Anonymous Online Diaries With Invisiblog 163
An anonymous reader writes "The Cypherpunks have finally caught on to the blog phenomenon: enter Invisiblog. This blog system allows users to register accounts and update their weblogs using Len Sassaman's Mixmaster anonymous remailer program. Now you can post all those tales of late-night dumpster diving, without fear of being branded a terrorist!"
It's invisible alright... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:It's invisible alright... (Score:1)
Re:It's invisible alright... (Score:2)
Interesting... (Score:5, Insightful)
No secrets just dumpster diving. (Score:2)
- Hmmmm, when I think dumpster diving 'terrorist' doesn't jump to mind. Words like "bum", "whino," and even "damn trailer trash redneck next door looking through my trash again!" - but never terrorist; so if thats all you guys were worried about then go right ahead.
Rasie hell, live to dive.
that's great...but (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:that's great...but (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:that's great...but (Score:1)
while that could make some readability problems, since you can't just follow your favorite author (be it Ali Davis or Dave Barry), it lets you tell your one-off tale that you just HAVE to tell someone but can't afford to tell anyone that knows you. i see that as i
Re:that's great...but (Score:5, Funny)
No, the point is to trick yourself into thinking that the world actually cares what you're doing.
Re:that's great...but (Score:4, Funny)
Re:that's great...but (Score:1)
Re:that's great...but (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:that's great...but (Score:5, Funny)
You haven't been reading the articles posted by non-anonymous people here, have ya?
Re:that's great...but (Score:1)
Re:that's great...but (Score:2)
It would seem that most people think of slashdot as their personal invisiblog.
Re:that's great...but (Score:1)
Re: that's great...but (Score:2)
What's keeping you from posting absolute fiction? Was wattersa your given name?
Blog entry #1 (Score:5, Funny)
Blog entry #2 (Score:4, Funny)
I never thought that this could happen to me...
Dealer blog? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Dealer blog? (Score:4, Insightful)
Not really, because we won't be able to tell what's actually true and what isn't, so you pretty much have to throw the baby out with the bathwater, because you can't tell the difference; it might as well all have a giant "FICTION" stamp on it. Even the non-anonymous weblogs can be complete BS, this is worse.
There are practical matters here- think about it. How's a "Chinese dissident" going to prove he's really a Chinese dissident, without exposing his identity in the process? Hell, half the time people are caught because they reveal information or details only they(or a select group) knew.
Re:Dealer blog? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure... but many things can be independently verified. And of course, certain anonymous weblogs may build up a reputation for truthfulness, which is a useful heuristic.
Of course, this sort of thing is also a great way to post ransom notes, etc... not that I'm saying it's a bad idea because of that, I'm just noting a fact.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Dealer blog? (Score:1)
Re:Dealer blog? (Score:3, Funny)
Doh! (Score:4, Interesting)
8. Mixmaster is slow and not always reliable. Messages typically take 12 to 24 hours to arrive. Sometimes they never arrive at all.
The problem with anonymity (Score:5, Funny)
Yup, invisible... (Score:4, Funny)
Excuse me, I speak Jive (Score:1, Insightful)
Here's a novel thought in this day and age.
Maybe, just maybe, you shouldn't write about things that would get you in trouble.
I understand the desire to invisibly post, but everything you do can (and someday probably will be) traceable back to you. Remember that and the golden rule and you'll be set.
Re:Excuse me, I speak Jive (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Excuse me, I speak Jive (Score:5, Interesting)
The freeness of a society is inversely proportional to the number of things you can write about that will get you in trouble.
Re:Excuse me, I speak Jive (Score:2)
Re:Excuse me, I speak Jive (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe, just maybe, you shouldn't write about things that would get you in trouble.
Yeah, 'cause freedom of speech is overrated.
Re:Excuse me, I speak Jive (Score:1, Insightful)
You are not free to shout fire in a crowded theater.
"Freedom" of anything has severe limits. Though you may be "Free" to say anything anywhere any time, you had also better be prepared of the consequences. Anyone that thinks they can cause panic and death in a theater and not be held liable for it might as well just excuse themselves from society all togeather.
Say good-bye now...
Re:Excuse me, I speak Jive (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Excuse me, I speak Jive (Score:5, Insightful)
And this was called 'insightful'? Many of the "things that would get you into trouble", in this country and others, are simply those things that the powers that be don't want you telling the world. But I suppose if you're just another alpha-male-worshipping ass-kissing moron, then advice like this is just the thing to make the world a good and right place to live in.
Forget things like exposing political corruption or corporate wrongdoing - you shouldn't be even thinking about such things, much less discussing them with your fellow human beings! Why, if we all bowed down before our political and corporate masters and acted like the proper slaves we were meant to be then we'd all be much, much happier! And should ever a disloyal thought cross your mind, just ignore it and turn on the TV until it goes away....
