Ethan Zuckerman (co-founder of Global Voices Online) published a very thorough how-to guide titled "Anonymous Blogging with Wordpress and Tor", a free downloadable pdf available on the Global Voices Advocacy* website. Recognizing the dangers certain people face when they express themselves openly in certain environments, Zuckerman also wrote a technical guide back in 2005 that explains how a combination of web tools could be deployed to maintain a high level of anonymity. It was intended particularly for human rights activists, aid workers, and whistleblowers who needed to "ensure that their writing couldn't be traced back to their identity".

*Global Voices Advocacy is an online project whose goal is to "build a global anti-censorship network of bloggers and online activists throughout the developing world that is dedicated to protecting freedom of expression and free access to information online". Different kinds of pirates! We love them just the same.

The first thing you have to think about, when doing underground work is, who can you trust? This applies to software as well. Generally speaking: You can always trust the Open Source Community, hence Open Source Software (OSS). So I strongly recommend using Linux (Debian or Fedora or CentOS) or Solaris. Otherwise: Stick with your current OS which is propably Windows. Still, you need to get some OSS - especially Firefox (webbrowser), Thunderbird (e-mail client) and WASTE (secure Peer-to-Peer Network). You may as well get TrueCrypt. This is a software that is able to encrypt your whole Hard Disk (or just parts of it). This is especially useful, if you're blogging/writing from shared or pupblic computers, where you have to use a Flash Drive (see the mentioned article for more information on that), so you can encrypt the whole drive.

Let's start with Firefox: Download  Version 2.0.0.13 (stable) or Version 3.0b4 (beta but actually very stable) and install it. Then navigate to Firefox' addon-page to install the TOR-Proxy.NET Toolbar (hint: you might want to install some other privacy-related addons). Just click the green "Install" Button and FF will download and install the addon all by itself. After restarting FF, download and install the latest TOR Version from either the programmers site or any of the listed mirrors. After installation finished successfully, test your settings by going to this website. If everything went right, your IP should now be hard to track down.

With TOR activated (you can easily switch TOR on/out via the Tor-Addon), go to gmail.com and register a free mail account. For sign up, don't use any information, that could be traced back to you and choose a common name of a person living in the US, Germany or any other country with loads if internet users. To give an example: peter.oberthaler@gmail.com (fictious) from Dortmund, Germany. You can even choose a ridiculous name only a teenager would choose life gummistiefel@gmail.com (fictious) from Frankfurt, Germany (gummistiefel would mean s.th. like wellingtons). Than go back to the addons page and download/install FirePGP  and Keyscrambler

What do they do? Keyscrambler encrypts your Keystrokes at the lowest possible layer, so most (software) keyloggers trying to record your account informations (...) will send useless data to their masters. This applies to text, typed into a web page only though!
FirePGP is an ecryption software as well: It adds strong encryption capabilities to your gmail web-account. Since it can be a bit confusing to new users, I'll guide you through the installation procedure of FireGPG and Enigmail for Thunderbird (for writing of longer messages and off-line writing):

Donwload Thunderbird, Enigmail and gpg4win. Install gpg4win to the default directory. After installing  Thunderbird by simply running the .exe-file, fire up Thunderbird and configure your account .Go to Tools -> Addons and click "Install". Now navigate to the file called enigmail-x.xx.x-tb+sm.xpi and click OK. After restarting Thunderbird, you should see a new Menu entry: OpenPGP. Explore this new menu! There should be an entry like "Key Management"->"Generate new keys". Choose your gmail account, choose a strong passphrase (and remember it!) and click Generate Key. (If you want real strong encryption, you can change the keysize to 4096 in the advanced-tab - this makes more sense, if your counterpart using this strong encryption as well!)
I also recommend creating a revocation-certificate.
Now that your encrypted mail account is set up, you can install FirePGP:
Just click the "Download- FireGPG"-Button. If Firefox prevents the website to install an addon, change the preferences to allow the FireGPG-website to install the addon. Restart FF and enjoy your new FireGPG-Buttons, when writing a mail via gmail's web-interface!
Even though, that makes you feel secure, be cautious what you write - your friends computers can be compromised,...Furthermore make sure, to log out from gmail (not just close the window) for google will keep track of your activities if you don't.

