4 ms·

because when you send messages, they go from your computer to your ISP, then to the internet. so anyone watching you at the ISP level sees you sent something.

because when you send messages, they go from your computer to your ISP, then to the internet. so anyone watching you at the ISP level sees you sent something. Then, it depends where you sent it. Email goes to one person, so receipt of the message is seen on their ISP's side. Yes the encrypted message is safe to be sent to the whole world, but there is no single public folder for "the whole world". That would be too many files. In order for the receiver to find what they wanted, they would have to browse the public folder to find what they needed, and this act of browsing strips the anonymity away. The other problem is that you have to exchange the decryption keys with the person you intend to communicate with. You either need to physically give/mail them to the recipient (loss of anonymity in the case of mail), or else you need to exchange them electronically, which usually requires an A<->B exchange, or you can post your public key and let the recipient find it. Basically, if you are a government watching all the communication from above, you can usually tell what path information takes, even if its posted publicly.

thwarted 10y ago
Yes the encrypted message is safe to be sent to the whole world, but there is no single public folder for "the whole world". That would be too many files. I think USENET and nntp came really close to fulfilling most of "single public folder for the whole world", but unfortunately has fallen out of popular use (and it needs to be popular enough to increase the anonymity) because it wasn't walled-garden enough to make money from.
jasonkostempski 10y ago
Couldn't bad players just send and receive through other peoples connections, maybe even pretend to be someone else on purpose, in order to get them arrested? It's pretty trivial to jump on someone's wi-fi, and use throw away emails.
- digler999 10y ago
  I think it depends on what you do with someone else's connection. A criminal could definitely get an innocent person's house raided, but cops aren't stupid either. If they do their homework first and see Aunt Mildred only goes to facebook and cooking-network.com, and suddenly she's sending death threats to public officials, they might knock on her door and politely ask to put a wifi surveillance device in her home to pinpoint the intruder's signal. Sure you could steal signals or go to starbucks (which has cameras of course ) a few times and maybe get away with it, but to do it reliably, on demand, is very difficult.

thwarted 10y ago

Yes the encrypted message is safe to be sent to the whole world, but there is no single public folder for "the whole world". That would be too many files. I think USENET and nntp came really close to fulfilling most of "single public folder for the whole world", but unfortunately has fallen out of popular use (and it needs to be popular enough to increase the anonymity) because it wasn't walled-garden enough to make money from.

jasonkostempski 10y ago

Couldn't bad players just send and receive through other peoples connections, maybe even pretend to be someone else on purpose, in order to get them arrested? It's pretty trivial to jump on someone's wi-fi, and use throw away emails.

digler999 10y ago
I think it depends on what you do with someone else's connection. A criminal could definitely get an innocent person's house raided, but cops aren't stupid either. If they do their homework first and see Aunt Mildred only goes to facebook and cooking-network.com, and suddenly she's sending death threats to public officials, they might knock on her door and politely ask to put a wifi surveillance device in her home to pinpoint the intruder's signal. Sure you could steal signals or go to starbucks (which has cameras of course ) a few times and maybe get away with it, but to do it reliably, on demand, is very difficult.