30 ms·

Blog Anonymously

210 points by bradley_taunt 6y ago

michaelt 6y ago
How would one store the long, random passwords for these e-mail and blogging accounts, given TAILS is so reluctant to save anything to disk?
- Zanni 6y ago
  https://xkcd.com/936/ https://xkcd.com/936/
- zimpenfish 6y ago
  Use a book? You can probably remember "Page 32, Line 7" is the passphrase for site N and you've got oodles of data to work with for generating the passphrase. You can probably even mark the passphrase itself if you have a lot of other marked passages in the book as if you were doing research. Probably want to carry 2-3 other marked books as well to avoid highlighting any specific one as "valuable". (Disclaimer: I am not a spy, take advice from real spies before me.)
- rakoo 6y ago
  Use a password manager and store it somewhere on the cloud, protected by one master password you memorize ?
dijit 6y ago
This goes into the how, but to me the more interesting question is the 'why'. Why should someone interact with something that the author doesn't throw his/her/their name into? I only have one example of why; I'm a genuinely curious and open person and I like having my beliefs tested, some of my beliefs are nuanced enough that I sometimes break down my current beliefs and my reasons into blog posts. Things that I think are dangerous or damaging especially so, and those are usually the most controversial things so it's more difficult for people to engage with a nuanced opinion. In one case in a job interview I had a person bring up a blog post (I believe it was "On the Merits of Meritocracy" where I actually gave good arguments pro and against) and he spent the entire time telling me why I was wrong and that meritocracy was bad, citing Caroline Ada Ehmke's piece(s).[0] Which, ironically I had cited extensively and was the impetus for the discussion. Nonetheless the experience left me feeling icky, the interviewer had ascribed a set of beliefs to me which I did not hold because he disengaged completely with the article and read only the headline. This is a good reason to blog anonymously in my limited opinion; you're free to engage openly. [0]: https://postmeritocracy.org/ https://postmeritocracy.org/
- grenoire 6y ago
  Interesting example from print media: The Economist doesn't have author names. Critique and appreciation have both been expressed over this, but I don't think there's an answer that will convince you.
  - pydry 6y ago
    It's often said that nobody would read the Economist if they saw the kind of pimply faced recent graduates who actually wrote it. My cynical side says that this is a way of preventing journalists who work there from accumulating a fanbase which would give them leverage over the magazine (since they could then viably threaten to take to different publications). It fits in with their neoliberalish philosophy.
  - nmfisher 6y ago
    I actually prefer pseudonyms (or the Economist's anonymity/column name policy) in print media. It could be simple selection bias - perhaps better quality outlets tend to operate under pseudonyms, rather than pseudonyms themselves improving the quality of the publication. But I speculate that operating under one's real name might increase the propensity to craft and cling to an "identity". That horrible concept of a "personal brand", if you will. You want people to remember you - which means constant soundbites, hammering the same dumbed-down points from the same angles. There's no respite - it's under your real name, after all - so you slowly subsume yourself into this talking head that you've created. One day, you wake up, and you've completely lost any capacity for impartiality or objectivity. Pseudonyms also allow multiple people to write the same column. I've long wondered if the Economist engages in this practice (not that I would be critical if they did, it's out of sheer curiosity).
- BorisTheBrave 6y ago
  I think the two most common reasons for anonymity are: * blogging from an oppressive regime * to isolate yourself from online mobs If you write something controversial these days, sometimes it catches a wider audience and you can find yourself under a lot of attention. A minority of those poeple will not be nice, and may send death threats or worse. Your experience is a tiny fraction of what this can be like. Being anonymous takes out some of the sting. I can't think of a better illustration of the latter than https://metro.co.uk/2020/07/04/last-us-2-voice-actor-shares-horrifying-death-threats-people-dislike-character-12943471/ https://metro.co.uk/2020/07/04/last-us-2-voice-actor-shares-....
deathwarmedover 6y ago
When the author started with "this is not fool-proof by any means" the first thing that came to my mind was linguistic fingerprinting.
- k3liutZu 6y ago
  He does advise to use google translate to move the content from the original language to a different one and then back to alleviate this.
  - netsharc 6y ago
    Ha, "Hey Google, NSA here, do you have the server logs of people translating this passage?" Wait, why ask Google, they probably can just look in their own surveillance database. Geez, if Google Translate queries are logged, that's... a lot of information.
    - zimpenfish 6y ago
      I guess you could skirt around this by using something to tag the various parts of speech in your original text (using something like Python's NLTK) and replace them with randomly picked synonyms from a thesaurus? Pretty sure it would obscure the original writer although possibly at the cost of obscuring the original meaning.
    - KingOfCoders 6y ago
      If you use wordpress.com from Tor and use Google Translate from Tor, what do they learn more about you than just using wordpress.com? (I have no clue)
      - trentdk 6y ago
        I think what we’re concluding here is that using Google to obscure the linguistic style is flawed, because a state actor could obtain the original linguistic style from Google records, or from their own records of snooped traffic. In other words: the blog should find a way to obscure linguistic style offline.
netsharc 6y ago
Somehow the instruction that "Don't connect to your home/work WiFi" is down 3 lines before the end (Point 8 of "Notes"). I'd expect it to be between points 1 and 2 of Instructions. Just as a mental exercise, it seems going to a local coffee shop would make me easily spottable on CCTV, especially if they can correlate visits and posting times...
- 2038AD 6y ago
  > especially if they can correlate visits and posting times... You could schedule posts so times will not correlate. Tumblr has a queue which you can use to post at regular intervals throughout the day.
  - netsharc 6y ago
    The paranoid would worry that the men in black would ask Tumblr for the server logs, "When did this blogger insert this post in the queue?". I guess they could try using a blogging service hosted in a "non-cooperative" country. E.g. Russia, unless you want to blog about Putin.
    - 2038AD 6y ago
      VK would probably be your best bet for Russia. We could keep playing this game forever. Really you'd want a self-hosted site running from an anonymous VPS paid using a cryptocurrency like Monero (these exist) and your domain would use a similar service (say Njalla) or be TOR-exclusive. Alternatively you could go a more classic route and host with SDF (à la http://voidnull.sdf.org/ http://voidnull.sdf.org/). Or, if you're really paranoid, you'd give up on the whole thing. Maybe you'd still write but you'd keep it to yourself. As I see it, any interaction is a risk of exposure even if very small.
- michaelt 6y ago
  > it seems going to a local coffee shop would make me easily spottable on CCTV Depends if Tor has done its job and concealed the IP address you're posting from. Right now it's 10:30am in Iceland and 10:30pm in New Zealand so the fact you're posting at this time of day, and drinking coffee at this time of day, probably doesn't uniquely identify you. Indeed, I'd say always post at the same time of day, rather than posting at random times when coffee shops are open, as the former does a better job of concealing your timezone. (Obviously, if you're some Dread Pirate Roberts type and Tor doesn't do its job, it's game over.)
wGeF7H8Z59y985y 6y ago
