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Anonymous post
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Anonymous post
An anonymous post is an entry on a textboard, anonymous bulletin board system, or other discussion forums like Internet forum, without a screen name or more commonly by using a non-identifiable pseudonym. Some online forums such as Slashdot do not allow such posts, requiring users to be registered either under their real name or utilizing a pseudonym. Others like JuicyCampus, AutoAdmit, 2channel, and other Futaba-based imageboards (such as 4chan) thrive on anonymity. Users of 4chan, in particular, interact in an anonymous and ephemeral environment that facilitates rapid generation of new trends.
Online anonymity can be traced to Usenet newsgroups in the late 1990s where the notion of using invalid emails for posting to newsgroups was introduced. This was primarily used for discussion on newsgroups pertaining to certain sensitive topics. There was also the introduction of anonymous remailers which were capable of stripping away the sender's address from mail packets before sending them to the receiver. Online services which facilitated anonymous posting sprang up around mid-1992, originating with the cypherpunk group.
The precursor to Internet forums like 2channel and 4chan were textboards like Ayashii World and Amezou World that provided the ability for anonymous posts in Japan. These "large-scale anonymous textboards" were inspired by the Usenet culture and were primarily focused on technology, unlike their descendants.
Today, image boards receive tremendous Internet traffic from all parts of the world. In 2011, on 4chan's most popular board, /b/, there were roughly 35,000 threads and 400,000 posts created per day. At that time, that level of content was on par with YouTube. Such high traffic suggests a broad demand from Internet users for anonymous content sharing sites.
Anonymity on the Internet can pertain to both the utilization of pseudonyms or requiring no authentication at all (also called "perfect anonymity") for posting on a website. Online anonymity is also limited by IP addresses. For example, WikiScanner associates anonymous Wikipedia edits with the IP address that made the change and tries to identify the entity that owns the IP address. On other websites, IP addresses may not be publicly available, but they can be obtained from the website administrators only through legal intervention. They might not always be traceable to the poster.
Utilizing pseudonyms allow people to post without revealing their real identity. Pseudonyms, however, are still prone to being tracked to the user's IP address. To avoid being tracked to an IP address, it is possible to post via a public computer where the IP address would usually be under the purview of the public workspace such as a coffee shop, and hence cannot be traced to the individual user. Adversarial stylometry can be employed to resist identification by writing style.
Another way people are posting anonymously online is through the use of memes. One popular meme is the Confession Bear meme. People use Confession Bear to post everything from funny and embarrassing stories to very troubled thoughts.
There are services described as anonymizers which aim to provide users the ability to post anonymously by hiding their identifying information. Anonymizers are essentially proxy servers which act as an intermediary between the user who wants to post anonymously and the website which logs user information such as IP addresses. The proxy server is the only computer in this network which is aware of the user's information and provides its own information to anonymize the poster. Examples of such anonymizers include Tor and I2P, which employ techniques such as onion and garlic routing (respectively) to provide enhanced encryption to messages that travel through multiple proxy servers.
Hub AI
Anonymous post AI simulator
(@Anonymous post_simulator)
Anonymous post
An anonymous post is an entry on a textboard, anonymous bulletin board system, or other discussion forums like Internet forum, without a screen name or more commonly by using a non-identifiable pseudonym. Some online forums such as Slashdot do not allow such posts, requiring users to be registered either under their real name or utilizing a pseudonym. Others like JuicyCampus, AutoAdmit, 2channel, and other Futaba-based imageboards (such as 4chan) thrive on anonymity. Users of 4chan, in particular, interact in an anonymous and ephemeral environment that facilitates rapid generation of new trends.
Online anonymity can be traced to Usenet newsgroups in the late 1990s where the notion of using invalid emails for posting to newsgroups was introduced. This was primarily used for discussion on newsgroups pertaining to certain sensitive topics. There was also the introduction of anonymous remailers which were capable of stripping away the sender's address from mail packets before sending them to the receiver. Online services which facilitated anonymous posting sprang up around mid-1992, originating with the cypherpunk group.
The precursor to Internet forums like 2channel and 4chan were textboards like Ayashii World and Amezou World that provided the ability for anonymous posts in Japan. These "large-scale anonymous textboards" were inspired by the Usenet culture and were primarily focused on technology, unlike their descendants.
Today, image boards receive tremendous Internet traffic from all parts of the world. In 2011, on 4chan's most popular board, /b/, there were roughly 35,000 threads and 400,000 posts created per day. At that time, that level of content was on par with YouTube. Such high traffic suggests a broad demand from Internet users for anonymous content sharing sites.
Anonymity on the Internet can pertain to both the utilization of pseudonyms or requiring no authentication at all (also called "perfect anonymity") for posting on a website. Online anonymity is also limited by IP addresses. For example, WikiScanner associates anonymous Wikipedia edits with the IP address that made the change and tries to identify the entity that owns the IP address. On other websites, IP addresses may not be publicly available, but they can be obtained from the website administrators only through legal intervention. They might not always be traceable to the poster.
Utilizing pseudonyms allow people to post without revealing their real identity. Pseudonyms, however, are still prone to being tracked to the user's IP address. To avoid being tracked to an IP address, it is possible to post via a public computer where the IP address would usually be under the purview of the public workspace such as a coffee shop, and hence cannot be traced to the individual user. Adversarial stylometry can be employed to resist identification by writing style.
Another way people are posting anonymously online is through the use of memes. One popular meme is the Confession Bear meme. People use Confession Bear to post everything from funny and embarrassing stories to very troubled thoughts.
There are services described as anonymizers which aim to provide users the ability to post anonymously by hiding their identifying information. Anonymizers are essentially proxy servers which act as an intermediary between the user who wants to post anonymously and the website which logs user information such as IP addresses. The proxy server is the only computer in this network which is aware of the user's information and provides its own information to anonymize the poster. Examples of such anonymizers include Tor and I2P, which employ techniques such as onion and garlic routing (respectively) to provide enhanced encryption to messages that travel through multiple proxy servers.