Anonymous Blogging with Wordpress & Tor: Via Global Voices Advocacy .

An early draft of this guide was written by Ethan Zuckerman on April 13, 2005 and updated on October 1, 2006. On August 8, 2007 Global Voices Advocacy published an updated and linkable, blogging-friendly, HTML version of the guide, along with a downloadable PDF file. On March 10th, 2009, the guide has been updated once again so that all the tips are also compatible with Tor's recent update.

Anonymous Blogging with Wordpress and Tor
By Ethan Zuckerman

Introduction
Disclaimer
I - Writing from shared computers
Zero Install Bundle for Windows (for any portable media drive)
a) Download Tor Browser Bundle
b) Extract the Tor Browser file in your USB key
II - Writing from your personal computer
Step 1: Disguise your IP
a) Install Firefox.
b) Install Tor.
c) Install Torbutton.
d) Turn on Tor in Firefox and test it out.
What if Tor never connects?
Step 2: Generate a new, hard to trace email account.
a) Choose a webmail provider.
b) Sign up for a new email account
c) Make sure you’re able to log onto the mail service.
Step 3: Register your new anonymous blog.
a) Turn Tor on in your browser.
b) Wordpress activation link.
Log into your new blog.
Step 4: Post to your blog.
a) Write your blog post offline.
b) Log onto Wordpress.com.
Edit Timestamp.
Step 5: Cover your tracks
a) Securely erase the rough drafts
b) Clear your browser history, cookies and passwords from Firefox.
Some parting thoughts.
A final thought on anonymity.
Show your support!

Introduction

One of the great joys of working on Global Voices has been having the chance to work with people who are expressing themselves despite powerful forces working to keep them silent. I’ve worked with a number of authors who’ve wanted to write about political or personal matters online, but who felt they couldn’t write online unless they could ensure that their writing couldn’t be traced to their identity. These authors include human rights activists in dozens of nations, aid workers in repressive countries as well as whistleblowers within companies and governments.

I wrote a technical guide to anonymous blogging some months back and posted it on Global Voices, outlining several different methods for blogging anonymously. Since then, I’ve led workshops in different corners of the world and have gotten comfortable teaching a particular set of tools - Tor, Wordpress and various free email accounts - which used in combination can provide a very high level of anonymity. The guide that follows below doesn’t offer you any options - it just walks you through one particular solution in detail.

You can feel free to ignore the “why” sections of the guide if you want a quicker read and if you’re the sort of person who doesn’t need to know why to do something. I hope to format this more prettily at some point in the future, allowing the “why” sections to be expanded and compressed, making the whole document a lot shorter.

If I’ve been unclear somewhere in the document or got something wrong, please let me know in the comments - this is a draft which I hope to clean up before posting it on Global Voices. Should you find it useful and want to disseminate it further, feel free - like almost everything on this site, it’s licensed under a Creative Commons 2.5 Attribution license, which means you’re free to print it on coffee cups and sell them, if you think there’s a market and money to be made.

Disclaimer

If you follow these directions exactly, you’ll sharply reduce the chances that your identity will be linked to your online writing through technical means - i.e., through a government or law enforcement agency obtaining records from an Internet Service Provider. Unfortunately, I cannot guarantee that they work in all circumstances, including your circumstances, nor can I accept liability, criminal or civil, should use or misuse of these directions get you into legal, civil or personal trouble.

These directions do nothing to prevent you from being linked through other technical means, like keystroke logging (the installation of a program on your computer to record your keystrokes) or traditional surveillance (watching the screen of your computer using a camera or telescope). The truth is, most people get linked to their writing through non-technical means: they write something that leaves clues to their identity, or they share their identity with someone who turns out not to be trustworthy. I can’t help you on those fronts except to tell you to be careful and smart. For a better guide to the “careful and smart” side of things, I recommend EFF’s “How to Blog Safely” guide.

Onto the geekery:

Read Original Article:(Via Global Voices Advocacy.)