> Why should someone interact with something that the author doesn't throw his/her/their name into? We currently live in a "there is only one correct opinion, all others must be canceled" culture. They've already come for anyone who showed even the faintest trace of dissent from the mindlessly woke mob's narrative. Next they'll come for those who have stayed silent. Failure to project virtue signaling will soon be used to deny employment and participation in other aspects of society. Just you wait. Anonymity is a risk mitigation technique that speaks to the very real desire to keep speech free. If speech has consequences that are administered outside the law, then it's not really free.
- dijit 6y ago
  I’m not sure if you’re aware or not. But you just proved a point I made.
  - jcims 6y ago
    I read it as supporting your point.
  - insickness 6y ago
    Because you started your comment with a question asking why, people thought you were genuinely asking a question rather than trying to make a point.
- Jaruzel 6y ago
  > We currently live in a "there is only one correct opinion, all others must be canceled" culture. I fully blame twitter (and the medias obsession with it) for this.
  - pydry 6y ago
    This is a problem that probably existed before writing itself, never mind Twitter.
    - 6y ago
oefrha 6y ago
For "casual bloggers who wish to keep their identities hidden from the general public", a good number of suggestions seem totally unnecessary, e.g. using a burner device, or avoid home/work networks (when you're already using Tor). What's the attack vector here? Someone hacking into wordpress.com servers and getting your OS/browser signatures (both pluggable)? Then what? And assuming they can hack into wordpress.com servers, your email alone would be a lot more valuable than aforementioned signatures. Meanwhile, for people worried about nation state actors, using a free blogging service is probably not enough, since it's damn hard these days to sign up for popular services that don't eventually link back to you.
- llbeansandrice 6y ago
  Yeah most of this feels like a howitzer for someone just trying to stay away from directly linking their identity to their personal blog. I guess it depends on your threat model though.
syshum 6y ago
Having gotten my start on the internet mid 90's it always amazes me the number of people that attached their offline identities to their online identies This was just something that was unheard of back then. It was an extension of "Stranger Danger" that you did not reveal who you were to the wide internet, sure some of your close friends may have known your online name but it was not openly broadcasted Fast forward to face book and their failed attempt to "Real names" under the assumption that it would make discourse less extreme we now know that was 100% wrong, and had the polar opposite effect I dont know if everyone needs to go to the extreme of protecting their ID from State Actors, though maybe we do. Everyone however should at minimum end the concept of "Real names" policy
- Fiveplus 6y ago
  The issue with emerging and easily accessible technology is that in 2020, especially for the younger folks venturing into their first jobs - at least some kind of social media presence is a pre-requisite. Our school's career center gave a presentation where this issue was raised. What if a student wants to not associate his/her political thoughts lest they create a hindrance for a future employer digging through the candidate's social media history. The solution offered was simple - never post anything remotely political on your 'real' profiles. But, we were asked to create them regardless and were told to be mildly active. A ghost profile seems a red flag, as such a non-existent one. Which to many people raises concerns about an individual. We were simply asked to bifurcate our online personas into two - one that was professional and one that was like you mentioned - anonymous.
  - syshum 6y ago
    >>A ghost profile seems a red flag, as such a non-existent one I guess my future is going to be limited then, because I have never, and will never have a "real" social media presence. Ever. That is a hard, never going to happen, even if I have live under a bridge
    - NineStarPoint 6y ago
      I think the context was of soon to be college graduates trying to get their first job. Which somewhat makes sense given how little information employers have to go off for those hires to begin with. Once you have your first job I can’t imagine most employers caring too much unless you work in a field like marketing where public perception is part of the job. (And connections to others in the industry are generally a better way to get good jobs anyway if you can swing it)
Google234 6y ago
Translating back and forth will result in horrible text
- kwhitefoot 6y ago
  Depends on which language pairs you try. Google does a very good job with several European languages. English to Norwegian and back often returns almost the same as the original. For instance the text above became: Avhenger av hvilke språkpar du prøver. Google gjør en veldig god jobb med flere europeiske språk. Engelsk til norsk og tilbake returnerer ofte nesten det samme som originalen. Which returned this English text: Depends on which language pair you are trying. Google does a very good job with several European languages. English to Norwegian and back often returns almost the same as the original.
M2Ys4U 6y ago
>We currently live in a "there is only one correct opinion, all others must be canceled" culture. We really, really aren't. >If speech has consequences that are administered outside the law, then it's not really free. Just take a moment and thing about what you just wrote. It's absolutely nonsense. I can't go in to a job interview and call the panel a bunch of cunts and then expect to be hired. That's a consequence of speech "administered outside the law". Does this mean there's no free speech? No, of course it doesn't. I find it interminably frustrating that people (moreso on the right, and moreso in America, but neither exclusively) hold free speech above pretty much everything else. People have more than ONE right. Free association is also a right that needs to be protected. And that means people should be free to associate with (or to NOT associate with) people that have said things they disagree with.
- fsflover 6y ago
  >>We currently live in a "there is only one correct opinion, all others must be canceled" culture. >We really, really aren't. Yes, we are. Example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22299156 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22299156
  - giancarlostoro 6y ago
    Something ironic about your post being downvoted or cancelled depending on your point of view. I think to an extent we seem to be heading towards a thought police society as evident by people losing their jobs over things they do or say that go viral online (if you need references I'll be happy to pull some up, but here in the USA at least its happened a number of times), this is often called cancel culture. We see it on HN all the time, sometimes I get downvoted to oblivion without a single response as to why. I come to HN for discourse and yet its too easy to shun out people without any consequence. I don't say things because I think every little thing I say is fact, I say it to share my view which now and then is unpopular so it holds me back from posting on HN a good amount of the time, I can assume there's other users with the same issue.
    - bakedbeanz 6y ago
ta262727464648 6y ago
I ventured into this a while ago. After thinking about it, I decided that if Google or the Government decided they wanted to know who I was, they'd find me one way or another. I'd go insane trying to stop them. But they weren't really my threat model anyway - I just wanted to write political ideas without strangers tying their perceptions of those ideas to my real self. I wasn't planning to write anything that could be perceived as illegal or close (eg, no inciting hate/violence/treason). So I thought of a pen name, created a Gmail for it, then a Twitter with that, and a Medium account with that. I blogged on Medium. I wasn't too worried about pissing off a rogue Medium/Twitter employee enough for them to try to doxx me, though it was the only thing to give me pause - and honestly, a run-of-the-mill VPN I only and always use for that probably would have been enough. Ultimately, if an internet mob was going to get me, it'd be because of my writing style or facts of my life I allude to in my posts. But even there, plausible deniability is likely good enough unless I really piss a lot of people off and drop a lot of personally identifying hints - which would be my own damn fault.
verytrivial 6y ago