The next thing, we'll do, is installing anti-virus-software! For free AV-software I recommend using avast, AVG or avira, Ad-Aware and Spybot. What you definitely would want to install is Spybot! When you first install it, immunize your system (spybot will aks you for that the first time you fire it up). Under "mode" choose "Advanced" - there you'll find the section tools: there you have a file-shredder, management tools for the registry (like what programms are started at system start-up) and a list of running processes. Make sure, you check for updates and check your whole system every week. Spybot will definitely detect so called tracking cookies. While usually not dangerous, they can be very dangerous if your doing something illegal or your government's cencorship is after you.

Now go to wordpress.com and register a free blog with the gmail address you just created. Now you can start blogging. As can be seen from previously posts, some Iranian underground bloggers use blogspot but I'd still recommend wordpress both because of security concerns as well as simply the blogging itself.

But that's not it! While this may be fairly safe, we want to be as safe as possible. Ethan Zuckerman wrote, you should use a simple text editor and eraser or ccleaner for blogging and writing e-mail. I think, this is not the best idea for you can easily forget to cclean or erease the files. Either, you never save the files - just post them - , or you use TrueCrypt. The first one, is presumably the easier one, but not possible, if you intend to post rich media, like sound files or videos. Posting videos or sound files to wordpress is hard anyway, so I came up with this solution (if anyone knows a better solution, or thinks, what I'm saying here is just crap - please add a comment!!!):

Download and install TrueCrypt (make sure, you read the instructions) and set up an encrypted disk. This can be part of your local hard drive, an external hard drive or an USB stick (notice, that any files lying where you want your encrypted disk to be will be overwritten, not encrypted). Mount the encrypted disk and save your media files into that disk. They will automatically be encrypted. Make sure, that you clean all traces of the media files (with ccleaner or whatever you have - simply deleting the files wont help!) From there, you can upload the media files to megafileupload, rapidshare or wherever you want (just make sure, TOR is enabled and you use FF to upload (not any software like the diino client). If you know of a free online storage solution, where you can directly link to the file that's great but always be carefull with their privacy policies! Now you can wirte your posts (with any text editor, that doesn't save your files anywhere but the location you specified (notepad). Than go online and copy paste the written text into the online text edito and create links to your files (or embedd them if possible). One trick to enhance security: change post time stamp, so your ISP cannot track you down by checking post time against the time you are connected to the TOR network.

Still: Read the original post by Ethan Zuckerman!

I'll cover WASTE another article!

Like when my boss calls me into his office because he wants to show me the cool thing he found on my blog, in this case Rolling Rock is doing by advertising on the moon.

In a way, it was kind of cool to know that people I know are reading this blog...but also a shock. I am possibly the worst actor/liar in the entire world and immediately turned red and sort of stuttered out how cool it was (and then, because I just couldn't resist, told him that I loved the Daily (Ad) Biz and read it every day because it was so well written and over-the-top insightful). Also, I didn't get the credit for sending the Rolling Rock thing around.

Anonymity is nice because it allows me to comment honestly on the industry while working in the industry, but it is also precarious.

Luckily, so far, nobody has guessed that it's me. And if they do the content on here is so tame that I am unlikely to go the way of Washingtonienne or other blogs like that.

Or so I tell myself.

Or, I find a blog, I connect, and I actually post comments, but then the blogger "owner" doesn't comment back. Wait! I connected with you! You are supposed to connect back. We're supposed to be great friends. We're so similar! You should comment on my comments--or even *write* me an email. I had to leave it on your blog to comment--comments that you ignored.

