100 PCWorld APRIL 2019HERE’S HOW SEND ANONYMOUS EMAILS
non-anonymous identity at the wrong time,
and your identity could be revealed.
This tutorial will walk you through the
necessary steps, and depending on how
far you want to take it, you can either use
all of the advice within or pare it down to
only the parts you need. We’ll explain
why each step is necessary to help guide
your decisions.STEP 1: GET AN
ANONYMOUS WORKSPACE
The best thing to do if you want to stay
really anonymous is to have a separate
digital work space that is only used for
your secret identity. That way there’s no
risk of crossover between your everyday
accountant self, and your anonymous
whistleblowing/Mr. Robot identity.
If you just set up an account using a
regular browser on your everyday
machine all it will take is someone nosing
around in your PC and oops! there goes
your anonymity.
Level 1: Install the TOR browser on a
USB thumb drive. If your stakes are pretty
low (i.e. if your account is discovered it’s
not the end of the world) then TOR
running off a USB drive may be all you
need. The TOR browser is a version of
Firefox that connects to the onion router
(TOR) network. This system passes your
internet connection through multiple
nodes (computers) before putting you onthe open internet. When using TOR your
real IP address is obscured. Plus, by
default the TOR browser doesn’t save your
browsing history, keeping your activity
secret. To keep TOR as secure as possible
check out the Tor Project’s tips (go.
pcworld.com/torp) on what to do to stay
as secure and private as possible online.
Also check out our tutorial on the TOR
browser (go.pcworld.com/torb) for more
information.
Level 2: More advanced users could run
an entire operating system such as the
privacy-protecting Linux distribution Tails
(go.pcworld.com/tail) off a thumb drive. This
is like having a completely separate
computer without having a second physical
device. Again, this is all about putting a
firewall between your real identity and your
anonymous account.
Level 3: If you are ultra-paranoid or
getting found out means non-life
threatening disaster then consider a
completely separate laptop that is only
used for your secret identity. It’s preferable