Years ago I recall something with a name like anonyblog [Edit: invisiblog.com -- Thanks!] which accepted account creation and posts by--and only by--pseudonymous email. You remember--that crazy Mixmaster/PGP signed and forwarded stuff? Seemed really powerful for the 'publication' side, but still fragile regarding the hosting side. Admittedly 95% of the pages were various flavors of "OMG IT WORKED!" but that says more about pseudonymous email than anything. ps. Regarding censorship resistant hosting, the rabbit hole regarding e.g. Freenet is very deep and frankly leads to a hive of villainy.
- akaryocyte 6y ago
  invisiblog.com? Explained a bit here: https://globalvoices.org/2005/04/13/a-technical-guide-to-anonymous-blogging-a-very-early-draft/ https://globalvoices.org/2005/04/13/a-technical-guide-to-ano...
harias 6y ago
Related : How to exit the matrix (old - 2006) https://stalluminati.neocities.org/matrix/ https://stalluminati.neocities.org/matrix/
- EForEndeavour 6y ago
  This is an incredible tour de force of rhetoric/writing quality backed up with concrete, technical information. I've only read a few sections, but so much of it sounds like it could have been written this week, right down to the first sentences: "Privacy and anonymity have been eroded to the point of non-existence in recent years. Our personal, private information is stockpiled and sold to the highest bidder like so much inventory at a warehouse." The fact that such a trove of knowledge is published anonymously makes the work itself even more mysterious and compelling. This is the kind of WWW experience I want more of. Imagine all the countless other products of mad geniuses lurking out there beyond the meticulously maintained facades of social media and Medium-style blog platforms, styled with base HTML without a script, ad, or tracker in sight.
seaghost 6y ago
"Anonymity on the internet. People can say whatever they want without attaching their name, face and self-pride. This creates extremely unproductive conversations without consequences. Platforms such as Twitter propel this behavior to new heights. When it was local, you'd lose friends for being unpleasant, you'd lose credibility in your community for being inflammatory." [0] 100% agree with the author. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23656750 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23656750
- tux1968 6y ago
  The problem is that for most of us, we find some actual truths unpleasant and inflammatory. It's unfortunate that we're not all adept at accepting opposing ideas with more equanimity. But sometimes hearing difficult or poorly conveyed ideas can be helpful and healthy. Think of how many racists didn't want to hear about social justice and would have gladly used any means possible to ostracize those challenging the status-quo. Some civil-rights activists lives might have been saved had they been able to work anonymously. We should all be talking about how we can better manage our emotions in the face of trolls and opposing ideas -- rather than how to make all such discomfort disappear from view.
jermier 6y ago
Is it even possible to create a Protonmail account with Tor? I thought it asks for your phone number if you do that? (And we all know hopefully by now, handing over your phone number is a big no-no if you want to be anonymous)
zitterbewegung 6y ago
So why not use pastebin with a burner phone ? Write your blogs air gapped at home and then upload them using tor or a proxy.
vorpalhex 6y ago
This is very incomplete advice for the given threat scenario of "fearful of government persecution". > Snagging a cheap or used device is a good option Cheap devices may well phone home and a used device may be tampered with. I was surprised when reflashing a burner Xiaomi device to see the bootloader contained a nod to the CCP. > Navigate to WordPress.com and setup a free account with that new email address. Certainly Wordpress is not an ideal platform here from a security standpoint. You want a blogging platform that is overwhelmingly dumb - raw html files with minimal formatting would be perfect. > Feel free to use a VPN Don't use a VPN without knowing who it is owned by and seeing audit reports and even then be skeptical.
- vonmoltke 6y ago
  > This is very incomplete advice for the given threat scenario of "fearful of government persecution". That is in the list of things the article is saying it is not for.
- techntoke 6y ago
  Does it really matter if you use Tor as the first hop, and pay for it anonymously with crypto?
- asdfman123 6y ago
  This is good advice for people who are sufficiently safe to not face any repercussions, but sufficiently narcissistic to think anyone cares that much about what they have to write.
- celeritascelery 6y ago
  > I was surprised when reflashing a burner Xiaomi device to see the bootloader contained a nod to the CCP Anyone is concerned about privacy should never use a Chinese made product, hardware or software.
surround 6y ago
> Feel free to use a VPN, though Tor is more than enough for your needs. This is a misconception. Using a VPN with TOR makes you less anonymous, not more. https://write.privacytools.io/my-thoughts-on-security/slicing-onions-part-2-onion-recipes-vpn-not-required https://write.privacytools.io/my-thoughts-on-security/slicin...
- adrusi 6y ago
  ISP -> VPN -> Tor can be a good idea depending on your threat model, but if you're not completely sure that you need to do so, it's best to avoid it. ISP -> Tor -> VPN is generally extremely stupid, as tor is doing absolutely nothing for you if your VPN subscription is tied to your true identity. If, on the other hand, your VPN subscription is completely isolated from your true identity, then this can be a good way to bypass restrictions imposed by sites that block Tor. I'm not aware of tor-friendly VPN services, but I am aware of at least one tor-friendly VPS provider, which should be just as good given that your VPS subscription would not be tied to your true identity. Would not recommend using this method more than absolutely necessary, because although you can keep your true identity secret if you're very careful, it does become substantially easier to track you and ultimately unveil you by studying correlations (for one example, if your VPN is only active on the network while your home internet is connected to a Tor relay, over time you could be singled out as the most like source of that traffic).
  - ronsor 6y ago
    I have not done much research, but I believe Mullvad allows you to pay for a VPN anonymously using cash.
  - notRobot 6y ago
    > If ... your VPN subscription is completely isolated from your true identity One way to do this is to get a Mullvad subscription, and to pay for it with bitcoin. They don't even require an email address.
    - celestialcheese 6y ago
SAI_Peregrinus 6y ago
My personal interests are too varied and too niche to have much overlap with anyone else. The number of people interested in compilers, cryptography, radio electronics, trad climbing, bouldering, bird watching (I post checklists to Cornell eBird), marlinespike seamanship, knots in general (I'm in the International Guild of Knot Tyers), who play the Great Highland bagpipes, Irish traditional music (tin whistle & bodhran), Scottish Country Dancing (in the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society), and live near where those birding checklists get posted is probably 1. Yet I'm likely to write about all of those interests. De-anonymizing me from that is probably not terribly difficult. The intersection of the RSCDS, IGKT, and IEEE member directories probably doesn't contain many people, so even knowing that is likely enough to narrow it down to a handful, if not be outright unique.
- asdfman123 6y ago
  I think you need to tone down your highly illegal and risky bird watching blog posts then.
NamykLA3haa 6y ago
It feels a bit like instructions to operate an anonymous printing press in the Soviet Union. Very sad that we have reached that stage.
anonymous_cowar 6y ago
When I taught, I blogged anonymously as did many of the other teachers who blogged at the same time as I did. It was a means of preserving our jobs and enabling us to speak candidly about the challenges we faced. Some of us knew each other's secret identities and I once had someone post a comment on the blog identifying me based on clues they were able to piece together from my posts (I immediately deleted the comment). I post this anonymously now because even though I no longer teach, the blog still exists and I'd still prefer not to have those posts connected with me.
