There
are many reasons one may want to protect their real identity, Put simply
you have a right to privacy & anonymity as long as you use those rights
ethically and responsibly. You may want to protect yourself from an oppressive
government, Send something "off the record" to a journalist,
Communicate with a self-help organization,
Maybe because you are a member of a minority group subject to discrimination,
or just want to post all those politically
incorrect thoughts from your work account at the Christian
Coalition.
Just
changing or clearing the 'real
name' field in your newsreader setup won't help you much unless your
trying to pull a fast one on one of your friends, It's very easy to trace
a message back to its original site by reading the headers in the mail
message, and the system administrator can easily look up the senders 'real
name'.
Clearly
there is a better solution by using an Anonymous Remailer, These systems
strip all headers from the message making it next to impossible to trace
where the message originated. Some systems give you an anonymous
address that other people can send you mail, which is then forwarded
to your real address, (Sometimes known as a pseudonymous server)
A majority of remailers use encryption.
Below
is a list of links and original content on anonymous remailers & anonymity
on the Internet, Send changes, corrections and pointers to William Knowles
erehwon@dis.org
Remailer
List
This is an automatically
generated listing of remailers. The first part of the listing shows the
remailers along with configuration options and special features for each
of the remailers. The second part shows the twelve day history, average
latency, and uptime for each remailer. You can also get this information
by fingeringrlist@publius.net.
This is a more or less
comprehensive list of the known working Type-1 remailers. For information
on Mixmaster (also known as Type-2) remailers, See the Mixmaster
list.
$remailer{"athena"} = " mix post";
$remailer{"base"} = " cpunk pgp hash latent cut post ek esub ksub reord klen29";
$remailer{"bpm"} = " mix";
$remailer{"clive"} = " cpunk mix hybrid middle pgp pgponly latent ek cut hash ksub repgp repgp2 remix remix2 ext reord test rhop5 inflt50 klen500";
$remailer{"cracker"} = " cpunk mix remix remix2 pgp pgponly middle hash ksub esub latent cut ek reord post klen1024";
$remailer{"cripto"} = " cpunk mix remix remix2 pgp hash ksub esub latent cut ek reord";
$remailer{"cyber"} = " alpha pgp";
$remailer{"dctest"} = " cpunk pgp ext hybrid latent ek cut hash ksub post repgp repgp2 reord test rhop5 inflt30 klen1000";
$remailer{"dongco"} = " newnym pgp";
$remailer{"drule"} = " cpunk mix ext hybird pgp latent ek cut hash ksub repgp repgp2 remix remix2 reord test rhop5 inflt30 klen1000";
$remailer{"gretchen"} = " cpunk pgp latent ek cut hash ksub ext test rhop5 inflt50 klen200";
$remailer{"hr13"} = " cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut ek pgponly test";
$remailer{"hyper"} = " cpunk mix remix remix2 pgp hash ksub esub latent cut ek reord post";
$remailer{"lcs"} = " mix klen1000";
$remailer{"mccain"} = " mix middle klen200";
$remailer{"mix"} = " cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut ek ksub reord klen1000";
$remailer{"nitemare"} = " cpunk mix ext hybrid middle pgp latent ek cut hash ksub repgp repgp2 reord klen128";
$remailer{"nowhere"} = " ? cpunk mix remix remix2 pgp hash ksub esub latent cut ek reord klen1000";
$remailer{"nym"} = " newnym pgp klen1000";
$remailer{"passthru"} = " mix middle";
$remailer{"pilot"} = " cpunk mix hybrid pgp latent ek cut hash ksub post repgp repgp2 remix remix2 ext test rhop5 inflt50 klen1000";
$remailer{"piratech"} = " cpunk ext pgp latent ek cut hash ksub repgp repgp2 test rhop3 inflt50 klen1000";
$remailer{"privacy"} = " mix";
$remailer{"redneck"} = " newnym pgp klen1024";
$remailer{"replay"} = " cpunk mix remix remix2 pgp hash latent cut post ek klen1000";
$remailer{"squirrel"} = " cpunk mix pgp pgponly hash latent cut post ek esub ksub reord remix remix2 klen1000";
$remailer{"swiss"} = " mix";
$remailer{"tea"} = " cpunk middle pgp pgponly remix latent hash cut ek post klen200";
$remailer{"virus"} = " cpunk mix ext hybrid middle pgp pgponly latent ek cut hash ksub post repgp repgp2 remix remix2 reord test rhop5 inflt30 klen250";
$remailer{"zoom"} = " cpunk mix remix pgp hash ksub esub latent cut ek reord";
Groups of remailers sharing a machine or operator:
(nym lcs)
(cyber mix)
(cracker redneck)
(hyper dongco)
Maximum message size to juno.com is 60K.
