Police seize records from anonymiser service

[amigamad]

Once again, it seems that net-based anonymity services are only anonymous until someone really wants to know who you are. After a recent 'technical outage', the popular anonymiser service AN.ON's Java Anonymous Proxy software reappeared with a few new feature built in: The new version of the JAP client software included text like "Loading Crime Detection Data".

Read more at the Inquirer

[Croyzers]

Is anybody at the least bit suprised about this? I would say no. Of course, anon email sites have logs. People can send very malicious emails from them, so its no wonder the site has logs to deflect any blame. I think the best way to send anon emails would be to go to an internet cafe and log on that way. Why on earth I would want to send an anon email though, I don't know.

[mikeymike]

The latter part of the article about the company having some extra "features" to their software is a bit suspicious though...

[fnord]

well, all that's not quite right. I've been in Dresden at the
University where the JAP is developed, as I donated two Computers to
the project (their current web server and another alpha box that
should have been integrated into their cluster by now). Well. The JAP
team has been forced illegaly to put this code in there. It violates
›German law! But that doesn't make it unusable. Have a look at this
http://www.stop1984.org/index.php?lang=en&text=japstop.txt text. A
good friend has written it .. it should help you using JAP savely. And
yes, sending anonymous email makes sense, even if you don't want to
spam people or threaten people etc. It can help if you have to suffer
under the opression of a state. Or let's say you know something about
a politican and you want to let the press know about it, but you have
to fear someone could trace the mail back to you? btw that's the basic
problem I'm seeing in the AMTP-proposal .....

[ilgulamc]

This is a good news. At last!

[mikeymike]

@ fnord

Interesting point.  Though if you draw parallels with existing communication methods, if you wanted to seriously maintain your privacy, like with your argument under the oppression of a state and/or you knew something about a politician, if you were to phone someone about it, you'd use a call box.  The email equivalent is a cybercafe, or get a laptop, WiFi card and piggy-back an unsecured WiFi network :-)

I'm all for personal privacy, though I think the effect on public privacy is very minor in this case.

[fnord]

update: some days ago a court ruled the JAP team won't have to log any
data any more. Until then the JAP team got one "dataset" as a resulted
of their content-filtering. The German BKA knew about this data and
searched  Prof. Härtigs house in order to get the data, breaking the
court ruling - according to www.heise.de the JAP team is going to sue
the BKA

[Quixote]

Fnord figured:

...according to www.heise.de the JAP team is going to sue the BKA

;-) Bravo for them.  Let's hope for a judgment with teeth, instead of a slap on the wrist.

[Croyzers]

@fnord

And yes, sending anonymous email makes sense, even if you don't want to spam people or threaten people etc. It can help if you have to suffer under the opression of a state. Or let's say you know something about a politican and you want to let the press know about it, but you have
to fear someone could trace the mail back to you?

Point taken. Still there is a problem using anonymous emails as I personally know of 2 mail filters that will block anonymous emails. Its also a lot easier to hit the Del key and delete an email than it is to ignore a letter. I also think its a bit silly for people to expect perfect anonymity sitting at their home computer, connecting through their usual ISP, through a normal phoneline or broadband.

P.S Please don't think I'm being an obnoxious ar**ehole or anything even though it seems like it from my posts