102 PCWorld APRIL 2019HERE’S HOW SEND ANONYMOUS EMAILS
home or work from which to do your
shadowy emailing, it’s time to connect to the
internet. But wait! Before you do that, you
need to either use the TOR network or a
high-quality VPN.
If you are already using the TOR
browser via a USB thumb drive then skip
over this part, because you’re already
doing it. For everyone else, we’d still
recommend using TOR and not a VPN,
because the beauty of the TOR network is
you don’t have to trust anyone. TOR works
by running your encrypted connection
through multiple servers before letting you
out onto the open network. That way it’s
much harder to trace you back to your real
location, and only the final server that lets
you out onto the web truly has a shot at
spying on your activities—barring
unforeseen exploits, that is.If a VPN is a better
option for you,
however, choose a VPN
that accepts cash, has a
long track record of
defending user rights,
and then use TOR
anyway (go.pcworld.
com/uset).
Seriously, your best
shot at anonymity for
the purpose of using a
secret email account is
TOR. If you pay with a
credit card for your VPN, you’re traceable, if
the VPN is somehow compelled to track
you, you are also at risk. True, these are all
worst case scenarios, but it’s the principle
that matters. Stay as anonymous as you can,
use TOR.
But TOR isn’t a magic bullet by itself. The
TOR browser uses the browser extension
HTTPS everywhere from the Electronic
Frontier Foundation by default. That
extension will secure your connection over
SSL/TLS between the exit node and the
website you want to visit. That should be
enough to keep any potential snoops out of
your business.
Keep in mind that when using the TOR
browser, only that app is connected to the
TOR network. If you start using the Spotify
desktop app to stream music at the same
time it won’t happen over TOR.