Rankings are a bit pessimistic for both reliability and latency
because publius.net recently got moved.
Last update: Sun 27 Jun 99 2:03:14 PDT
remailer email address history latency uptime
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
squirrel mix@squirrel.owl.de -----------+ 2:30:15 99.99%
nym config@nym.alias.net ###*#++##### 1:51 99.98%
replay remailer@replay.com + ***+ +**** 6:04 99.75%
hr13 remailer@hr13.zedz.net - ----- --- 4:39:08 98.63%
mix mixmaster@remail.obscura.com -.-+.._. 19:10:35 94.14%
cripto anon@ecn.org +--+++++++++ 1:21:42 91.20%
nitemare nightmare@uni-muenster.de - -. - 4:03:51 78.38%
drule remailer@drule.org .-- 10:44:36 61.95%
nowhere mixer@nowhere.to 40:56 0.00%
tea tea@notatla.demon.co.uk 28:45:34 0.00%
hyper mix@sind.hyperreal.art.pl 19:35 0.00%
base remailer@base.xs4all.nl 3:45:47 0.00%
dctest remailer@dragoncon.net 2:32:22 0.00%
piratech remailer@piratech.net 12:03:19 0.00%
dongco config@dongco.hyperreal.art.pl 8:58 0.00%
History key
# response in less than 5 minutes.
* response in less than 1 hour.
+ response in less than 4 hours.
- response in less than 24 hours.
. response in less than 2 days.
_ response in more than 2 days.
Options and features
cpunk
A major class of remailers. Supports Request-Remailing-To:field.
eric
A variant of the cpunk style. Uses Anon-Send-To:instead.
penet
The third class of remailers (at least
for right now). Uses X-Anon-To: in the header.
pgp
Remailer supports encryption with PGP.
A period after the keyword means that the short name, rather than the full
email address, should be used as the encryption key ID.
hash
Supports ## pasting, so anything can be
put into the headers of outgoing messages.
ksub
Remailer always kills subject header,
even in non-pgp mode.
nsub
Remailer always preserves subject header,
even in pgp mode.
latent
Supports Matt Ghio's Latent-Time: option.
cut
Supports Matt Ghio's Cutmarks: option.
post
Post to Usenet using Post-To: or Anon-Post-To:header.
ek
Encrypt responses in reply blocks using
Encrypt-Key: header.
pgponly
Accepts only pgp encrypted messages.
special
Accepts only pgp encrypted messages, and
has slightly different formatting.
Attempts to foil traffic analysis by reordering
messages.
Note: I'm relying on the word of the remailer operator here,
and haven't verified the reord info myself.
mon
Remailer has been known to monitor contents
of private email.
filter
Remailer has been known to filter messages
based on content. If not listed in conjunction with mon, then only messages
destined for public forums are subject to filtering.
middle
Is a "middleman" style remailer - creates
its own chain of other remailers.
Has had problems chaining with other remailers.
Not recommended for use in chains, and automatically deselected by premail.
Penet
remailers
The original Penet remailer
was anon.penet.fi run by Johan Helsingius
which was closed in 1996 after troubles with the Church of Scientology,
Spammers,
and a story ran in the Sunday Observer alleging transmission of child pornography
from the penet.fi remailer which was later proven false by Police Sergeant
Kaj Malmberg of the Helsinki Police Computer Crime Squad.
Recently a new penet
class remailer is now open for business and as of the 21th of December
1998 had around 2000 regular users.
Anonymous
e-mail for everyonefrom
the tiny nation of Estonia offers all the same features of anon.penet.fi
but comes with a warning on the main
page not to use the anon.isp.ee remailer
for harassment or other illegal purposes, Otherwise they will start logging
and one bad apple will ruin it for everyone.
Mixmaster
remailers
Mixmaster
remailers are the next generation of remailers, Using advanced techniques
and strong cryptography to make most methods of traffic analysis next to
impossible, It however requires the use of a special
client to generate the Mixmaster messages. Below is a lists of links
for more information on Mixmaster remailers.
Downloading
the Mixmaster client The client program is export restricted. US
users can obtain the source (most useful for UNIX platforms) or the DOS
version, which can be used together with Private
Idaho.
Mixmaster
for DOSNon-US citizens can download
the client directly from this site in the Netherlands.
MixfitA
MacOS application for Mixmaster formatted anonymous messages.
Joey
Grasty probably summed it up best on why the Windows based remailers are
needed, For the most part remailers have been installed and run by a dedicated,
but very small group of skilled cypherpunks who wrote and ran remailers
on Unix systems. These remailers require detailed knowledge of the Unix
operating systems. Most potential remailer operators do not have this skill
set and do not have the computers that run Unix. To fix this problem, Joey
created a remailer that runs under Windows and is comparatively easy to
setup and use. But unfortunately Joey is no longer working on the WinSock
remailer. But that doesn't mean there are no more Windows based remailers.
