Re: Anonymous linux distros?

On 2008-06-27, in
<11a84930-04ca-4b2e-9db6-5c003fce62ec@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
news@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx <news@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Jun 26, 6:22 pm, Sidney Lambe <nos...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Guy Macon <http> wrote:

n...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

Guy Macon <http://www.GuyMacon.com/> wrote:

n...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

Dan C wrote:

n...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

Are there any other good anonymizer linux distros?

What are you trying to hide?

Whatever I have the right to hide as an exercise of my
civil liberties. I don't suppose you're one of those
that believes "if you're not doing anything wrong, then
you have nothing to worry about from The Authorities"?
That's the mindset of the victim of abuse from the State.
Someone who has bought into the idea that our government
is our ruler, not our servants.

You don't read the alt.privacy newsgroup much, do you?

You are making unwarranted assumptions about what is and
is not implied in the above question.  The usual reason
for someone in alt.privacy to ask what you are trying
to hide is because what you are hiding and who you are
hiding it from determines the method needed to do the
hiding.  If you are a teenage girl hiding her diary from
a kid brother who is a script kiddie, that's one answer.
 If you are a Chinese dissident hiding your plans to
protest at the Olympics from your government, that's
another answer.  Imagine yourself asking a question in a
motorcycle newsgroup about what bike to buy.  When someone
asks what you want to do with it, they are trying to
figure out whether to talk cruisers, rice rockets, or dirt
bikes, not whether you want to use it for a getaway after
robbing a bank.

So, in order to answer your question, What are you trying
to hide, and who are you trying to hide it from?

Excellent point! You're right. (Although I have a feeling,
and I may be wrong, that that wasn't the implication of Dan
C's question. If it was, then I owe him an apology).

On the other hand, I don't think I'm completely of base
with my answer because I don't have a specific item I want
to hide from a specific subject. It may be a WHOLE lot less
efficient and effective to have a broad response...but
then, that's why they make multi-purpose pocket knives and
screwdrivers with a bunch of tips, yes? One can make a very
valid argument that a broad multi-purpose tool/appliance may
be able to do a lot of things OK but no one thing very well.
And I accept that.

But that doesn't invalidate the desire to want something
that CAN do a lot of things and be flexable versus something
designed for one specific use.

Is what you are trying to hide...

Physical or pure data?

Larger than a Megabyte? Larger than a Gigabyte? Larger than
a Terabyte?

Something that you must access many times a day, from many
locations, or is it OK to have to get on an airplane to get
to it?

Can the entity that you wish to hide it from...

Access your home or workplace where your computer is?

Get a court order causing your ISP, phone company, etc. to
reveal all?

pay large bribes to whoever it needs to bribe?

Torture you until you reveal all of your passphrases?

Hurt you in various way based on knowing that ypu have
hidden information without knowing what that information is?

It's easy to say that you want a solution that will work no
matter what the answers to the above are, but then the only
answer is to move to a cave on the border between Pakistan
and Afghanistan, use trusted couriers who are willing to
give their lives to protect you, never again use a cell
phone or computer, never expose yourself to the view of any
spy satellites, and never again need skilled medical care.

So, assuming that you AREN'T Osama Bin Laden, I really need
to know what are you trying to hide, and who are you trying
to hide it from to give you any answer other than the above.

Good to see some common sense on this subject. My experience
on the usenet has taught me that the harder a person tries to
be anonymous and to hide their tracks, the less likely it is
that they have a real reason to do so, and the less likely it
is that they have something to say worth reading.

Tome

Well Tome, Sidney, if those are your REAL names ;)

"Tome" means "Live long and prosper" in my grandfather's
native tongue. It's pronounced TOE may.

I'm sorry you've found that people haven't made their secrets
and privacy fit your idea of entertainment value. I'm sure if
you asked real nice, people would love to make their personal
lives more interesting for you.

Like I said: The more a person demonstrates a fixation with
privacy and anonymity, the less likely they are to have something
worthwhile to say.

I believe you missed my point earlier when I said pretty
bluntly that it's vital for the sake of the principles of
liberty that people, any people, average and ordinary people,
are able to keep and maintain their privacy from anyone
who they don't explicitly intend to give their info and
communications to.

Well, you are wrong. This doesn't have anything to do with
liberty. It has to do with people who don't want to be held
responsible for what they post.

Cowards who will not stand up and take responsibility for what
they say are not worthy of liberty and don't have it.

Because no one trusts them and their words fall on deaf ears.

In fact, encryption and anonymity are more
effective the more people encrypt their recipes for chicken pot
pie, hide their conversations about what they thought about
the latest movie they saw. The more non-interesting, non "real
reason" type data is secured, the more hidden and lost in the
chaff the stuff you think is interesting becomes.

I think you have a chicken pot pie for a brain.


While I'm railing against the government and corporations
gathering as much data as they can willy-nilly, the ironic
thing is the bigger the haystack the more worthless the data is
to those collecting it. The more innocuous data is encrypted
and hidden the harder it is for the watchers to find what you
REALLY want hidden.

I hope you enjoy your delusions. The fact is that there isn't
anything you can do on the internet that will keep anyone who has
the power to do anything with the information from finding out
anything they want to know about you.

You are only protecting yourself from people who couldn't do
anything with the information if they had it.

Tome
.

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