Question for Job and others / was: Re: Tor and Thunderbird: Outgoing Email Unsafe?

Wed Jan 3 11:27:40 UTC 2007

I absolutely second that. However, I believe tor should store as
little incriminating evidence on the computer and dirservers as
possible. While I don't condone breaking the law generally, I
absolutely condone people bypassing the Great Firewall of China (for
one example). If these people were to be caught with incriminating
evidence, it could cost them their life, a lifetime prison sentence
(include torture in the ROC), or worse. I believe tor should be
helping these people, not hurting them. I don't think tor should go
around deleting parts of logs in other programs or windows, but users
need to be aware it is a risk (as it is with ALL anonymity programs).
If endorsing illegal activities in China is illegal, please report me
to the police.
Ringo Kamens

On 1/3/07, Job <Job2 at home.nl> wrote:
> Hello George,
>
> I understand your point of view. Indeed, I am not a US resident and
> therefor not limited by US law.
> I live in The Netherlands where privacy is still much more of an issue
> and -for example- downloading(but not uploading) of music etc is
> legal.(so are soft-drugs, abortion and gay marriage btw)
> The Dutch are far from repressed i think ;)
> The way you describe it makes it sound a bit shady I think. My reasons
> for wanting my emails to be anonymous is not because of harassment or
> spam. Actually i wouldn't even know how to send spam.
> The concern -for me-  is not one related to my ISP as I don't anything
> to violate their policies or break laws and actually i am not using an
> obscure email account (yet).
> I want to offer my future clients the option of contacting me and me
> contacting them without for example the receivers spouse, family,
> friends or boss being able to trace anything due to the nature of the
> service I will provide as this is related to topics that are highly
> personal. Unfortunately I cant elaborate on this too much due to the
> exact same reasons. The most I can share with anyone at this point is
> that its in the field of Psychology. This causes me to be able to offer
> a level of service that from the receivers side is totally untraceable
> or near untraceable( however, like i stated before, i DO want them to be
> able to contact me too) That is also why i am not very concerned about
> the traces left on my own computer as these are not accessible by the
> significant others of the client. I want to make the barrier to take
> that first step to get into contact as low as possible. The anonymous
> email is just part of the privacy I want to offer but since I am just
> looking into the online anonymity option and I am new at Tor this seems
> to be a good place to start and look for extra information.
>
> Best,
> Job
>
>
>
>
> GeorgeDS schreef:
> > On Tue, 2007-01-02 at 11:53, Job wrote:
> >
> >> . . .I just want to be sure receivers of email wont be able t see my
> >> IP and stuff. . .
> >> As long as i dont send any emails to anyone isnt it safe? I
> >> understand my ISP and mail.com will be able to trace me but not
> >> receivers of emails as I am not sending any at that moment.
> >>
> >
> > I got curious about Tor because of concerns of businesses, including my
> > ISP, tracking my activities over the Internet. Ultimately I became most
> > concerned about Google due to the thousands of searches I've performed
> > over the years, including medical, political, and financial searches
> > that I thought were of a private nature. I've learned that Google keeps
> > a permanent history of all searches, and if they wished, could probably
> > sell most of my search history, properly linked to my real name and
> > address. I don't believe the US has any laws to stop this. What I've
> > learned about Google disturbed me enough that I removed Google ads from
> > my web site.
> >
> > As it develops, it appears that Tor's most valuable contributions will
> > be in the area of allowing people under repressive governments (and
> > other non-benign powerful organizations) to access and share information
> > their governments does not want them to see, and to communicate with
> > like minded individuals, in and out of their own countries. The "Why We
> > Need Tor" section of the Overview http://tor.eff.org/overview.html.en
> > says "It [lack of anonymity] can even threaten your job and physical
> > safety by revealing who and where you are. For example, if you're
> > traveling abroad and you connect to your employer's computers to check
> > or send mail, you can inadvertently reveal your national origin and
> > professional affiliation to anyone observing the network, even if the
> > connection is encrypted."
> >
> > While Tor certainly can hide you from your final destination, whether it
> > be a server or individual, that seems more a by product than a core
> > feature.
> >
> > I've found parts of this thread mildly disturbing. The Overview suggests
> > an excellent reason for email through Tor, though in such a case you
> > will not at all be anonymous to the email's recipient, but should be
> > anonymous to the first and subsequent links providing the connection
> > back to your employer. I'm having some trouble visualizing (maybe I lack
> > imagination) why it should be so important to hide yourself from someone
> > receiving your email. If you've already gone through a free email
> > service, and used an obscure email name, your real IP has negligible
> > value. That is unless the emails were harassing or otherwise violated
> > the origin ISP policies, in such a way that the ISP might reveal sender
> > information to the recipient, or cancel the sender's account.
> >
> > Job, can you explain, in an abstract manner, why it is important to you
> > to send emails where the recipient has no way to identify you, but you
> > do not care about your ISP or independent email provider being aware of
> > your other activities, except when you are contacting these special
> > recipients, when you will be using Tor?
> >
> > It's unlikely to be relevant in this situation (Job does not appear to
> > be a US resident), but US residents who use Tor to harass or annoy email
> > recipients anonymously are committing a federal crime. In early January
> > 2006, Bush signed the Violence Against Women Act, which provided among
> > other things "Whoever...utilizes any device or software that can be used
> > to originate telecommunications or other types of communications that
> > are transmitted, in whole or in part, by the Internet... without
> > disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or
> > harass any person...who receives the communications...shall be fined
> > under title 18 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both."
> > http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3576511 So you can
> > annoy someone by email if you don't hide your identity, but if annoy
> > someone anonymously it becomes a federal crime.
> >
> > George Shaffer
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
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