful.

Best bet in the latter case is to drive to a different city, find an insecure wireless access point, and bounce through a few anonymous gateways to get to your blogger or gmail account. I’d recommend using a residential unsecured accesspoint as there is less chance the MAC address (every wireless card has a unique identifier to prevent collisions on the network) will be logged.

Who I am is easy.. I’m that aardvark.

If someone can get access to the records of the blog host, it gets harder. Because the host would know what IP addresses you’re using. And so would the service with the anonymous email account you’ve set up. This gets closer to finding you. Mine probably identifies my Comcast cable modem, which Comcast can link to my name on the bill. My housemates also get identified to my name

People who this blogger links to would be able to see the IP addreses of those who follow the link to their sites. The blogger should avoid clicking on the links on his own site, he is giving the target site his IP address connected with the fact that he followed the referrer link.

I don’t know if comment services like haloscan or the other comments allow img tags. Because with those then a commenter could introduce a ‘web bug’ a small image on the site. The commenter would know everytime a comment had been displayed, and to what IP address.

Shouldn’t it be actionable if someone “outs” you without your consent? Seems like there’d be damages…a subpoena is a different story, but in the fact of imminent bodily harm or national security one should have a leg to stand on if anonymity of past posts is desired. I’m not sure either way…

In the wake of David Lat’s decision to come forward as A3G, Howard Bashman has some thoughts on the viability of anonymous blogging. Howard is absolutely corr…

Concurring Opinions has a useful discussion about how to prevent your blog from being linked to your real-life identity. While a lot of the discussion focuses on protecting yourself from a subpoena, I imagine the goals of many bloggers are

Unless I have another false memory, Gmail does not give out your IP address.