Sigh. Maybe I'm not cut out for this rough-and-tumble anonymous blogging world. Or maybe the vicodin I took for my sore throat is making me delirious.

The unlikely couple, Dan and Serena, are often at the center of Gossip Girl's attention on CWTV's Gossip Girl. (Picture from the CW site).

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Protections for anonymous speech are vital to democratic discourse. Allowing dissenters to shield their identities frees them to express critical, minority views . . . Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. . . . It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights, and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation . . . at the hand of an intolerant society.

[Justice Stevens, providing the majority opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court, McIntyre v Ohio Elections Commission.]

In the past few weeks, I have received numerous threats of lawsuits being filed in order to determine my off-line identity.

Why are they so bound and determined to discover my identity? For purposes of silencing criticism and potentially exacting retribution.

Some people don't like bloggers who use pseudonyms (aliases) or those who blog anonymously (using no name at all). Regardless of what anyone thinks about anonymous or pseudonymous speech, it is protected by the First Amendment.

It has also played an important role in the history of our country. The Founding Fathers used pseudonyms for the publication of their revolutionary arguments, such as in The Federalist Papers. Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay wrote under the pseudonym, "Publius".

In McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas offers several other examples of the role anonymous or pseudonymous speech has played in history to support the intent of the First Amendment protections of speech.

More commonly known, Samuel L. Clemens wrote under the pseudonym "Mark Twain", challenging culture in a way that has gone well beyond his generation.

Recently, cases have been brought against anonymous bloggers and anonymous pamphleteers. In many of the cases, those who are being criticized or exposed go to great lengths to silence or discredit the source of the information. However, when those tactics fail -- as those that are trying against this blog -- they turn to threats of legal action, or to initiating legal action in an attempt to at least discover the identity of the person so that they may take more direct action -- even when they know their case will not stand up in court.

My own experience on the receiving end of these tactics is one of the very reasons why I chose -- and continue -- to write under a pseudonym. What I write about is not popular with those who have had something of a stranglehold on Carpentersville for the past decade or longer. Being able to stay in power is not something that comes easily. So, if anything were to threaten that, it would likely not be taken lightly. This is the motive that compels me to write under a pseudonym.

So, will the law allow discovery of a blogger's identity through the mere filing of a lawsuit? The short answer is no.

In the case of public figures -- which those who Carpentersville Action Network addresses are -- the bar for a defamation suit is high. Recent cases such as Doe v Cahill have set forth that a summary judgment standard, not a good faith standard, be applied which "appropriately balances one person’s right to speak anonymously against another person’s right to protect his reputation."

In Doe v Cahill, the Court found that the plaintiff, Patrick Cahill, a city councilman of Smyrna, Delaware failed to meet the standards required by the First Amendment to unmask an anonymous critic. Summary judgment is a high standard, particularly in cases of anonymous speech because unmasking an anonymous critic is on par with the court finding in favor of the one seeking the person's identity.

Just before Christmas, a New Jersey Court quashed an attempt to reveal the identity of an anonymous blogger who was critical of county officials, and whom they say libeled them.

On December 21, 2007, Superior Court Judge Terence Flynn granted EFF's motion to quash the Township's September 26th subpoena seeking the identity of datruthsquad and denied a motion by the township to authorize future subpoenas, finding that the subpoena amounted to "an unjust infringement on the blogger's First Amendment rights" and that the blogger "has a right not to be drawn into the litigation."

Bloggers do have rights to free and anonymous speech granted by the First Amendment. Of course, that does not mean that a blogger can say anything he/she wants. But, the Courts are looking seriously at the new frontier of the Internet, particularly in the case of political speech.

Protections for anonymous speech are vital to democratic discourse.