'Insightful', my ass.
Max
Re:Excuse me, I speak Jive (Score:5, Funny)
4/18: I started off with a pretty normal day, reminding myself that arrays' elements start with zero and count up from there, and that ints were four bytes long, and that there are 8 bits to a byte.
4/19: Today I learned that master keys and player keys are the same things, and that DVD vendors don't control them all. I also found out that you could get disk keys from disks, and decrypt them with player keys. Title keys can also be read per file. The disk key can be used to decrypt the title key and the show.
4/20: I took this encrypted disk key, that was six bytes long (well, five bites and a zero at the end), and figured it would take about 3.5 hours to recover one by brute forcing it.
4/21: So, like there's this pointer "KEY", to these bytes. And there's this other pointer, "im", to the six bytes that make up the player key (but those six bytes are a trade secret.)
4/22: I played in an online lottery called Lotto 5/255. I lost, but I heard the winning pick was 81, 103, (someone must have liked 103, because 103 was rolled twice), 197, and 224. The ticket emailbot added a "0" after the 224.
4/23: Suppose your code had some internal variables t1 through t6. Wait a minute, there's these guys at the door wearing black suits. They sound angry. I'd better answer the door.
History (Score:2, Insightful)
THAT'S NOT JIVE! THIS is Jive: (Score:1, Offtopic)
Here's some novel dought in dis day and age.
Maybe, plum maybe, ya' shouldn't scribble about doodads dat would dig ya' in trouble.
I dig it de desire t'invisibly post, but everydin' ya' do kin (and someday probably gots'ta be) traceable back t'ya'. Rememba' dat and da damn golden rule and ya''ll be set. Man!
STUPID (Score:5, Funny)
Re:STUPID (Score:2)
Re:STUPID (Score:1)
Re:STUPID (Score:1)
Sounds like a feature to me, in the same vein as the pop-up killer. Web pages are for putting content online, not taking control of the browser.
I do sympathise, though, as a PHB I used to have tried to make me do the same thing : )
Secret Plot (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Secret Plot (Score:1)
Re:Secret Plot (Score:2)
Slashdot to the rescue (Score:5, Insightful)
Clock is ticking down (Score:1)
At least the triple-X ads won't be so bad
I like this idea... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I like this idea... (Score:2)
Re:I like this idea... (Score:2)
To a certain degree, this already exists. Freenet [freenetproject.org] is supposed to be an anonymous system. All it really needs is a good indexing engine to help you find interesting things that people have inserted that are on the system, but without knowing the key, are unavailable to download.
Re:I like this idea... (Score:2)
But, yes it is the general idea; but, it tends to be (from what I've read) unreliable. This seems like more of a central, easily accesable network for such needs.
Re:I like this idea... (Score:1)
It works fine in OS X. I currently run it on a 466 iBook without any problems. OS X 10.1.5, 320meg RAM.
Freenet in Java is slow though. Could someone port it to C or assembler please?
Re:I like this idea... (Score:2)
Re:I like this idea... (Score:2)
So what??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Providing anonymity is only half the battle, you have to base yourself someplace that U.S. law reach to.
Re:So what??? (Score:1)
Re:So what??? (Score:2)
Which, in light of recent international events, basically limits us to extraterrestrial ports of call.
Re:So what??? (Score:2)
Don't forget that the USA
A better idea, if you really want to avoid the government, is to move to a friendly country, marry a native, join
Re:So what??? (Score:2)
When an invisible weblog gets /.ed (Score:4, Funny)
Why this isn't stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
There's already a couple of posts to the effect of "don't post anything on the net that you don't want traced back to you." But, that's not an argument against having anonymous publishing forums. Security agencies want to eliminate anonymity as a route to engaging in criminal activity or, more ominously, as a route to expressing dissent. In some countries, the suppression of dissent is explicit. In others, it's implicit. If these countries allow access to the Mixmaster remailer, and individuals use tools to which security agents don't have access, then "nym" weblogs could be a way of publishing information that governments (and other organizations) wish to suppress. The worst they could say is "you sent an encrypted email to someone" (which is bad enough in some places).
Saying "it's pointless to hide your tracks, so don't even try" is giving in to those who wish to be able to track down every dissenter, and I'm not sure we should do that quite yet.
Re:Why this isn't stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course there are places where sending that encrypted mail would be worse than voicing dissent, since by sending the encrypted mail you have shown both a desire and an *ability* to circumvent the government.
In many totalitarian states, appearing to be subversive is more dangerous than speaking openly (though that can be mighty dangerous too).
Re:Why this isn't stupid (Score:2)
The problem with invisiblog is that although users are anonymous, the publisher isn't. As some people have already noted, the publisher is succeptible to legal pressure to censor postings, which is not the case with a system like Freenet. Perhaps future iterations of invisiblog could address the need to allow distributed mirrors, such that no one entity has the power to prevent something being said.