mD5pPxMcS6fVWKE 6y ago
I think Satoshi Nakamoto used double VPN. Haven't been found yet, in spite of EXTENSIVE search efforts.
tristor 6y ago
I have often considered blogging anonymously because I do not feel free to write my nuanced philosophical views about the world anymore, as nuance is mostly dead in the public discourse and anything I write could easily offend someone and cause me problems. But I decided that if I believed something and I was willing to say it aloud, I should be willing to write it down with my name attached. In the end, it has had the effect somewhat of self-censure, because I know some things I cannot write down, so I won't say them aloud either, even though they're perfectly reasonable and not prejudicial. The flip side has been that it's freed me in other ways to be radically honest about who I am in my writing and has helped me to more carefully identify people who are worth attempting a rational dialogue with. To a large degree, I think a lot of the challenges around nuance and offense-taking online are just a consequence of how communications being mediated by the Internet dehumanizes people. My experience has been that having a deep conversation over a drink in person generally leads to more positive outcomes, even with irreconcilable disagreements, than writing something online which can be excoriated on social media. This article seems more focused on situations in which you are concerned about government action, but I think here in the West we've found that "cancel culture" and the like is more insidious and far-reaching in its own way.
- hakka-nyu-su 6y ago
  As I understand the term "cancel culture", it mostly relates to celebrities who were already controversial or polarizing in some way, that were finally able to be organized against. And in many cases, the same celebrities are still able to have a career that is sometimes even boosted by their ability to campaign against "cancel culture" generally. Do you have any books/articles/resources for thinking about "cancel culture" as it would relate to an ordinary person writing an ordinary blog?
  - celestialcheese 6y ago
    "so you've been publicly shamed" by jon ronson goes into this, I don't remember if there's specific stories about personal bloggers, but there's stories from normal, everyday people.
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x1798DE 6y ago
One thing this doesn't address is how to build an audience anonymously. I have occasionally considered creating a pseudonymous blog, but I don't know how to acquire readers without leaking information about my existing social network. I feel like anonymous submissions to stuff like reddit and HN rarely get traction.
- dredmorbius 6y ago
  Post reasonably intelligent (or what the hell: insipidly viral) content, engage with others. Traction builds, though it can be slow-going.
bun_at_work 6y ago
This is a terrible idea. Anonymity online encourages people to be highly inflammatory, and in the US, this has led to a massive cultural divide (not the only cause, though). Human social pattens and behaviors have led humans to correct bad social behavior through a mechanism based on reputation. If you say/do terrible things (what the group disagrees with), your reputation suffers, which discourages saying/doing those things. However, with anonymity, we become victim to the dopamine feedback loops available in online patterns. In the case of anonymous blogs, the stronger signal will be traffic on the blog, regardless of why that traffic is there. Unfortunately, saying inflammatory (prejudiced) things will generate traffic. Othering will generate traffic. Being reasonable and nuanced with drive traffic away in an online environment that provides dopamine hits for much less effort than understanding a complex topic. This means online anonymity for the masses is largely a bad thing for society as a whole, which is evident with a cursory glance at the anonymous parts of the internet (4chan, for example). It's also evident in less anonymous, but still anonymous places like Reddit, which sees nearly as much trolling as 4chan, but reputation is part of the Reddit system, and Hacker News system as well (just the reputation of your account instead of your real identity). I should qualify my opinion here: I don't think anonymity is always bad, but in aggregate online, I think it's causing more damage to our society than good. People in a functional society need to be help accountable to the society for their actions, and anonymity removes that social accountability.
- vorpalhex 6y ago
  Anonymity is an important part of free speech. That which is unpopular can still be truthful. Just because an angry mob descends on you doesn't mean your words are incorrect. Being inflammatory doesn't mean being prejudiced or wrong. There was a time when speaking for trans rights was "inflammatory".
- 1tCKV3QfIo 6y ago
  Go live in mainland China if you are such a fan social harmony.
romanovtexas 6y ago
The irony, coming from a non anonymous blog
hellofunk 6y ago
> Run your articles through multiple translation converters. Edit minor mistakes afterwards. This avoids engines and tools picking up on your writing style. Sounds like a good opportunity for a tool that will do this for you -- send it through a bunch of different converters in a feed pipeline. Would be fun to see the results.
- bldavies 6y ago
  Try this: https://obfuscator.albertnis.com https://obfuscator.albertnis.com
sitzkrieg 6y ago
tor AND avoiding posting on home network? thats a lot of FUD
ytrytr 6y ago
HN is filled with people who are hardly ever on the receiving end of abuse bemoaning "cancel culture". Yeah yeah, cry me a river. People are really out here using Justine Sacco, who spoke about going to a country and getting AIDS and got rightfully attacked by the citizens of that country, as a poster child. Lol it seems like a lot of you have lived lives without consequences for your actions and are suddenly surprised that this is how the real world works. I personally wouldn't cancel anyone but I hope cancel culture lives forever.
type0 6y ago
> Never use a custom domain name - these require some of your personal information when being registered. Even with whois privacy protection, certain law enforcement can demand for these credentials. Not just law enforcement, shady companies like FB all try to get their greasy hands on that info. Panopticon is one closed circle.
627467 6y ago
Another way to blog anonymously (depending on how you connect to the service) is to use telegra.ph: telegram's minimal blogging tool that doesn't require an account.
luord 6y ago
Or one could post exclusively about one's interests and nothing even remotely political. That's what I have in my blog. Of course, not the same applies to my twitter and facebook accounts. I've never posted anything really controversial, but there are some political posts. I remain optimistic, though, maybe I won't have to delete them. Hopefully.
nephanth 6y ago
Some time ago, for anonymous blogging there was a pretty good solution called freenet. Dunno if it is still around but it was really interesting technologically speaking
joubert 6y ago
Thanks to so many people in this thread for thoughtful discourse and helping me on my journey to understand the issues better. I just watched The Outrage Machine, which is a short (12mins) documentary that can help us learn. It talks about trolling, the yearning to judge, public shaming, cancel culture, mob mentality, moral superiority, harassment, abuse. https://www.retroreport.org/video/the-outrage-machine/ https://www.retroreport.org/video/the-outrage-machine/
_qbxp 6y ago
Tangential to the content of the blog, I’m always weary of anything being labeled “anonymous” if it contains a lot of text that you personally wrote. Stylometry is a thing and it apparently works (I do need a citation, but on mobile and don’t have time - a quick Google search will return some results). I can see a future or even present where all it takes is a snippet of text that somebody knows is yours, and then a model to provide the probability that any given text off the internet (comments, blogs, etc) is written by you. People write and speak in very unique ways. As you increase the amount of your text, it becomes even more unique, like a blog.
yhavr 6y ago
I'm kinda unfamiliar with the real situation on the western internet. What are top-3 things that could happen if I start writing things that are uncomfortable to the loud minority?