Companies that provide Internet access, host blogs, etc are required by federal law to provide notice when a request is made for an individual's data. Failure to do so could result in a suit being filed back against the ISP or other similar organization that could result in payment of damages, in addition to legal fees. So, it is in the best interest of these companies to notify subscribers or users that their data has been requested, particularly with the decisions that continue to be handed down regarding the rights of those publishing and discussing information on the Internet.

Bloggers do not have free reign, however. They must be responsible in the information that they publish (as this site has worked diligently to do -- even removing a posting when additional backing information that was promised was not received) -- although there is also protection from prosecution for statements made by others (see Section 230).

Quoting again from the decision of McIntyre v Ohio Elections Commission ...

The right to remain anonymous may be abused when it shields fraudulent conduct. But political speech by its nature will sometimes have unpalatable consequences, and, in general, our society accords greater weight to the value of free speech than to the dangers of its misuse.

I've always loved the story about Piaget and his nanny (I'm probably getting it all wrong, but you'll see why that's okay if you finish reading it). Piaget was a psychological scientist- one of the greats. And in one or another dissertation about memory, he related a story from his own from near-infancy.

He remembered a burglar breaking into his nursery, waking him into a fright- he remembered in great detail the breaking glass, the looming figure. He shrieked for his nanny, who came to save him. She chased the burgler away through the shattered window, and held him until he slept. He discussed this, his memory, as an example of how memory can function even at an early age. Such detail he remembered! The tinkling glass falling to the floor, the disheveled hair of his rescuer, the menace of the shadowy assailant.

As the story goes, he published to some moderate acclaim and the resulting fame brought his name to the attention of... his former nanny. An old woman by now, she read about his theory of childhood memory and decided to write him a letter. The contents of the letter (we're going from misremembered to apocryphal now- look it up yourself) said something like this: "What you told- that never happened. There never was a burgler. I told that story to your parents, sure, to account for a broken window. And I even got an increased wage. But the whole thing- I made it up."

Well, poor Piaget. He remembered a story told to him with clarity as though it was his own experience. I think he recovered his professional credibility by turning his theory on a dime and declaring just the opposite- that memory is ephemeral, incredible.

And damn him! I prefer the myths of my memories to remain fact. But because of that bastard I have to admit- I most likely I doubt what I should be sure of and am sure of what I should doubt. And, yeah, that fucks me up considering that I have memory problems to begin with.

I'm trying to get it all straight right now- my stories, my memories. My head-shrinker says that journaling will help me. He's probably correct, but I find that I can't simply write to myself. I can't take it seriously- I'm so easily bored and embarrassed by my own neurotic tales. I've tried buying expensive little leather-bound, pressed-paper numbers with smooth ribbons to mark my page. I've tried to type in a computer diary (my very own filemaker construction thank-you-very-much). Whatever the strategy I've never managed to keep it up- and worse, I've destroyed all evidence of my efforts.

But here, on silly wordpress, I can imagine I have an audience. I can imagine that someone is reading, and I can take that imaginary friend more seriously than I can take myself (glad my head-shrinker didn't get to read that little slip). At any rate I plan to say things that I don't want anyone to know, but in order to say them at all I have to say them to *someone.*

I know, I know- that's what therapy is for, right? But my only health insurance is good old KP, and they don't believe in psychotherapy. And even if they did, they wouldn't believe that I need it. I have a lovely job, I'm doing well in school, I have a loving and tender and supportive partner... I'm quite highly functioning by any of their measures. But I'm still a psycho, you see. Achievements be damned I'm just plain crazy.

Anonymous blogging is like shouting into the void, but a personal diary is like shouting into a pillow. I suppose I prefer shouting into the void.

I went into this blog with the intention of writing anonymously. There are a couple of reasons for this: (1) I want to be able to write freely about my experiences and JP's experiences in law school without worrying that I'll offend his classmates and (2) I've blogged non-anonymously before and I suck at it. Seriously. Something about knowing that people who know me are reading what I write causes me to totally freeze up. I over think my posts, get shy about sharing my emotions, and end up leaving out anything of interest.

