PRESERVING YOUR PRIVACY ON THE NETGetting Rid of "Finger" The first thing you should do is contact your internet service provider and make sure that your account is non-fingerable. "Finger" is an Internet method for finding the name under which an account is held. With Finger disabled, nothing will be returned if someone checks your account. If your ISP supports a Finger server and will not disable that feature, change the name on your account. That way if someone fingers your account they will get false information. Anonymous Remailing If privacy is a serious concern, use an anonymous remailer for sending email and newsgroup postings. This method works by you sending a message to the remailer instead of the intended receipient. Before forwarding the message to its intended recipient, the remailer automatically strips your actual email address from the message header substituting one that you define and gives the message a new header showing the remailer as the originating server. This essentially prevents anyone from even knowing the ISP from which the message came. Anonymous posting can be done directly from a regular email program or a special email program made just for anonymous posting. There are also several websites which allow anonymous posting through their sites which is very convenient. Using Web-based Email Accounts There are many websites that offer free email. Microsoft offers Hotmail, Netscape offers their version of the same service, and there are many others. This allows you to send and receive email using a different address than the one assigned you by your ISP. For example, when using Hotmail, your email address would be your_name@hotmail. The username would be something of your choosing. There's one caveat on using these email services. There can be information contained in email headers produced by these web email accounts which can give someone information about your ISP. To eliminate this possibility, use a proxy web server such as Proxy Mate when setting up and using the account. This proxy server functions as a firewall between the web email service and your ISP. The email service only sees the proxy server and not your ISP's server. Another case where a proxy web server can help privacy is in actual web browsing. When anyone visits a webpage, certain information is recorded about the visitor's ISP server. Using a proxy web server eliminates even that information. How to Send Email and Post to Newsgroups Anonymously Via Your Regular Email Program. Over the months we have received numerous emails expressing concern over protecting privacy while engaging in WIN usenet activity. Some have asked about using anonymous remailers to post messages to usenet newsgroups. Here’s how to do it. Using a web proxy server establish a free email account using phony information at Netscape Web Mail or Hotmail from which to originate all anonymous email or usenet postings. In order to hide the Web Mail account itself, you should route your message through a remailer such as Replay.com. Using your new Web Mail account for anonymous Usenet posting, send a message to any newsgroup. We will use alt.california in the following example. The double colon MUST be the first line of the message. :: Anon-Post-To: alt.california ## Subject: Your Subject From: Whatever name you want
Skip two lines (which will land you here) and type a message. Send the message to remailer@replay.com, which will post your message anonymously to alt.california usually within 10 minutes.
To send an ANONYMOUS EMAIL, everything is the same except the "Anon-To" line is slightly different: :: Anon-To: recipient@xxx.com ## Subject: Your Subject From: Whatever name you want
Skip two lines (which will land you here) and type a message. Send to remailer@replay.com or whatever remailer you choose.
To check your remailed messages, send them to alt.test Freeware and shareware anonymous remailer programs, such as "Private Idaho," will automate this process. NOTE: Posting messages this way protects your privacy very well and can be considered completely secure for the usual purposes. However, if you engage in email harassment or criminal activity, remailer administrators may assist authorities. Anonymous remailers you can try: dctest remailer@dragoncon.net replay remailer@replay.com cripto anon@ecn.org hyper mix@sind.hyperreal.art.pl cracker remailer@anon.efga.org squirrel mix@squirrel.owl.de bird blackbird@cpis.net base remailer@base.xs4all.nl brianne brianne@drule.org Bear in mind that these remailers come and go, so this list may not be accurate.
Get an Unlisted Phone Number This prevents someone from running your name through one of the many phone number search engines on the Web. This way, even if someone does manage to get your name and location, they can't get a phone number or any other info contained in a phone directory.
Finally go to the Western Imperative Network Computer Support links page for many privacy websites: |