210 points by bradley_taunt 6y ago

How would one store the long, random passwords for these e-mail and blogging accounts, given TAILS is so reluctant to save anything to disk?

Zanni 6y ago
https://xkcd.com/936/ https://xkcd.com/936/
zimpenfish 6y ago
Use a book? You can probably remember "Page 32, Line 7" is the passphrase for site N and you've got oodles of data to work with for generating the passphrase. You can probably even mark the passphrase itself if you have a lot of other marked passages in the book as if you were doing research. Probably want to carry 2-3 other marked books as well to avoid highlighting any specific one as "valuable". (Disclaimer: I am not a spy, take advice from real spies before me.)
rakoo 6y ago
Use a password manager and store it somewhere on the cloud, protected by one master password you memorize ?

dijit 6y ago

This goes into the how, but to me the more interesting question is the 'why'. Why should someone interact with something that the author doesn't throw his/her/their name into? I only have one example of why; I'm a genuinely curious and open person and I like having my beliefs tested, some of my beliefs are nuanced enough that I sometimes break down my current beliefs and my reasons into blog posts. Things that I think are dangerous or damaging especially so, and those are usually the most controversial things so it's more difficult for people to engage with a nuanced opinion. In one case in a job interview I had a person bring up a blog post (I believe it was "On the Merits of Meritocracy" where I actually gave good arguments pro and against) and he spent the entire time telling me why I was wrong and that meritocracy was bad, citing Caroline Ada Ehmke's piece(s).[0] Which, ironically I had cited extensively and was the impetus for the discussion. Nonetheless the experience left me feeling icky, the interviewer had ascribed a set of beliefs to me which I did not hold because he disengaged completely with the article and read only the headline. This is a good reason to blog anonymously in my limited opinion; you're free to engage openly. [0]: https://postmeritocracy.org/ https://postmeritocracy.org/

grenoire 6y ago
Interesting example from print media: The Economist doesn't have author names. Critique and appreciation have both been expressed over this, but I don't think there's an answer that will convince you.
- pydry 6y ago
  It's often said that nobody would read the Economist if they saw the kind of pimply faced recent graduates who actually wrote it. My cynical side says that this is a way of preventing journalists who work there from accumulating a fanbase which would give them leverage over the magazine (since they could then viably threaten to take to different publications). It fits in with their neoliberalish philosophy.
- nmfisher 6y ago
  I actually prefer pseudonyms (or the Economist's anonymity/column name policy) in print media. It could be simple selection bias - perhaps better quality outlets tend to operate under pseudonyms, rather than pseudonyms themselves improving the quality of the publication. But I speculate that operating under one's real name might increase the propensity to craft and cling to an "identity". That horrible concept of a "personal brand", if you will. You want people to remember you - which means constant soundbites, hammering the same dumbed-down points from the same angles. There's no respite - it's under your real name, after all - so you slowly subsume yourself into this talking head that you've created. One day, you wake up, and you've completely lost any capacity for impartiality or objectivity. Pseudonyms also allow multiple people to write the same column. I've long wondered if the Economist engages in this practice (not that I would be critical if they did, it's out of sheer curiosity).
BorisTheBrave 6y ago
I think the two most common reasons for anonymity are: * blogging from an oppressive regime * to isolate yourself from online mobs If you write something controversial these days, sometimes it catches a wider audience and you can find yourself under a lot of attention. A minority of those poeple will not be nice, and may send death threats or worse. Your experience is a tiny fraction of what this can be like. Being anonymous takes out some of the sting. I can't think of a better illustration of the latter than https://metro.co.uk/2020/07/04/last-us-2-voice-actor-shares-horrifying-death-threats-people-dislike-character-12943471/ https://metro.co.uk/2020/07/04/last-us-2-voice-actor-shares-....

deathwarmedover 6y ago

When the author started with "this is not fool-proof by any means" the first thing that came to my mind was linguistic fingerprinting.

k3liutZu 6y ago
He does advise to use google translate to move the content from the original language to a different one and then back to alleviate this.
- netsharc 6y ago
  Ha, "Hey Google, NSA here, do you have the server logs of people translating this passage?" Wait, why ask Google, they probably can just look in their own surveillance database. Geez, if Google Translate queries are logged, that's... a lot of information.
  - zimpenfish 6y ago
    I guess you could skirt around this by using something to tag the various parts of speech in your original text (using something like Python's NLTK) and replace them with randomly picked synonyms from a thesaurus? Pretty sure it would obscure the original writer although possibly at the cost of obscuring the original meaning.
  - KingOfCoders 6y ago
    If you use wordpress.com from Tor and use Google Translate from Tor, what do they learn more about you than just using wordpress.com? (I have no clue)
    - trentdk 6y ago
      I think what we’re concluding here is that using Google to obscure the linguistic style is flawed, because a state actor could obtain the original linguistic style from Google records, or from their own records of snooped traffic. In other words: the blog should find a way to obscure linguistic style offline.

netsharc 6y ago

Somehow the instruction that "Don't connect to your home/work WiFi" is down 3 lines before the end (Point 8 of "Notes"). I'd expect it to be between points 1 and 2 of Instructions. Just as a mental exercise, it seems going to a local coffee shop would make me easily spottable on CCTV, especially if they can correlate visits and posting times...

2038AD 6y ago
> especially if they can correlate visits and posting times... You could schedule posts so times will not correlate. Tumblr has a queue which you can use to post at regular intervals throughout the day.
- netsharc 6y ago
  The paranoid would worry that the men in black would ask Tumblr for the server logs, "When did this blogger insert this post in the queue?". I guess they could try using a blogging service hosted in a "non-cooperative" country. E.g. Russia, unless you want to blog about Putin.
  - 2038AD 6y ago
    VK would probably be your best bet for Russia. We could keep playing this game forever. Really you'd want a self-hosted site running from an anonymous VPS paid using a cryptocurrency like Monero (these exist) and your domain would use a similar service (say Njalla) or be TOR-exclusive. Alternatively you could go a more classic route and host with SDF (à la http://voidnull.sdf.org/ http://voidnull.sdf.org/). Or, if you're really paranoid, you'd give up on the whole thing. Maybe you'd still write but you'd keep it to yourself. As I see it, any interaction is a risk of exposure even if very small.
michaelt 6y ago
> it seems going to a local coffee shop would make me easily spottable on CCTV Depends if Tor has done its job and concealed the IP address you're posting from. Right now it's 10:30am in Iceland and 10:30pm in New Zealand so the fact you're posting at this time of day, and drinking coffee at this time of day, probably doesn't uniquely identify you. Indeed, I'd say always post at the same time of day, rather than posting at random times when coffee shops are open, as the former does a better job of concealing your timezone. (Obviously, if you're some Dread Pirate Roberts type and Tor doesn't do its job, it's game over.)