In the spirit of being a little more three-dimensional, if you will, I'm going to use this post to share some non-JP oriented facts about myself and my life. But in the spirit of anonymity, I'm going to try not to reveal too much about myself.

Off we go:

• I am a procrastinator. To the nth degree. For instance, tonight (and all the other nights so far this month) I have written and posted my blog entries in the last few hours of the day. A couple of nights, I posted within a few minutes of midnight. Give me a deadline and I will meet it, but only just.
• I live on the other side of the country from my family and most of my high school and college friends. It's been that was for more than four years now, and while I miss them, I love where I live and don't plan to make a move "home" any time soon.
• I've been to Europe four times, but mostly to weird countries. I've never been to Spain or France, but I have been to Estonia.
• I am a night owl (which meshes quite nicely with the whole procrastination deal)
• I work in the public sector
• I used to be a newspaper reporter. This was less glamorous than some people seem to think, but it was also a lot of fun. It's one of those jobs that leave you with a lot of crazy anecdotes. Like the time we published an obituary asserting that someone had perished from "lunch cancer". That's what happens when you smoke too many sandwiches, kids.
• I like the idea that ESP and other paranormal phenomena could exist. I appreciate the intrigue of the unexplained.

And finally:

• Despite being a natural night owl, I get up ass-early in the morning to go to work. So I need to get to bed.  Now.

Conclusion

Blogs and new media have undoubtedly changed the landscape of investigative journalism. In terms of its form, journalism as a whole has become more conversational, and iterative, as readers seek to contribute to the story, and journalists open more of their processes to public view. The time and space offered by the internet has provided opportunities for these conversations to take place, and for journalists to make raw material available to fuel them. And the networked nature of the Web has facilitated coordination of contributors across borders and industries, along with a now global distribution of material.

The current period offers both significant threats and opportunities to investigative journalism. The sheer quantity and accessibility of information means that quality is becoming a precious commodity. Technological tools have made the investigative journalist's job of gathering and analysing data, and identifying and contacting sources, easier, but when the source of information is a blog, journalists face the challenge of evaluating both the information and the source, sometimes without knowing what partisan, ideological or commercial affiliations the blogger may have (Friend & Singer, 2007). The protection and access afforded to journalists - in particular, access to certain areas or people, and the ability to protect a source - are not routinely offered to those working outside mainstream media (Gant, 2007), while at the same time the past two decades have seen courts being increasingly reluctant to offer protection even to journalists working for large publishers (Henry, 2007).

The use of blogs for investigative journalism raises a number of challenges and ethical issues. Investigative journalists may find it hard to protect their sources in an age where so much is recorded. There are useful tools that help - such as Invisiblog.com for free anonymous blog hosting and The Online Policy Group (OPG) for privacy-protective domain name registration, while the likes of Tor and Anonymizer.com allow bloggers to hide their IP address (location) and Pingomatic allows bloggers to quickly broadcast an entry while making the poster untraceable (Electronic Frontier Foundation, 2005) - but there are always concerns about weaknesses in such technologies emerging in the future.

Equally, for journalists going undercover there are new issues around invasion of privacy - particularly when the distinction between private and public spaces becomes blurred online. Lee Wilkins notes that

"the Web provides journalists (and others) with ways to invade privacy on a worldwide scale ... Most journalists don't hide in bathrooms to get stories - because hiding in the bathroom means we can't ask follow-up questions or seek multiple and other points of view ... So lurking and then quoting without first identifying yourself seems, to me, to be a pretty easy call." (in Friend and Singer, 2007: 85)

Furthermore, new media technologies allow the subjects of investigations to tell their stories, too - as demonstrated by the video released by Scientologists of BBC journalist John Sweeney "losing it" while conducting his investigation into their activities (Sweeney, 2007).

