I'm in the Anoniblog
meeting, one of the warm-up meetings to Blognashville. The point
of this meeting is to look at ways we can help protect the anonymity of bloggers
who are in physical danger of government or corporate reprisals if their identities
become known.
Matthew Sheffield has
been telling us some useful things about using p2p (peer-to-peer) networks for
anonymous blogging. Check out his blog post on the topic. He talks about systems like Freenet
and Mute.
Bennet Haselton of Peacefire: talks about "circumventor" software.
However, a number of people are pointing out that ultimately, there is no technical means that cannot be
subverted if enough effort, resources, and means are applied. The fact that a person is frequently using proxies and encryption will attract attention. Also: If you really
want anonymity, you should not post your blog entries yourself and must ask
somebody to rewrite for you - because text analysis can always be used.
Alex Yuriev (CTO of Zubr Communications) agrees, you can't solve a social problem with purely technological
solutions. If somebody really wants to catch you it's likely they will eventually succeed. The ultimate solutions, he believes, must be human and social.
Adam Shostack from Spirit of
America asks: Do we need to spend more time on better technology or is the
more important work needed now more related to the social structures and human
interactions?
There is also the issue that solutions (both social and technical) will differ greatly from country to country and will change rapidly.
Hossein Derakhshan (Hoder) points out that sometimes low-tech and social solutions are best. Email is the best way to get around filters in Iran. He believes the best way people can help Iranian bloggers is:
1. do more to internationalize the
software.
2. make simple technologies like RSS to e-mail.
3. link to
weblogs that are not written from U.S. & Europe, so that bloggers who are risking jail to post know that they're actually being heard.
Other discussions & writings on anonymous blogging and related issues
include:
Technorati: blognashville