Re:Why this isn't stupid (Score:1)
Usefulness (Score:3, Interesting)
Can't resolve host name (Score:2)
The listed name servers are DNS7.GAHOST.COM and DNS8.GAHOST.COM. Neither responds to requests, for me. Anyone else with different results?
Re:Can't resolve host name (Score:1)
invisiblog.com. 14400 IN MX 0 invisiblog.com.
invisiblog.com. 14400 IN SOA dns7.gahost.com. admins\@gahost.com.invisiblog.com. 1050648297 28800 7200 3600000 86400
invisiblog.com. 14400 IN NS dns7.gahost.com.
invisiblog.com. 14400 IN NS dns8.gahost.com.
invisiblog.com. 14400 IN A 66.96.212.215
invisiblog.com.
Re:Can't resolve host name (Score:2)
Good reason not to put all your DNS servers behind one router. Microsoft made that mistake, and it was funny.
Backwards (Score:3, Informative)
"Now you can post all those tales of late-night dumpster diving, without fear of being branded a terrorist!"
No, timothy, we'll still be labeled terrorits. Encryption will simply be chalked up as one of ou^M^M their tools.
Freenet blogs (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Freenet blogs (Score:2)
The fact that nobody would ever see it? The 5-minute page-load time? That you have to upload all the data again every day?
Re:Freenet blogs (Score:1)
With regard to having to upload it again every day - admittedly, the need to have to do so when publishing DBR freesites is a bit of a nuisance. However, it can easily be dealt with by setting up a cron job to do that for you.
And 5 minute page load times? I don't h
Because Freenet is self-defeating (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Because Freenet is self-defeating (Score:1)
Freenet has potential; I don't think it's been reached yet, but it is there. Java is retarded. In theory, it's a great old thing, but when you deal with various implementations that all have little flaws, the result is a program that is slow and buggy. That's the first of Freenet's problems. The second is the lack of awareness and use. You're incorrect in thinking only conspiracy theorists and paedophiles use the network.
Kiddie porn may be the most heinous and illegal thing to you, and southe
Re:Because Freenet is self-defeating (Score:2)
Re:Because Freenet is self-defeating (Score:1)
Is Sorenson still closed? If someone happened to have the source about, or, perhaps, the source for M$'s DRM for something like .lit... what's the hassle of trying to find a site that won't go down versus posting to Freenet? I think you're missing the whole point of Freenet: Having a way of keeping things 'out there' without worrying about it being suppressed. For Scientology docs,
Re:Because Freenet is self-defeating (Score:2)
Re:Because Freenet is self-defeating (Score:1)
Btw, your post was excellent. I'm not trying to evangelize Freenet, I'm simply saying that at the moment, it seems to be the 'best' option for some things. DeCSS, for example, would have been well served to have been released on Freenet. Also, I believe the authors of 'Clit' (.lit converter) originally released on Freenet.
You are correct as far as the mainstream attention, but that's not my focus. I'm more inter
Re:Because Freenet is self-defeating (Score:2)
Well, I'm a couple days behind myself, but we're live now - ximp.sourceforge.net [sourceforge.net]. Ximp is the name of the SourceForge project, but Maverick is the name of the alternative. I just threw this stuff up 10 minutes ago, and I'll probably be hacking on it the rest of the night, but it'll still be pretty rough for awhile. Have a look at the two descriptions (I'm working on merging them) and let me know what you think.
Re:Because Freenet is self-defeating (Score:1)
I wish comments like this where the norm, not the exception.
--
"Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one." - A.J. Liebling
zerg (Score:3, Interesting)
Why an invisiblog? (Score:4, Funny)
First, say you work for a company, like some big name company or organization. Suppose you have some valuable input you think the public should know. When I did work for the [large nonprofit animal-rights group name withheld] in the mid 90s, I was truly shocked how poorly it was run. My company was doing a sort of "cleanup" before an audit, and we saw almost brazen employee theft, accounting black holes (over $600K a year was being funneled into payroll, for example, to a dozen employees who did not exist, or at least, had no SSNs and all shared the same mailstop in the Azores), and just general dishearteningly shocking truths. When our group began to uncover a lot of red flags, we were suddenly told that we were not needed, they had hired another audit company to "start where we left off." Apparently they got away with hiring three companies, all of whom did only part of the audits, so that something they were up to, I guess, could not be pieced together. I wanted to shout, I wanted to scream, "Don't give money to these people!!!!" to anyone who might mistakenly seen their cute animal logo and think, "I'll save a panda or a baby seal." But I could have really fucked my audit company, made some accusations that would have put me in court, and other nastiness. What can I say, I'm a coward.
