anonymous publication

In electronic communication, anonymous publication is the act of making publicly available text (eg, articles, reviews, commentary) which cannot be traced to the author unless the text itself identifies (or hints at) the author.

Purpose

Free speech is sometimes suppressed, and in other cases the author may have reasons for keeping his identity secret (particularly if the writing to is of a political, social, or religious nature). On these issues, opinions are generally strong, with many highly diverse viewpoints. Anonymous Publication systems attempt to ensure that anyone, of any opinion, can have their work published, whilst remaining unidentified.

Methods

Systems have been developed which, using cryptography and/or steganography, can make available, untraceably, electronic copies of any text while making it next to impossible for anyone to erase all copies or to prevent access to the text. Software has been written and released which does this. For those with access to the Internet, access to such anonymously published material cannot be, in practice, prevented.

Historical examples

publishing on paper of unattributed books/pamphlets, beginning w/ Gutenberg?? pupils??

samizdat, largely 20th century

publishing in Holland of works prohibited elsewhere, during reformation / counter reformation

Galileo instance

Current implementations

status, release history, features, drawbacks of: Freenet, GNUnet, Freeway