- The user base is huge. If an attacker gets into their system, it is far less likely that they will scour through your account than if you are on a smaller service with only a few thousand users.
- Anything you do is unlikely to stand out as unique among the user base, including using encryption and logging in from Tor.
- The email provider's servers are not going to be shared with those of not-so-legit services, and, therefore, are not going to go down as collateral damage when some other service gets seized.
- The service will not be out-of-business tomorrow.
- It will be difficult for an attacker to execute a JavaScript exploit, especially for a sustained period.
- Since you will encrypt your communications BEFORE you upload and send, a provider or attacker will not be able to read them.
Is not-so-anonymous email actually more anonymous? Weigh the options. If you need super-untraceable anonymous email, the account must meet the three criteria. However, your options are limited and may leave you using an email provider that draws unwanted attention. By flying under-the-radar, you have more services to choose from and are less noticeable.
Internet Relay Chat
IRC (Internet Relay Chat) has been around since the old days... That is the 1980's. Just like Ray-Ban's and Will Smith, it has not aged a bit. It is simple, it is quick, you can send private messages and you can group chat. So, let's get to it...
Special Notice: Unfortunately, DDOS attacks on the Tor IRC server happen. During such events, connections may fail. So, if you cannot get a connection, despite doing everything right, you are not crazy.
Chatting
- From the top toolbar, Go to
Applications
>
Internet
>
Pidgin Internet Messenger
- The “Buddy List” and “Accounts” windows will open...
If not, look at the right half of the top toolbar. To the left of the Green Onion icon will be an icon that looks like a little message box behind a circle. Click this icon and the windows will open. Then, select
Accounts
>
Manage Accounts
- An account that you can use is already created with a random username. To use it, click the checkbox in the “Enabled” column next to
random_username
@irc.oftc.net.
I will show you how to create a new account later.
(
If you are working within your
Persistence system, your account and username
will carry over to future sessions. If not, you will have a new name for each session)
- A third window will open and display your connection (If you get an SSL Connection Failed, double check to see if you are online). At the top of this window select
Conversation
>
Join a Chat...
. You can also join a chat from the
Buddy List
window by selecting
Buddies
>
Join a Chat...
- Now a fourth window opens! Just click
Room List
- Finally... Your last window is open!!! From this
Room List
window, you can... you guessed it... choose a chat room. Just scroll around, pick a room and click
Join
(you can join more than one room)
- Move or Close the
Room List
window and go back to the
Conversation
window. Your room choices
will show as Tabs. Click the tab for a
room and go chat
- To Instant Messaging an individual, right-click their name, select
IM
and send
a
message
I want you to look at something
. Right-click a name in the names list and select
Info
(your name or someone else's... it does not matter). There is revealing information here. If you login to IRC from outside Tails, the information under the
Username
will be your IP address and internet provider. Kim Jong-Un's cyber scouts would love to see this it!
Messaging
- In the
Buddy List
window, select
Buddies
>
+Add Buddy
- Add the username of the buddy you want to instant message within the
Buddy's username
box (
I realize you probably do not have a buddy yet, so, the easiest thing to do is run Tails on a second computer, open up another IRC window and talk to yourself OR you can go randomly select some lucky user in some random chat room and hope he/she is lonely enough to humor you)
- You will now see your buddies name under
Buddies
in the
Buddy List
window. Right-click it and select IM
- You can chat away, BUT, you need to follow a couple more steps to be Private
- From the top toolbar of your Chat window, select
OTR
>
Start private conversation
- After a few seconds, your conversation will turn private, BUT, you still need to Authenticate your Buddy
- Again, select
OTR
, and then select
Authenticate buddy
- The
Authenticate Buddy
window will open. There are three options for authenticating your buddy. For simplicity, just choose
Question and answer
. Then, type a question and answer that only you and your buddy know and click
Authenticate
- Your Buddy will receive the question on her end. If answered correctly, you will be told
Authentication successful
. Your Buddy is now Authenticated (
Even though you just Authenticated your Buddy, she has not Authenticated you. To Authenticate you, she will send you a question)
- Click
OK
- Go back to the
Buddy List
window that has been open the whole time. Right-click your Buddie's name and select
OTR Settings
. The
OTR Settings
window will open
- Uncheck
Use default OTR settings for this buddy
- Check
Enable private messaging
,
Automatically initiate private messaging
and
Require private messaging
- Whether you want to "log OTR conversations" is up to you. Personally, I do not log anything, just in case Kim Jong-Un gets into my Persistence system. Then again, the whole point of
a
Persistence
system is so you can save stuff like this, so, to each his own.