wGeF7H8Z59y985y 6y ago

> Why should someone interact with something that the author doesn't throw his/her/their name into? We currently live in a "there is only one correct opinion, all others must be canceled" culture. They've already come for anyone who showed even the faintest trace of dissent from the mindlessly woke mob's narrative. Next they'll come for those who have stayed silent. Failure to project virtue signaling will soon be used to deny employment and participation in other aspects of society. Just you wait. Anonymity is a risk mitigation technique that speaks to the very real desire to keep speech free. If speech has consequences that are administered outside the law, then it's not really free.

dijit 6y ago
I’m not sure if you’re aware or not. But you just proved a point I made.
- jcims 6y ago
  I read it as supporting your point.
- insickness 6y ago
  Because you started your comment with a question asking why, people thought you were genuinely asking a question rather than trying to make a point.
Jaruzel 6y ago
> We currently live in a "there is only one correct opinion, all others must be canceled" culture. I fully blame twitter (and the medias obsession with it) for this.
- pydry 6y ago
  This is a problem that probably existed before writing itself, never mind Twitter.
  - 6y ago

oefrha 6y ago

For "casual bloggers who wish to keep their identities hidden from the general public", a good number of suggestions seem totally unnecessary, e.g. using a burner device, or avoid home/work networks (when you're already using Tor). What's the attack vector here? Someone hacking into wordpress.com servers and getting your OS/browser signatures (both pluggable)? Then what? And assuming they can hack into wordpress.com servers, your email alone would be a lot more valuable than aforementioned signatures. Meanwhile, for people worried about nation state actors, using a free blogging service is probably not enough, since it's damn hard these days to sign up for popular services that don't eventually link back to you.

llbeansandrice 6y ago
Yeah most of this feels like a howitzer for someone just trying to stay away from directly linking their identity to their personal blog. I guess it depends on your threat model though.

syshum 6y ago

Having gotten my start on the internet mid 90's it always amazes me the number of people that attached their offline identities to their online identies This was just something that was unheard of back then. It was an extension of "Stranger Danger" that you did not reveal who you were to the wide internet, sure some of your close friends may have known your online name but it was not openly broadcasted Fast forward to face book and their failed attempt to "Real names" under the assumption that it would make discourse less extreme we now know that was 100% wrong, and had the polar opposite effect I dont know if everyone needs to go to the extreme of protecting their ID from State Actors, though maybe we do. Everyone however should at minimum end the concept of "Real names" policy

Fiveplus 6y ago
The issue with emerging and easily accessible technology is that in 2020, especially for the younger folks venturing into their first jobs - at least some kind of social media presence is a pre-requisite. Our school's career center gave a presentation where this issue was raised. What if a student wants to not associate his/her political thoughts lest they create a hindrance for a future employer digging through the candidate's social media history. The solution offered was simple - never post anything remotely political on your 'real' profiles. But, we were asked to create them regardless and were told to be mildly active. A ghost profile seems a red flag, as such a non-existent one. Which to many people raises concerns about an individual. We were simply asked to bifurcate our online personas into two - one that was professional and one that was like you mentioned - anonymous.
- syshum 6y ago
  >>A ghost profile seems a red flag, as such a non-existent one I guess my future is going to be limited then, because I have never, and will never have a "real" social media presence. Ever. That is a hard, never going to happen, even if I have live under a bridge
  - NineStarPoint 6y ago
    I think the context was of soon to be college graduates trying to get their first job. Which somewhat makes sense given how little information employers have to go off for those hires to begin with. Once you have your first job I can’t imagine most employers caring too much unless you work in a field like marketing where public perception is part of the job. (And connections to others in the industry are generally a better way to get good jobs anyway if you can swing it)

Google234 6y ago

Translating back and forth will result in horrible text

kwhitefoot 6y ago
Depends on which language pairs you try. Google does a very good job with several European languages. English to Norwegian and back often returns almost the same as the original. For instance the text above became: Avhenger av hvilke språkpar du prøver. Google gjør en veldig god jobb med flere europeiske språk. Engelsk til norsk og tilbake returnerer ofte nesten det samme som originalen. Which returned this English text: Depends on which language pair you are trying. Google does a very good job with several European languages. English to Norwegian and back often returns almost the same as the original.

M2Ys4U 6y ago

>We currently live in a "there is only one correct opinion, all others must be canceled" culture. We really, really aren't. >If speech has consequences that are administered outside the law, then it's not really free. Just take a moment and thing about what you just wrote. It's absolutely nonsense. I can't go in to a job interview and call the panel a bunch of cunts and then expect to be hired. That's a consequence of speech "administered outside the law". Does this mean there's no free speech? No, of course it doesn't. I find it interminably frustrating that people (moreso on the right, and moreso in America, but neither exclusively) hold free speech above pretty much everything else. People have more than ONE right. Free association is also a right that needs to be protected. And that means people should be free to associate with (or to NOT associate with) people that have said things they disagree with.

fsflover 6y ago
>>We currently live in a "there is only one correct opinion, all others must be canceled" culture. >We really, really aren't. Yes, we are. Example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22299156 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22299156
- giancarlostoro 6y ago
  Something ironic about your post being downvoted or cancelled depending on your point of view. I think to an extent we seem to be heading towards a thought police society as evident by people losing their jobs over things they do or say that go viral online (if you need references I'll be happy to pull some up, but here in the USA at least its happened a number of times), this is often called cancel culture. We see it on HN all the time, sometimes I get downvoted to oblivion without a single response as to why. I come to HN for discourse and yet its too easy to shun out people without any consequence. I don't say things because I think every little thing I say is fact, I say it to share my view which now and then is unpopular so it holds me back from posting on HN a good amount of the time, I can assume there's other users with the same issue.
  - bakedbeanz 6y ago

ta262727464648 6y ago

I ventured into this a while ago. After thinking about it, I decided that if Google or the Government decided they wanted to know who I was, they'd find me one way or another. I'd go insane trying to stop them. But they weren't really my threat model anyway - I just wanted to write political ideas without strangers tying their perceptions of those ideas to my real self. I wasn't planning to write anything that could be perceived as illegal or close (eg, no inciting hate/violence/treason). So I thought of a pen name, created a Gmail for it, then a Twitter with that, and a Medium account with that. I blogged on Medium. I wasn't too worried about pissing off a rogue Medium/Twitter employee enough for them to try to doxx me, though it was the only thing to give me pause - and honestly, a run-of-the-mill VPN I only and always use for that probably would have been enough. Ultimately, if an internet mob was going to get me, it'd be because of my writing style or facts of my life I allude to in my posts. But even there, plausible deniability is likely good enough unless I really piss a lot of people off and drop a lot of personally identifying hints - which would be my own damn fault.

