Hi there. If you've come here its probably because you want to learn about how to be anonymous while browsing the web, posting to forums, purchasing from online stores and checking internet email accounts. My goal here will be to give you as much information as I can relating to these issues and to facilitate discussion so that we can all become better at protecting our privacy online.

As of this writing (10/09), JAP/JonDo and Tor are the two best open source anonymity services.

JAP/JonDo is a project that is a cooperative effort between JonDos Company and universities TU Dresden and University of Regensburg in Germany. Their philosophy, which they seem to take very seriously, is to provide tools for true privacy and anonymity and that mistrust is better than trust in this regard. Their method for promoting this philosophy is to make the tools they develop and the mix operators that provide bandwidth to customers as open and transparent as possible. The software is open source and the proxies or mix cascade operators (the servers your traffic will flow through) are known organizations that you can examine for their policies and history upholding privacy rights etc. Here is a link to their main page: https://www.jondos.de/en/

Tor is a not for profit company based in Massachusetts that does research and development into online anonymity and supports the Tor project. They are an excellent group committed to privacy and anonymity. An overview of Tor can be found here: Tor: Overview.

Later posts will examine JAP/JonDo in greater detail as well as compare with Tor, pros and cons of both services. In this regard, here are some links to discussions of these services that may spur discussion here:

Schneier on Security: Anonymity and the Tor Network
Report release: 2007 Circumvention Landscape Report: Methods, Uses, and Tools | Berkman Center

I'm not going to discuss Anyonymizer or any other non-open source/non-freeware software products as I don't really feel they are that secure -- if LE wants my surfing data, I don't trust some corporation (especially US corps like Abraxas who owns Anonymizer) to protect me. If someone wants to include anecdotes about such products, please feel free, but I'd rather not devote much threadspace to them.

Its important to be clear up front as to what these services do and don't do. What they do is ensure that
your IP address will not be exposed to web servers you visit via http communications. They do not prevent you
from identifying yourself manually to web servers by using your name or other identifying details in communications
to that server. A later post will discuss TCP/IP and HTTP in order to clarify what all of this means. For now
its safe to say that using JAP/JonDo or Tor along with certain 'best practices' can truly hide you from friggin echelon/TIA big brother shit and of course, LE.

So... I'm creating this thread to discuss use of anonymity services and best practices and to invite anyone to ask questions, correct my mistakes (I'd love to learn something too!), and generally share knowledge on this subject in a thoughtful and open way. A little about myself -- I'm a hydro enthusiast, computer software engineer, libertarian/socialist, animal loving, music loving dirty hippy. I've been following privacy and civil rights issues from a computer/technology perspective for almost a decade now. The most active and organized group in this regard (in the USA) is the Electronic Frontier Foundation, based in San Francisco, USA. In later posts I will provide some links to EFF privacy articles that are on point to this discussion below, but I wholeheartedly recommend you familiarize yourself with their work as it is of the utmost importance to free speech and privacy rights in the United States and around the world.
larryshomework Reviewed by larryshomework on . Anonymity on the net -- JAP/Jondo, Tor and usage tracking Hey there everybody, I'm a noob here, and a friend of cannabis forum member Apollonia. She encouraged me to post some information I put together that may be useful to people who are interested in increasing their anonymity online. For my part my goal is to explain some dark corners and to create a discussion space on the subjects of JonDo, Tor and internet tracking. I break the initial discussion into five posts as follows: *Introduction *Online Anonymity - what it is & how to Rating: 5