Reliable
v1.0 offered by Potato Software
is an anonymous Type I/Type II, Hybrid remailer to run on the Windows operating
system. Reliable has several new options not seen on other remailers. The
Potato home page has all the information to set it up.
Required equipment to run the Reliable
remailerare...
Windows 95 or Windows
98 & Windows NT 3.51 and higher
Computer with ideally
a Pentium processor, and a minimum of 16MB of memory
POP3 mail account
SMTP mail server
NNTP server (if
direct posting to USENET required)
PGP
Version 5.5x or 2.6.x (RSA & IDEA support required)
I should mention
that will the relative low cost of Windows
computers today, There is no real reason not to start a remailer, Either
for your own personal use, for private groups, or to take some of the load
off the existing remailer network. Check this space in the future when
I am ready to announce the start of my remailer.
Remailing
from the WWW
There
may be the occasion that you don't have access to your home machine and
you have to send an anonymous message to somebody, It is not as secure
as composing your message off-line, Your message and the final recipient
are sent unencrypted to the WWW server being used, (Unless you're using
SSL)
Opening yourself and your recipient to aMan-In-the-Middle
Attack, and your adversary can learn
who and what it is that you're mailing.
A
mail 2 news gateway allows you to post to newsgroups via e-mail, This is
very convenient if you want to use a remailer or can't post to a particular
newsgroup because its not carried on your news server or your provider
doesn't offer news.
Don's
Mail 2 News list is still working, And at this time there is only
six
Mail 2 News gateways running. Many of them have been abused by spammers
and those carrying out mail bombings and are no longer in business.
An
excellent site that just recently popped up is the Mail2News
Gateway Testpagewhere you can test out gateways before going through
the trouble of sending a message only for it to never post to the newsgroup
that you wanted.
Remailer
Tools
Using
a remailer at times can be a real pain in the ass, but there are some tools
and commercial products aimed at streamlining the process of sending anonymous
mail.
Mailcrypt
Version 3.4 directly supports remailers and PGP encryption, It
implements many of the same features as Premail but in Emacs.
Private
Idaho Version 3.52t Private Idaho is an anonymous remailer utility
for Windows, Supporting PGP, cypherpunk remailers (Type 1) Mixmaster &
nymservers. The original Private
Idaho information can be found at Joel McNamara's WWW page.
Jack
B. Nymble v1.3 is a new Windows 95/NT application for composing
and sending anonymous and nym messages. Its from the same folks that brought
you the Potato DOS remailer client.
Potatois
a DOS remailer client that works well in Windows, Which prepares anonymous
messages which are then mailed from your e-mail client.
Privtool
Version 0.90 is intended to be a PGP aware replacement for the
standard Sun workstation mailtool,Privtool
now runs on Linux, Free-BSD, Solaris, and SunOS.
NewsRover
is a off-line Usenet newsgroup reader and posting program that works well
with remailers to post private Usenet messages and e-mail
ChainMail
is a remailer chaining utility for Apple Macintosh users.
S-Tools-4is
one of many steganography
tools that hides messages in photos, or sounds that could be posted to
Usenet or stored on your computer. Steganography relies on security by
obscurity, If people don't know there is a message hidden, they won't look
for it. If you download this software,
I have a test picture
for you to try it out.
Anonymous
& Public Proxy's
You
would be amazed the about the amount of information left behind every time
you visit a website, If you send mail from Hotmail,
it will log your providers IP number and send it with your message. Proxys
allow you to avoid using your provider's IP address, Some ISP's and countries
have blocked certain IP's from accessing certain sites on the Internet,
A proxy will allow you to access those sites.
MagusNet
Anonymous Public Proxy Serverwill
allow free users to chain proxy servers for greater anonymity, and is available
on multiple ports and domains to thwart filtering. Paying accounts can
make user of the 128 bit SSL encryption and offers some of the services
of the Janus service.
LPWA
Lucent Personalized Web Assistant is a new tool that provides convenience,
privacy, enhanced security, and assists on controlling spam.
(Note: There are some who belive
the LPWA is a web based version of Echelon
scooping up all sorts of information about the users of the LPWA, Some
of Lucent's customers & contacts within the U.S. Government are the
NSA,
FBI,
U.S.
Navy and SAIC. More information
on this can be found here,
None of these rumors have been confirmed, nor denied. -WK)
Proxys-4-Allis
the all around best site for both public and anonymous proxy information,
(HTTP, FTP, Telnet, Socks, Gopher, Security, and WAIS) Well worth a couple
hours learning & exploring this site.