Second, sometimes you just want to vent frustrations about family and friends, get comments, and just orally dump onto an anonymous crowd to get a sense of whether you're crazy, or they are. Suppose you have a lot of friends in the local SOHO community. You hate some of them, you know some of them have their dirty secrets, but you don't want to expose them or get them in trouble by having them traced back to you. Those can make the best blogs. "The man we'll call 'Sleeps-with-underage-boys' was at my gallery today, bragging about his new blond hair. He's bleached it so much, most of it has fallen out, and he looks like Colin Mochrie with a Quake II -rendered haircut. Despite claims he makes at book parties, he's only sold one painting, and that was six years ago. If it weren't for his father's inheritance, he'd be mopping the floor of porno booths at the local wharf. Itchy-Scalp-Redhead is flirting with him, because she has no gaydar, and doesn't realize that Sleeps-with-underage-boys is so past gay, he overshot Liberace and landed deep in Emerald City; red glitter shoes and all. It's like watching a sparrow crash into a plate glass window over and over. You want to stop it, but you can't stop laughing at the little bird's persistence. I hate this job, but I can't tear myself away because its a circus that keeps getting worse and worse, and you just want to be there when the whole big top finally catches fire and Jumbo tramples a few trapeze acts."
Re:Why an invisiblog? (Score:1)
Re:Why an invisiblog? (Score:2)
Use Freenet (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Use Freenet (Score:2)
Re:Use Freenet (Score:2)
True Story (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's what happened:
My best friend was getting married, and I was invited to be one of the groomsmen. I'm cool with that, very excited to be a part of it, etc etc.
Well, during, before, and after the ceremony the bride's mother just got on my nerves. [politically correctness]She generally acted in a very non-friendly way[/politically correctness].
And a day later, after coming down with a cold, and pumped full of cold/flu meds, I re-iterated this truth in my blog, albeit a bit too unfriendly.
You see when I started a blog I wanted to be truthful. I didn't want to worry about holding back, about letting off the pressure a bit so I wouldn't offend people. I wanted to let my thoughts be known, no matter what.
Well, this will backfire for anyone. I promise. That is why this idea is f*cking brilliant.
You can't be brutally honest (such as, say, calling your best friend's new mother in law a bitch) without suffering repurcussions. Such as hateful, bodily-harm threatening email from the bride (and family).
So from then on I had to censor my posts, put my attitude and ideas in check and make sure they're in accordance with the Friendly Blog Act. This means you can't say anything too hurtful or truthful for fear of it affecting other areas of your life.
Was my friendship affected by the post? Sure. But it affected him far more than it affected me. That was the real hurt. Knowing that my words caused him grief, caused him to deal with the bride's family backlash, to try and make up for my stupid ass mistake.
With a service such as this I can tell the truth, change a few names, and no one ever know the wiser. Of course, if I get too specific I can get busted, but considering the amount of blogs this could generate, I'm not that worried about it. I can't wait to sign up and try it out, completely anonymous and completely guilt-free of any posts I might have to put up there.
Blog's can harm kids, remember. If its not your friends it may be the job interview, your future supervisor googling up your name and holding you responsible for some post you made while drunk out of your mind.
Not that I would know...or anything.
"So, you said last March you...'Love the pot.' Can you elaborate on that?"
Re:True Story (Score:1)
1. Don't be drunk out of your mind, or at all for that matter.
2. Don't blog.
#1 Internet rule, "U keepa U mouth shut!" (with heavy Italian accent)
new way to googlebomb (Score:3, Insightful)
Anonymous Cowards dot Blog (Score:4, Funny)
--Kynn
Pathetic (Score:2, Interesting)
If anyone really cares, they would have asked you.
Some people have blogs while most have a cry for attention.
Dire Implications (Score:3, Insightful)
"Your Honor, we need a court order to seize their network logs for the last 6 months, and a gag order so they can't warn their potentially unlawful users." [insert rubber stamp sound]
Freenet (Score:1)
Just put your blog on the Freenet [freenetproject.org]...
Nick
Re:Freenet (Score:1)
I'm OK with it being used to safe harbor sites and files for people in other countries that don't have any free speech but child porn and warez is illegal EVERYWHERE and it's WRONG. Not to mention, child porn has nothing at all to do with free speech, nothing at all. It's just sick, perverted, illegal and plain old wrong.
There is no one
Re:OT? Dumpster diving (Score:2)
The Dumpster Lady [aol.com]
Dumpster Diving for Treasure [thebulletonline.com]
Dumpster Diving: Treasure and Trash [nd.edu]
alt.dumpster [google.com]
Re:OT? Dumpster diving (Score:1)
How is that different that looking out the window and picking some other random license place number?
It's not a secret...
Re:Linux help (Score:1)
Re:Linux help (Score:1)