Economically, the traditional support structures for investigative journalism - large news organisations - are, at least in their own terms, struggling, and investigative journalism is having to look elsewhere for funding. While BlogAds and AdSense have allowed some bloggers to operate through traditional advertising-based models, others have relied on reader donations facilitated by technologies such as PayPal and ChipIn, while foundations are playing an increasing role in supporting investigative journalism - but few have found a reliable revenue stream.

The future of investigative journalism is likely to lie along at least three paths. On the one hand, in a new media world of information overload where 'anyone can be a journalist', investigative journalism offers a way for the mainstream media to provide a distinctive product and prevent the readership migrating elsewhere online (Bradshaw, 2007). News organisations with declining budgets but a commitment to public service may be inclined to outsource part of their investigative work, taking advantage of their brand and experience and using crowdsourcing approaches to pursue investigative journalism. Finally, and perhaps more realistically, it is likely that foundations and reader donations will increasingly support investigative journalism as an important contribution to society. For investigative journalists themselves, the biggest concern is lack of job security - or at least an increasing requirement for new skills in managing volunteers or enterprises. For readers, however, the latter two routes, dependent as they are on active public support, offer some assurance that investigations will be undertaken in the public interest rather than the media's own self-interests. For this to happen, however, requires a change in the cultures of news organisations. As journalism becomes less a product - 'what sells' - and more a service - what people want to use - the need for that change will become increasingly pressing.

"only people who are uncomfortable with who they are or what they are doing remain anonymous"

While Benjamin Solah's comment did come off as insulting to those bloggers that remain anonymous, I found it somewhat funny in a way. I wrote the following response back to him:

Excuse me? Are you saying I'm not comfortable with who I am because I don't want to get stalked, my identity stolen, or fired from my job because of controversial things I say in my blog? Are you serious? I can't believe you can insult a person like that when they're trying to protect themselves. Have you not heard what has happened to several other bloggers? Do you read American news? I didn't think so.

If you can prove to me that you're a safe person, honey, I'd be glad to give you my full name, address, and phone number. Oh yeah, and I'll even tell you my blood type and tell you if I was born via natural birth or by a caesarian.

One more interesting thing I'd like to point out is how many Australian bloggers are there in comparison to American bloggers? Benjamin has nothing to worry about over there. First off, if you take a look at his blog, you'll notice that he's a writer. He doesn't talk much about controversial issues. Secondly, even if he were to get stalked, do you think someone from another country will take a plane to Australia to stalk him or steal his identity? WTF? He's also a guy. Anybody with half a brain in their skull knows that women are more vulnerable to stalkers and sexual predators in general. Next, is he at risk of getting fired for blogging? Absolutely not. I am at risk. Obviously, he's not aware of the woman who got fired at her workplace for having a "Kerry" bumper sticker on her car. I live in a predominantly Republican state. I've got bills to pay. I don't want to lose my job.

I wonder how many people actually read the news or know anything about what's going on in the world?  He obviously didn't read the other comments posted in  Laurie's  entry. There was one girl who had to delete two of her blogs due to stalkers. Now, that I think about it, a male model from Journalspace was even stalked. He used his full name. Some bozo stalker sent him a pair of socks in the mail and wanted him to touch them and send it back. This guy had several stalkers because of his occupation. He eventually deleted his blog.

In any event, I mean no disrespect to those bloggers that use their full name. That's not the point of this entry. My point is based upon the insulting, ignorant remark telling me that "I'm not comfortable with who I am" if I wish to remain anonymous. Hell, if I was in a little cubby-hole in Australia, I'd give my full name too. By the way, how do you know if bloggers are actually using their real name, anyway. Just because they "say" they're "Jane Doe" doesn't really mean they're "

Oh, by the way, you gotta love those people who say they "don't care for those who use nicknames", yet they do it themselves. Now, there may be people that use nicknames in real life (in public). Those people are few and far between, and I find it a bit odd, but I don't judge them. Who knows what they've been through already?

Idiots! Good grief!