Hacker Convention Focuses on Privacy

L A S   V E G A S, July 29, 2001 -- Ever want to walk away from your life?

You can change your identity, hide your tracks on the Internet, and cloak your e-mail in privacy. Battered wives can elude their painful pasts; harassers and criminals can hide from the law. But you probably can’t escape your boss.

Speakers at Defcon, the world’s largest convention of hackers and hangers-on, have privacy on their minds this year. And it’s not just to hide nefarious deeds — although a few of them admit to such motives. Rather, it’s to hide from bosses who may be reading your e-mail, from junk mailers who spam your doorstep, or from bad credit records that may dog you for years.

“America has become a surveillance society,” said John Q. Newman, author of more than a dozen books on personal privacy. “But we can still carve out a zone of privacy for ourselves.”

Needless to say, “John Q. Newman” isn’t the name his mother gave him.

Anonymous Remailers and Such

Most e-mail is traceable. Truly anonymous e-mail isn’t.

Early in the history of the Internet, an “anonymous” remailer in Finland offered e-mailers with something to hide a place to go. The remailer was used by whistle blowers to complain about their bosses, by in-the-closet homosexuals to explore their lifestyles, and by privacy-aware individuals who simply didn’t want their letters traced to their names.

It was also used by spammers and harassers to flood the Internet with sludge, leading to the site’s shutdown.

But several remailers still exist, said “noise,” a law student who runs the “noisebox” anonymous remailer. They’re struggling but thriving, still faced with the problem of being used both for good and for evil.

The systems are simple to use: just e-mail one of their special addresses to get your mail anonymized.

ZeroKnowledge Systems of Montreal goes further. Their product, Freedom, provides a full Internet front-end, which establishes various pseudonyms under which you can surf the Net without leaking personal data. Different pseudonyms, for instance, could be used for socializing, for shopping, and for seeking information, making it impossible for the government or hackers to track your travels through the Net.

Change Your Name

Anonymous e-mailers and zero-knowledge products may save you from being traced on the Net, but they won’t stop junk mail from coming to your doorstep.

Newman has solutions for that. A privacy consultant, he works with battered wives fleeing their tormentors, and debt-ridden scofflaws who want to create new identities to escape from the darkness of their past lives.

He’s unapologetic that some of his tricks, like forging educational transcripts to provide a background for a new identity, are illegal. And he knows that some of his clients may be trying to escape from the law, though he says he’s never helped a violent felon.

“The federal government gives murderers, serial rapists, and armed robbers new identities all the time,” he said.

But he also gives tips to ordinary individuals on how to hide from public databases—the databases that let Liam Youens stalk Amy Boyer last year, finding her personal information for less than $200 and eventually killing her.

“Everybody has something to hide. Do you undress in front of the neighbors? No. Then you have something to hide,” he says.

Newman’s tips include establishing additional addresses, phone numbers and even offshore bank accounts to help cloak your personal information (see sidebar.)

Tyranny of Your Boss

None of these tricks can protect you from your boss, Newman warned.

“When you are at work, you’re the boss’s slave,” he said. Most companies have policies which let them monitor phone calls and e-mail with impunity, he said — and that includes capturing e-mails on their way to anonymizing services.

Dow Chemical, The New York Times, Honda and Xerox have all fired workers in the past year based on offensive e-mail. Employees have some expectation of privacy if a company has no written policy on e-mail surveillance, lawyers said — but most companies do.

Of course, workers can encrypt their e-mail with popular programs like Pretty Good Privacy (PGP). But depending on the company, bosses may even be able to ask workers to decrypt encoded mail.

That means you should stay on your toes at work, Newman said.

“It really comes down to, what is the philosophy of your boss,” he said.