Personal Privacy Pointers

By Aaron Price, Documentation Services Assistant (price@cc1.unt.edu)

Here is a collection of ways you can protect yourself on the Internet and find out more information about the complex issue of personal privacy.

• PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) : As I mentioned in the corresponding article this is the best way to keep your e-mail secure. PGP scrambles your e-mail with a variety of security levels that you get to choose.
  Platforms: Windows, Mac, UNIX, DOS, OS/2, VMS, the Atari ST, Archimedes, and the Commodore Amiga. A Windows NT version is under development.
  Latest Version: 2.6.2 Locations: http://bs.mit.edu:8001/pgp-form.html or you can telnet to net-dist.mit.edu and log in as "getpgp". This is required because it is an export controlled file.
  More Information: A FAQ is located at http://www.prairienet.org/~jalicqui/pgpfaq.txt . In addition, the newsgroup alt.security.pgp has been created for discussions concerning PGP.
• PGP Phone : This is the same as PGP except it encrypts voice communication as opposed to e-mail communication. The initial beta version does not support the Internet.
  Latest Version: 1.0b4
  Platforms: Macintosh only. A Windows 95 version is in developement.
  Location: http://web.mit.edu/network/pgpfone/
  More Information: A FAQ has not been generated yet, but the manual is available at http://web.mit.edu/network/pgpfone/manual/ .
• Mixmaster: This remailer strips e-mail of all indentifying characteristics. Mixmaster was created as a more secure alternative to the Cypherpunk remailers. This is the best way to send anonymous mail. Abusing of these remailers is enforced.
  Latest Version: 2.0
  Platforms: UNIX
  Location: This is another export controlled program. It can be found by reading http://obscura.com/~loki/agreement.html .
  More Information: A remailer FAQ can be read at http://www.well.com/user/abacard/remail.html and a list of remailers and other information can be obtained at http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~raph/remailer-list.html . A help file is located at http://kether.alias.net/~mix/remailer-help.html .
• Anonymous Mail Servers : These are sites that allow anyone to obtain an anonymous e-mail address that you can use to send annymous mail or post anonymous news messages. You send e-mail to these sites and they will resend them to the target under the name of the anonymous account assigned to you. The recipient can also reply to this account and their message will be forwarded to your real account. Most of these servers are private, however there are two popular public servers.
• Anon.Penet.Fi: This is the oldest of the anonymous servers. Recently they were forced by Finnish authorities to give up a user's real ID. Once again I refer you to the corresponding article for more information. Otherwise this server has a good reputation.
  More Information: A help file is located at http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~raph/penet.html and a help message can be obtained by e-mailing help@anon.penet.fi .
• Alpha.c2.org : c2.org is the home of the people who offered free T-shirts to anyone who can find cracks in Netscape and report it. This server is much more secure than anon.penet.fi. It forces the user to use PGP encryption, remailers, and reply blocks. Not even the admin know who uses this service.
  More information: A help file is at http://www.stack.urc.tue.nl/~galactus/remailers/alpha.html and can be obtained by sending e-mail to help@alpha.c2.org .
• WWW Anonymous Resources: Tons of anonymous mailers on the Internet have come and gone. They usually sprout up and run for a few months, then some people begin to abuse these by using them to harass and annoy others. This causes enough Internet outrage that the site is shut down usually rather quickly. The folks at c2.org have created an anonymous remailer that has remained for a while. This site is not very secure, however, and should not be considered top security.
  Location: http://www.c2.org:80/remail/by-www.html
• General Information On Privacy Issues: Here is a collection of items of general interest to anyone who wants to join or follow the privacy debate. There are many sites on the Internet so I had to narrow it down to just a few. This is by no means a comprehensive list. URL's:
  • Electronic Privacy Information Center - http://www.privacy.org/
  • Anonymity, remailers and your privacy - http://www.stack.urc.tue.nl/~galactus/remailers/
  • The Electronic Frontier Foundation - http://www.eff.org/
  • Privacy Bibliography - gopher://pwa.acusd.edu:70/00/USDinfo/privacy/resources/biblio.txt
  • Privacy International - http://www.privacy.org/pi/
  • About the Clipper Chip - http://draco.centerline.com:8080/~franl/clipper/about-clipper.html
  • Security Programs For UNIX - http://www.alw.nih.gov/Security/security-prog.html

  USENET

  • alt.security
  • alt.security.index
  • alt.security.pgp
  • alt.privacy
  • alt.privacy.clipper
  • alt.privacy.anon-server
  • comp.privacy
  • comp.society.privacy
  • comp.security.unix misc.security

If you have problems or questions about this server, please contact me as soon as possible. You can send mail to the following address: