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Sarah works in a government office as an accountant. She becomes aware that her boss, the deputy minister, is stealing large amounts of money from the government. She wants to let the world know that a crime is taking place but is worried about losing her job. If she reports the matter to the minister, she might get fired. She calls a reporter at the local newspaper, but he says he can’t run a story without lots of additional information and documents to support her claims.

So Sarah decides to start a blog share her story with the rest of the world. To protect herself, she wants to make sure no one can find out who she is based on her blog posts. She needs to blog anonymously.

There are two main ways a blogger can get caught when he or she is trying to blog anonymously. One is if she reveals her identity through the content she publishes. For instance, if Sarah writes, "I’m the Assistant Chief Compliance Accountant to the Deputy Minister of Mines," there’s a good chance that someone reading her blog is going to figure out who she is pretty quickly. (EFF’s "How to Blog Safely" guide offers some great advice on how to avoid revealing your identity through the content of your blog.)

The other way Sarah can get caught is if someone can determine her identity from information provided by his or her Web browsers or email programs. Every computer connected to the Internet has — or shares — an address called an IP address, which consists of a series of four numbers from zero to 255 separated by dots (for example, 213.24.124.38). When Sarah uses her Web browser to make a comment on the minister’s blog, the IP address she was using is included on her post.

With a little work, the Minister’s computer technicians may be able to trace Sarah’s identity from this IP address. If Sarah is using a computer in her home, dialing into an Internet Service Provider (ISP), the ISP likely has records of which IP address was assigned to which telephone number at a specific time. In some countries, the minister might need a subpoena to obtain these records; in others (especially ones where the ISP is owned by the government!), the ISP might give out this information very easily, and Sarah might find herself in hot water.

Security Measures for Hiding Your Identity Online

There are a number of ways Sarah can hide her identity when using the Internet. As a general rule, the more secure Sarah wants to be, the more effort she needs to expend hiding her identity. Sarah — and anyone else hoping to blog anonymously — needs to consider just how paranoid she wants to be before deciding how hard she wants to work to protect her identity. As you will see, some of the strategies for protecting identity online require a great deal of technical knowledge and effort. A Technical Guide to Anonymous Blogging