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Ask HN: How to create an anonymous site?

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Re: Ask HN: How to create an anonymous site?

#21
I would go with a Tor [1] hidden service or an EepSite on I2P [2].

Both are easy to setup and are accessible by anyone using "inproxies" such as onion.to or i2p.us.

Another advantage is that you can host the sites anywhere even behind a firewall or a NAT as long as the computer it's hosted on can run Tor or I2P.

I personally have a preference for I2P, since this is its main purpose while Tor's hidden services are not the primary purpose of Tor (which is to anonymize users on the clearnet).

[1] https://www.torproject.org/

[2] https://geti2p.net/

Re: Ask HN: How to create an anonymous site?

#22
post #6
post #4

If you need to ask these questions you are not qualified to run such a site, or at least not to ask anyone else to trust that you are not going to screw up when setting it up or at some point in the future and break anonymity. The more you move away from "free speech" to avoiding regulation and toward criminal activity the greater the chance that someone out there will actually try to see how good you really are, and…

From the way the question was phrased, I think this is precisely for learning how to do such things. You still need to start somewhere, and as long as you know you should not take inconsiderate risks, you can screw up sometimes and learn from your errors.

Importantly, you don't get to learn from your mistakes in "opsec." Dread Pirate Roberts asked a question about connecting to a tor site using curl on StackOverflow under his own name. Seconds later he realized "D'oh, that is in hindsight a bad move." and changed his name to a pseudonym.

Choose your own adventure:

a) He got to learn from his mistake.

b) That incident was recounted years later in the criminal indictment.

Re: Ask HN: How to create an anonymous site?

#23

1. Buy BTC with cash 2. Buy a domain with BTC via Tor 3. Buy hosting with BTC via Tor 4. Do not accidentally leak your identity in one of million possible ways #1-3 are pretty easy, but #4 is next to impossible. If nobody cares about you there might be some small room for error. But generally it takes one smallest mistake and you are ultimately busted.

You want 1b. Put your bought BTC through a mixer.

Re: Ask HN: How to create an anonymous site?

#24
post #14

Here are a couple of interesting links: http://untraceableblog.com/ http://voidnull.sdf.org/ To answer your questions - you can buy domain for bitcoins and use some free hosting like Wordpress or Github Pages.

Domain names can be withdrawn if you supply invalid WHOIS information.

But that's not what OP asked for :)

Re: Ask HN: How to create an anonymous site?

#26
post #16

Much like security, you pick your countermeasures in advance in the hopes of raising the cost of an attacker to penetrating your security. You're not anonymous. You're anonymous to an adversary with a given amount of technical/legal/intelligence/etc resources to bring to bear on deanonimizing you. People will probably give you links which describe adequate methods for securing you against adversaries without $1,000 o…

Obviously there are limitations on both how hard it is for "attackers" to reach you and how hart it is for "users".

SilkRoad - Was extremelly hard to "catch" but also hard for users (only Tor)

BTC-E - Still identities hidden, easily accessible by users.

Does anyone know how BTCE set it all up ?

Re: Ask HN: How to create an anonymous site?

#27
post #22
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the way the question was phrased, I think this is precisely for learning how to do such things. You still need to start somewhere, and as long as you know you should not take inconsiderate risks, you can screw up sometimes and learn from your errors.

Importantly, you don't get to learn from your mistakes in "opsec." Dread Pirate Roberts asked a question about connecting to a tor site using curl on StackOverflow under his own name. Seconds later he realized "D'oh, that is in hindsight a bad move." and changed his name to a pseudonym. Choose your own adventure: a) He got to learn from his mistake. b) That incident was recounted years later in the criminal indictmen…

That was pretty shocking to read in the indictment.

He obviously didn't think it was a serious issue at the time, but jesus, could you imagine how it felt to read about that one mistake years later? Makes you wonder what you have left online that might bit you in the ass years from now. I know i certainly couldn't run for office now!

Re: Ask HN: How to create an anonymous site?

#28
post #26
post #16

Much like security, you pick your countermeasures in advance in the hopes of raising the cost of an attacker to penetrating your security. You're not anonymous. You're anonymous to an adversary with a given amount of technical/legal/intelligence/etc resources to bring to bear on deanonimizing you. People will probably give you links which describe adequate methods for securing you against adversaries without $1,000 o…

Obviously there are limitations on both how hard it is for "attackers" to reach you and how hart it is for "users". SilkRoad - Was extremelly hard to "catch" but also hard for users (only Tor) BTC-E - Still identities hidden, easily accessible by users. Does anyone know how BTCE set it all up ?

Not hard to find out, according to their whois you can just email legal @ instra.com to find out..

Re: Ask HN: How to create an anonymous site?

#29
post #3

Don't. More specifically, if you truly care for anonymity, you won't be using a plain DNS+Web site. Instead, you should go for Freenet [1] or a Tor-hosted website [2]. [1] https://freenetproject.org/ [2] https://www.torproject.org/docs/tor-hidden-service.html.en

What are the technical differences between Tor (hidden services), Freenet and I2P?

Re: Ask HN: How to create an anonymous site?

#30
post #11

1. Buy BTC with cash 2. Buy a domain with BTC via Tor 3. Buy hosting with BTC via Tor 4. Do not accidentally leak your identity in one of million possible ways #1-3 are pretty easy, but #4 is next to impossible. If nobody cares about you there might be some small room for error. But generally it takes one smallest mistake and you are ultimately busted.

> 1. Buy BTC with cash This actually is harder than it sounds.

It's also unnecessary. You can just get bitcoins off an exchange and mix them
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