Communication on the internet

[Forr]

I was having a discussion with a friend of mine about anonymity on the internet and the right to congregation and free speech. We reached the agreement that it is essential to democracy that people be able to engage in anonymous discussion with each other. Anonymous in the sense that only the parties intending to communicate are able to identify each other.

That said, Is it theoretically possible on the internet? If so, what combination of programs would provide this kind of security?

Thank you,
Forr

[LD]

I was having a discussion with a friend of mine about anonymity on the internet and the right to congregation and free speech.

I don't think there is anonymity on the internet. If the authorities want to know who posted "this" or who commented "that" etc, those sources will be found out and identified if deemed necessary.

[Bliss Ellison]

I don't think there is anonymity on the internet. If the authorities want to know who posted "this" or who commented "that" etc, those sources will be found out and identified if deemed necessary.

I would second to LD anonymity is no more there in the age of internet. No one can stay anonymous as when the authorities can figure out the sources providing those resources they can also unmask those anonymous.

[commodityman]

There is absolutely no anonymity on the internet or communication, say, Skype which is suppose to be secure, but now is owned by Microsoft, I highly doubt it is secure and if the authorities want they could listen anyway.

[mika]

I thought proxy servers were supposed to be 100% anonymous? This thread is a real eye opener. I guess the idea of appearing anonymous only applies to other people, and not the government lol

[deepsand]

I thought proxy servers were supposed to be 100% anonymous?

Normal proxies pass, as part of the Header, a string which concatenates the IP Addresses of the devices that the request passed through, so as to be able to return the response to the proper device.

True anonymizing proxies replace that string with an IP Address that is one belonging to its own local private net, and is temporarily assigned to you, so that it knows to whom to pass along the response.

[mikmik]

What about VPN and other encryption? I know that's probably not anonymizing but is it possible to ensure the messages stay private?
What if encryption is illegal in a country? Steganography is the go to source of true anarchists! This is even more technical, Chaffing and winnowing.
Sorry, I'm just kidding, I believe very strongly people should be able to communicate in total privacy.

I am actually interested in this myself. I've wondered how secure VPN ultimately is.

[commodityman]

VPN is very secure. Many companies use VPN for their employees who are working at home rather than coming to the office. On the other hand, VPN is not secure when you have hacker than may want to attempt to break into and collect sensitive data. It is up there in security unless you are a company that is storing sensitive data like credit card numbers or SSN's, etc, you have less likelyhood of a break. The best most elite system use today is supposed to be used by guess who? The good ole IRS.

[mikmik]

Yes, you are right. If you are not anonymous in the first place, you provide an attack surface, point, something . The best bet is invisibility. If no one knows you're there in the first place, they aren't going to be listening!