- DONE. Yay!
Other IRC stuff
Adding Another Account:
- From the
Buddy List
window, select
Accounts
>
Manage Accounts
- In the
Accounts
window, click the
Add
button
- The
Modify Account
window will open
- IMPORTANT
- There are 1000's of IRC networks throughout the world. Many block TOR IP addresses... meaning they are blocking you. If you are curious, internet searches will turn up other networks and their settings. We will use the
irc.oftc.net
server.
- Input the following in the
Modify Account
window, under the
Basic
tab:
- for
Protocol
, select
IRC
- for
Username
, type whatever you want your username to be
- for
Server
, enter
irc.oftc.net
- Under the
Advanced
tab:
- for
Port
, enter
6697
(not 6667)
- for
Encodings
, enter
UTF-8,ISO-8859-1
- for
Ident name
and
Real name
, enter the username you created in the
Basic
tab
- check
Use SSL
. Leave the rest unchecked
- under the Proxy tab, leave
Use Global Proxy Settings
as the choice for
Proxy type
- click
Add
- enable an account by checking the
Enabled
box for your new account. You can also enable and disable accounts by selecting
Accounts
in the Buddy List window
- ERROR – If you get an
SSL Handshake Failed
message, close out the entire
messaging program (
Buddies
>
Quit
) and then restart it
- once all is well, you will have a fresh, clean
Buddy List
and a new
xxxxxx
.oftc.net
identity
Sending/Receiving Files
This feature does not work on IRC through the Tor network. Sorry.
Add Buddy Pounce
This is for you to set some notifications
- Right-click your Buddies'
name and select
Add Buddy Pounce...
- Check the boxes that fulfill your Buddies' activity notification desires
Section: Writeprints – They will identify those other anonymous netizens... but not you
As I stated before, my goal in writing this manual is to provide you with a means of being anonymous. It is not intended to be a comprehensive book about anonymity technology, so, please forgive me for the brevity on this topic. Still, I will try to give you a clear understanding of writeprints, how they can be used as a weapon against your anonymity and how to counter the attack. A sharp, good looking person like you can keep the writeprinters off your ass with just a little bit of knowledge and effort. Let's get to it.
Writeprints
are a means of identifying an author solely from the characteristics of her written work. It is a separate discipline from handwriting analysis and digital forensics. With the ability for individuals to mask IP addresses and minimize digital fingerprints, writeprinting is often the only method available to identify the author.
The field of writeprinting is far from perfect, however, the accuracy of some writeprinting analysis is scary. Bloggers, tweeters, chatters, and posters are identified enough to warrant concern. I do not rank writeprints as high as fingerprints, digital fingerprints, handwriting analysis or DNA when it comes to evidence. Writeprinting is more comparable to a witness telling the police that the thief was "around 5'5, 300lbs, round-faced, oddly tanned skin, had short brown hair shaved on the sides, was smiling, waving, wearing a Dennis Rodman jersey and riding a white stallion into the sunset." That does not give the police a name or address, but, it does allow them to focus their search.
A number of methods are available for writeprint analysis. Most seek to identify an author by combining a variety of features, such as average word length, vocabulary complexity, favorite words, topics, grammar, punctuation, capitalization and sentence length. These nuances vary enough between individuals that they can be compiled to create a unique writeprint. To clarify, when I talk about the author, this does not only mean someone that has written a book, article or some other large body of work. That applies to individuals who post on message boards, tweet, blog or email. Ten 50 word tweets can be as useful as one 500 word email.
As part of China's 12th Five-Year Plan, funding was provided for extensive research into identifying bloggers with writeprints. Apparently, they find it imperative to identify people who exercise free speech. A China funded study at their own Wuhan University had an 80% success rate when attempting to single out different authors from a pool of 50 Amazon.com reviews [1]. Of course, China is not the only beneficiary of writeprinting. Corporations and other governments can use writeprints to identify whistleblowers.
The most famous case study in writeprinting involves the Federalist Papers. The Federalist Papers are 85 anonymously authored articles, published in the late 1780's, to promote the ratification of the United States Constitution. Speculation by scholars, as well as contradicting claims by various Founding Fathers, narrowed the field to only a handful of potential authors. Researchers writeprinted the 85 articles and determined there were three authors. Author #1 wrote 51 articles, Author #2 wrote 26 articles, Author #3 wrote five articles, and Authors #1 and #2 collaborated on three articles. By matching the writeprints of each article with the writeprints of the Founding Fathers, it was determined that Author #1 was Alexander Hamilton, Author #2 was James Madison and Author #3 was John Jay.