verytrivial 6y ago

Years ago I recall something with a name like anonyblog [Edit: invisiblog.com -- Thanks!] which accepted account creation and posts by--and only by--pseudonymous email. You remember--that crazy Mixmaster/PGP signed and forwarded stuff? Seemed really powerful for the 'publication' side, but still fragile regarding the hosting side. Admittedly 95% of the pages were various flavors of "OMG IT WORKED!" but that says more about pseudonymous email than anything. ps. Regarding censorship resistant hosting, the rabbit hole regarding e.g. Freenet is very deep and frankly leads to a hive of villainy.

akaryocyte 6y ago
invisiblog.com? Explained a bit here: https://globalvoices.org/2005/04/13/a-technical-guide-to-anonymous-blogging-a-very-early-draft/ https://globalvoices.org/2005/04/13/a-technical-guide-to-ano...

harias 6y ago

Related : How to exit the matrix (old - 2006) https://stalluminati.neocities.org/matrix/ https://stalluminati.neocities.org/matrix/

EForEndeavour 6y ago
This is an incredible tour de force of rhetoric/writing quality backed up with concrete, technical information. I've only read a few sections, but so much of it sounds like it could have been written this week, right down to the first sentences: "Privacy and anonymity have been eroded to the point of non-existence in recent years. Our personal, private information is stockpiled and sold to the highest bidder like so much inventory at a warehouse." The fact that such a trove of knowledge is published anonymously makes the work itself even more mysterious and compelling. This is the kind of WWW experience I want more of. Imagine all the countless other products of mad geniuses lurking out there beyond the meticulously maintained facades of social media and Medium-style blog platforms, styled with base HTML without a script, ad, or tracker in sight.

seaghost 6y ago

"Anonymity on the internet. People can say whatever they want without attaching their name, face and self-pride. This creates extremely unproductive conversations without consequences. Platforms such as Twitter propel this behavior to new heights. When it was local, you'd lose friends for being unpleasant, you'd lose credibility in your community for being inflammatory." [0] 100% agree with the author. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23656750 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23656750

tux1968 6y ago
The problem is that for most of us, we find some actual truths unpleasant and inflammatory. It's unfortunate that we're not all adept at accepting opposing ideas with more equanimity. But sometimes hearing difficult or poorly conveyed ideas can be helpful and healthy. Think of how many racists didn't want to hear about social justice and would have gladly used any means possible to ostracize those challenging the status-quo. Some civil-rights activists lives might have been saved had they been able to work anonymously. We should all be talking about how we can better manage our emotions in the face of trolls and opposing ideas -- rather than how to make all such discomfort disappear from view.

jermier 6y ago

Is it even possible to create a Protonmail account with Tor? I thought it asks for your phone number if you do that? (And we all know hopefully by now, handing over your phone number is a big no-no if you want to be anonymous)

zitterbewegung 6y ago

So why not use pastebin with a burner phone ? Write your blogs air gapped at home and then upload them using tor or a proxy.

vorpalhex 6y ago

This is very incomplete advice for the given threat scenario of "fearful of government persecution". > Snagging a cheap or used device is a good option Cheap devices may well phone home and a used device may be tampered with. I was surprised when reflashing a burner Xiaomi device to see the bootloader contained a nod to the CCP. > Navigate to WordPress.com and setup a free account with that new email address. Certainly Wordpress is not an ideal platform here from a security standpoint. You want a blogging platform that is overwhelmingly dumb - raw html files with minimal formatting would be perfect. > Feel free to use a VPN Don't use a VPN without knowing who it is owned by and seeing audit reports and even then be skeptical.

vonmoltke 6y ago
> This is very incomplete advice for the given threat scenario of "fearful of government persecution". That is in the list of things the article is saying it is not for.
techntoke 6y ago
Does it really matter if you use Tor as the first hop, and pay for it anonymously with crypto?
asdfman123 6y ago
This is good advice for people who are sufficiently safe to not face any repercussions, but sufficiently narcissistic to think anyone cares that much about what they have to write.
celeritascelery 6y ago
> I was surprised when reflashing a burner Xiaomi device to see the bootloader contained a nod to the CCP Anyone is concerned about privacy should never use a Chinese made product, hardware or software.

surround 6y ago

> Feel free to use a VPN, though Tor is more than enough for your needs. This is a misconception. Using a VPN with TOR makes you less anonymous, not more. https://write.privacytools.io/my-thoughts-on-security/slicing-onions-part-2-onion-recipes-vpn-not-required https://write.privacytools.io/my-thoughts-on-security/slicin...

adrusi 6y ago
ISP -> VPN -> Tor can be a good idea depending on your threat model, but if you're not completely sure that you need to do so, it's best to avoid it. ISP -> Tor -> VPN is generally extremely stupid, as tor is doing absolutely nothing for you if your VPN subscription is tied to your true identity. If, on the other hand, your VPN subscription is completely isolated from your true identity, then this can be a good way to bypass restrictions imposed by sites that block Tor. I'm not aware of tor-friendly VPN services, but I am aware of at least one tor-friendly VPS provider, which should be just as good given that your VPS subscription would not be tied to your true identity. Would not recommend using this method more than absolutely necessary, because although you can keep your true identity secret if you're very careful, it does become substantially easier to track you and ultimately unveil you by studying correlations (for one example, if your VPN is only active on the network while your home internet is connected to a Tor relay, over time you could be singled out as the most like source of that traffic).
- ronsor 6y ago
  I have not done much research, but I believe Mullvad allows you to pay for a VPN anonymously using cash.
- notRobot 6y ago
  > If ... your VPN subscription is completely isolated from your true identity One way to do this is to get a Mullvad subscription, and to pay for it with bitcoin. They don't even require an email address.
  - celestialcheese 6y ago

SAI_Peregrinus 6y ago

My personal interests are too varied and too niche to have much overlap with anyone else. The number of people interested in compilers, cryptography, radio electronics, trad climbing, bouldering, bird watching (I post checklists to Cornell eBird), marlinespike seamanship, knots in general (I'm in the International Guild of Knot Tyers), who play the Great Highland bagpipes, Irish traditional music (tin whistle & bodhran), Scottish Country Dancing (in the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society), and live near where those birding checklists get posted is probably 1. Yet I'm likely to write about all of those interests. De-anonymizing me from that is probably not terribly difficult. The intersection of the RSCDS, IGKT, and IEEE member directories probably doesn't contain many people, so even knowing that is likely enough to narrow it down to a handful, if not be outright unique.

asdfman123 6y ago
I think you need to tone down your highly illegal and risky bird watching blog posts then.