Privacy
& Anonymous service providers
I
have been trying to put together a list of providers who care more about
the privacy and security of their users than that of the almighty dollar,
Surpassingly they are few & far between (Probably too anonymous to
tell anyone.) Most of these providers use telnet, Some use SSH,
or S/Key to log in for
added protection. Mail me
if you would like your company listed.
HushMailIs
the world's first 1024 bit encrypted free mail service!
SecureNym
Offers secure and anonymous web based E-mail by subscription.
Pop3Now:
Access
your mail from the web with SSL encryption.
Cyberpass
Run by Lance Cottrell, a well known cryptographer & cypherpunk.
Juno
is a free Windows only Internet service supported by advertisers, When
you sign on they will ask you for all sorts of information about your hobbies,
income, address & name, However I am told of a cat (four-legged kind)
who has an account with Juno, and when it comes to addresses, There is
always 1060 West Addison,
Chicago IL 60613.
AOLUsed
be called the largest anonymous service provider in the world allowing
up to five screen names each of which is a pseudonym only traceable by
AOL and law enforcement. Recent events of AOL staff breaching customers
identities through social engineering by the U.S. Military and others have
led me to nearly take AOL of this list, But if you want idiot-proof services,
It can't be beat.
Anonymity
Technology
the
Anonymizer
enables users to surf the WWW anonymously, stop cookies from being issued,
stop Java and JavaScript access to browser and hard drive information,
and effectively blocks tracking I.P. addresses.
Zero-Knowledge
SystemsIts a cypherpunk's
wet dream coming true, Offering a product that will manage a users digital
identity, encrypts and routes traffic through the Freedom
network, transparently decrypts all incoming traffic, watches all outbound
traffic for personal information, places cookies in a 'cookie jar' and
filters spam, All for around $50.00 U.S.D.! Like it? Want to become a beta
tester? Click
here.
Janusis
a service that makes it possible to offer WWW pages to be posted anonymously
as long as the content doesn't contradict moral standards, (Pornography,
racism, or violence, Among others.) Janus encrypts all references of the
URL with a 768 bit RSA key and makes
the source URL unintelligible, and gives no information about the original
URL.
The
Eternity Service is a distributed data-haven which takes a different
approach to ensuring unpopular content and anonymous speech can be published
without fear of censorship.
Not
ready for prime-time, But worth a look...
Crowdsis
a system to protect your privacy while browsing the web, it prevents a
web server from learning information that could identify you. Crowds was
named for the notion of blending into a crowd, Crowds operates by grouping
users into a large & geographically diverse group (Crowd) that collectively
issues requests for its members. Web servers wouldn't be able to tell the
true source of the request since it could have come from Cape Town or Chicago.
The team working on Crowds is looking for testers of their system, Lucky
users who keep their Crowds server running all the time can win this cool
t-shirt.
Onion
RoutingThe Onion Routing research project
is attempting to build an Internet based system that is strongly resistant
to traffic analysis, eavesdropping, and other attacks by both outsiders
and insiders. This will give the sender of a message, and occasionally
the receiver anonymity from the medium. The only thing the network knows
is that communication is taking place, But it has no idea who or what is
being communicated. (Note:
The contradiction of what Onion Routing is trying to do compared to the
the warning at the bottom of the page is good for a giggle. -WK)
Organizations
and interest groups
American
Civil Liberties Unionis
the United States foremost advocate of individual rights, litigation, legislating,
and educating the public on a broad array of issues affecting individual
freedoms in the U.S., The ACLU also has a site for dealing with the police.
Privacy
Rights ClearinghouseOffers
consumers a unique opportunity to learn how to protect their personal privacy
with publications and tips on privacy.
Electronic
Privacy Information Center is a public interest research center
in Washington D.C. Established in 1994 to focus public attention on emerging
civil liberty issues, protecting privacy, and the 1st Amendment.
Electronic
Frontier Foundation is a non-profit civil liberties organization
working in the public interest to protect privacy, free expression, and
access to public resources and information online.
Right
To PrivacyAn
open discussion site on privacy issues around the world.
Internet
Privacy Coalition's mission is to promote privacy and security
on the Internet through widespread public use of strong encryption.
Americans
for Computer PrivacyA
coalition working to ensure the online privacy and communication in today
information age.
Freedom of expression must be allowed.
With this freedom comes all sorts of problems, but these types of problems
are not unique to the Internet. Unpopular speech is a necessary consequence
of free speech and it was decided during the drafting of the United States
Constitution and the Bill of Rights, that the advantages of free speech
outweigh the disadvantages. This principle should hold in cyberspace as
well.