On Fri, 6 Nov 2009, StealthMonger wrote:
I don't use a nym-server. Usually. There are other ways to get comparable anonymity.
Please explain other ways to be practically untraceable.
Shell providing and VPS providing is a cut throat business. It might take a few contacts (with a throwaway yahoo email you create through Tor) but you _will_ find someone to take your money (in cash). Lifetime or multi-annual payments in advance usually do the trick. The previously mentioned Simon gift cards could fit into this, but why bother. Never touch the account, save through Tor. So it's the same model you use with a nym-server, but whereas all of your obfuscation is after your email account, all of this obfuscation is prior to the email account (through Tor). @ John Young:
Cypherpunks should be the last place to disclose a protection methodology except, perhaps, only perhaps, as a ploy to deceive.
Recall repeated warnings here to never disclose in a public forum an ultimate protection scheme. Spread copious FUD, hope it sticks. Could be that is what this thread is about.
I don't know that this even rises to the level of a "protection methodology" - it's more along the lines of "survey the current landscape and choose an available, and obvious route". As for robustness, either Tor is broken/vulnerable or it's not. @ Eugen Leitl:
My threat model is an unknown future adversary with unpredictable motivations.
Weird. I can think of many current adversaries with very simple motivations I can do very little to nothing about. This assymmetry will only grow further in future, since the concentration of smarter, more vulnerable hardware will only get larger, and the delta between my and their capabilities will only grow wider.
Sorry - I was obtuse there. What I meant was, in addition to the technical unknowns that grow over time, and the predictable and visible social pressures, there are also the acute unknowns - like french revolutions and bolsheviks and "year zero" folks. Those are the unknowns who could just as easily be after anyone that advocated net neutrality, or supported Tor or spoke on behalf of anonymity as they are after obvious bozos who blatantly threaten public figures. That's why _I_ keep a firewall between my real self and my nyms - year zero types don't need a good reason, they just need fuel, period.
My only protection is that I'm not doing anything which could draw their (not meaning flatfeet or gumshoes here) attention.
Of course. Goes without saying. But I think there is actually a lot less distance (in terms of danger) between assassination politics and "just talking about Tor". Or maybe the future revolutionary just fat-fingers the database query. Either way, your name comes up.