NamykLA3haa 6y ago

It feels a bit like instructions to operate an anonymous printing press in the Soviet Union. Very sad that we have reached that stage.

anonymous_cowar 6y ago

When I taught, I blogged anonymously as did many of the other teachers who blogged at the same time as I did. It was a means of preserving our jobs and enabling us to speak candidly about the challenges we faced. Some of us knew each other's secret identities and I once had someone post a comment on the blog identifying me based on clues they were able to piece together from my posts (I immediately deleted the comment). I post this anonymously now because even though I no longer teach, the blog still exists and I'd still prefer not to have those posts connected with me.

mD5pPxMcS6fVWKE 6y ago

I think Satoshi Nakamoto used double VPN. Haven't been found yet, in spite of EXTENSIVE search efforts.

tristor 6y ago

I have often considered blogging anonymously because I do not feel free to write my nuanced philosophical views about the world anymore, as nuance is mostly dead in the public discourse and anything I write could easily offend someone and cause me problems. But I decided that if I believed something and I was willing to say it aloud, I should be willing to write it down with my name attached. In the end, it has had the effect somewhat of self-censure, because I know some things I cannot write down, so I won't say them aloud either, even though they're perfectly reasonable and not prejudicial. The flip side has been that it's freed me in other ways to be radically honest about who I am in my writing and has helped me to more carefully identify people who are worth attempting a rational dialogue with. To a large degree, I think a lot of the challenges around nuance and offense-taking online are just a consequence of how communications being mediated by the Internet dehumanizes people. My experience has been that having a deep conversation over a drink in person generally leads to more positive outcomes, even with irreconcilable disagreements, than writing something online which can be excoriated on social media. This article seems more focused on situations in which you are concerned about government action, but I think here in the West we've found that "cancel culture" and the like is more insidious and far-reaching in its own way.

hakka-nyu-su 6y ago
As I understand the term "cancel culture", it mostly relates to celebrities who were already controversial or polarizing in some way, that were finally able to be organized against. And in many cases, the same celebrities are still able to have a career that is sometimes even boosted by their ability to campaign against "cancel culture" generally. Do you have any books/articles/resources for thinking about "cancel culture" as it would relate to an ordinary person writing an ordinary blog?
- celestialcheese 6y ago
  "so you've been publicly shamed" by jon ronson goes into this, I don't remember if there's specific stories about personal bloggers, but there's stories from normal, everyday people.

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x1798DE 6y ago

One thing this doesn't address is how to build an audience anonymously. I have occasionally considered creating a pseudonymous blog, but I don't know how to acquire readers without leaking information about my existing social network. I feel like anonymous submissions to stuff like reddit and HN rarely get traction.

dredmorbius 6y ago
Post reasonably intelligent (or what the hell: insipidly viral) content, engage with others. Traction builds, though it can be slow-going.

bun_at_work 6y ago

This is a terrible idea. Anonymity online encourages people to be highly inflammatory, and in the US, this has led to a massive cultural divide (not the only cause, though). Human social pattens and behaviors have led humans to correct bad social behavior through a mechanism based on reputation. If you say/do terrible things (what the group disagrees with), your reputation suffers, which discourages saying/doing those things. However, with anonymity, we become victim to the dopamine feedback loops available in online patterns. In the case of anonymous blogs, the stronger signal will be traffic on the blog, regardless of why that traffic is there. Unfortunately, saying inflammatory (prejudiced) things will generate traffic. Othering will generate traffic. Being reasonable and nuanced with drive traffic away in an online environment that provides dopamine hits for much less effort than understanding a complex topic. This means online anonymity for the masses is largely a bad thing for society as a whole, which is evident with a cursory glance at the anonymous parts of the internet (4chan, for example). It's also evident in less anonymous, but still anonymous places like Reddit, which sees nearly as much trolling as 4chan, but reputation is part of the Reddit system, and Hacker News system as well (just the reputation of your account instead of your real identity). I should qualify my opinion here: I don't think anonymity is always bad, but in aggregate online, I think it's causing more damage to our society than good. People in a functional society need to be help accountable to the society for their actions, and anonymity removes that social accountability.

vorpalhex 6y ago
Anonymity is an important part of free speech. That which is unpopular can still be truthful. Just because an angry mob descends on you doesn't mean your words are incorrect. Being inflammatory doesn't mean being prejudiced or wrong. There was a time when speaking for trans rights was "inflammatory".
1tCKV3QfIo 6y ago
Go live in mainland China if you are such a fan social harmony.

romanovtexas 6y ago

The irony, coming from a non anonymous blog

hellofunk 6y ago

> Run your articles through multiple translation converters. Edit minor mistakes afterwards. This avoids engines and tools picking up on your writing style. Sounds like a good opportunity for a tool that will do this for you -- send it through a bunch of different converters in a feed pipeline. Would be fun to see the results.

bldavies 6y ago
Try this: https://obfuscator.albertnis.com https://obfuscator.albertnis.com

sitzkrieg 6y ago

tor AND avoiding posting on home network? thats a lot of FUD

ytrytr 6y ago

HN is filled with people who are hardly ever on the receiving end of abuse bemoaning "cancel culture". Yeah yeah, cry me a river. People are really out here using Justine Sacco, who spoke about going to a country and getting AIDS and got rightfully attacked by the citizens of that country, as a poster child. Lol it seems like a lot of you have lived lives without consequences for your actions and are suddenly surprised that this is how the real world works. I personally wouldn't cancel anyone but I hope cancel culture lives forever.

type0 6y ago

> Never use a custom domain name - these require some of your personal information when being registered. Even with whois privacy protection, certain law enforcement can demand for these credentials. Not just law enforcement, shady companies like FB all try to get their greasy hands on that info. Panopticon is one closed circle.

627467 6y ago

Another way to blog anonymously (depending on how you connect to the service) is to use telegra.ph: telegram's minimal blogging tool that doesn't require an account.

luord 6y ago

Or one could post exclusively about one's interests and nothing even remotely political. That's what I have in my blog. Of course, not the same applies to my twitter and facebook accounts. I've never posted anything really controversial, but there are some political posts. I remain optimistic, though, maybe I won't have to delete them. Hopefully.

nephanth 6y ago

Some time ago, for anonymous blogging there was a pretty good solution called freenet. Dunno if it is still around but it was really interesting technologically speaking

joubert 6y ago

Thanks to so many people in this thread for thoughtful discourse and helping me on my journey to understand the issues better. I just watched The Outrage Machine, which is a short (12mins) documentary that can help us learn. It talks about trolling, the yearning to judge, public shaming, cancel culture, mob mentality, moral superiority, harassment, abuse. https://www.retroreport.org/video/the-outrage-machine/ https://www.retroreport.org/video/the-outrage-machine/

_qbxp 6y ago

Tangential to the content of the blog, I’m always weary of anything being labeled “anonymous” if it contains a lot of text that you personally wrote. Stylometry is a thing and it apparently works (I do need a citation, but on mobile and don’t have time - a quick Google search will return some results). I can see a future or even present where all it takes is a snippet of text that somebody knows is yours, and then a model to provide the probability that any given text off the internet (comments, blogs, etc) is written by you. People write and speak in very unique ways. As you increase the amount of your text, it becomes even more unique, like a blog.

yhavr 6y ago

I'm kinda unfamiliar with the real situation on the western internet. What are top-3 things that could happen if I start writing things that are uncomfortable to the loud minority?