Internet safety and how not to be doxxed

[1apenny2apennyhotcrossbuns]

Nc, If a group of women wanted to chat online to discuss something but wanted a way to do it that the group wasn't easily found online and safe from doxxing what would be the safest way to do it? I know pms here are out.Facebook not a good idea to me. So please anyone with IT, tech or anyone who knows this stuff skills. Would be greatful for your help.

I know a couple of people who used to run their own online forums. As in, the tech already exists for people to do it from a template. I'm afraid I don't know any more than that.

Security-wise I think there are various tools you can use as an admin, and get people to create a new anonymous email account and use usernames not their real names. If I we running it I'd want to be able to say that nooo I couldn't identify X user, this is their email address (if forced by law to give it) but that woulds be a dead end.

It depends what you're trying to achieve. If it's a small group of known individuals, it's relatively straightforward to create a private forum using freely available tools and a server. If you're trying to allow more wide reaching (in terms of users) discussion, I would say that you're better off keeping it fully public to encourage good personal information hygiene since an interloper could readily join and then scrape all the data.

Ultimately, any discussion forum will be a tradeoff between a mixture of ease of joining/participation, ease of coherent discussion, freedom from disruption and privacy.

I'm happy to elaborate on both implementation models and challenges.

How about Riot? It’s got an app for iPhones and Androids and also available for desktop.

I used to run an online forum for parents with SEND kids.
It's really easy to set up and run.
I just couldn't cope with being the crutch to a hundred odd people having a hard time , as I was going through all of the same things with 2 DS with disabilities.
I handed it over to another mum.
However I'd hope a group of intelligent feminists would send you as potty !

Safest way for individuals not to be found is a throwaway email used to register and then never mention personal details that tie up with somewhere else online. Because some people have too much time on their hands...

But there's also the issue of IP addresses and I'm not techie enough to know how to deal with that exactly.

So each user has an individual responsibility, as well as whatever system you'd chose for the discussion to take place.

I know pms here are out Can I be annoying and ask why? Should we be worried about them? A MN user suggested switching to WhatsApp for messaging. Is a WhatsApp group better? Sorry am new to the tech.

I'm not tech savvy enough to vouch for advice here but it seems helpful.

hackblossom.org/cybersecurity/

If you want to be anonymous online you can download a proxy server on your pc / Mac or a VPN app on your phone .
It will show you as being the other side of the world or you can get it to keep bouncing your IP around .
You can't be traced or hacked using these and yes you can get temp email addresses free online too.
It's easy to stay hidden online if you want too .

Thanks everyone.
I will check out riot. Gronky thank you, you've given me great information.

signal.org/ is the best bet.

Can I be annoying and ask why?

A little while ago, an MN (woke) intern shared staffer screenshots of our posts on Twitter to "prove" the disgusting transphobia on FWR. Those screenshots included the users' IP addresses.

In the ensuing fall-out, it transpired that staffers have access to our PMs, although IIRC Justine promised to restrict that for lower levels of staff or something.

So now we regard MN PMs as unsafe to share personal details.

@Coldwatershock, Mumsnet has access to your direct messages and they've had issues with crusading interns reading them and posting about them on Twitter, if I recall correctly.

oh crosspost!

Kik is the classic cheaters app - for good reason. You can create a private group in there and chat away without having to give anything more than a throwaway email address to register. The hosts have in the past not complied with authorities investigating child sexual offences and so it is unlikely TRA's will be able to pressure them for details such as IP address, which would be the only identifier. It also removes the issue of someone having to 'host' and set up the forum yourself. You maintain an admin right over the group, it's invite only, and you can remove people. You can also set up a public group that can be found by browsing if you want to.

And, err, not a cheater. I just use Kik for the swingers groups!!!

In a nutshell:

1. Register a new throwaway email that you don't use anywhere else - and a second one for recovery and password reset purposes

1a. Do this using an entirely fake persona. There are online tools that will generate these for you. Print out the details if you need them (better: memorise them) and do not store them on any electronic device

1. If your service needs 2 factor authentication: try to use email if at all possible - that's where your second throwaway might be needed depending on the service
2. Get yourself a VPN. These are commercially available and you don't have to be tech savvy to use one. This takes care of the IP reveal issue.
3. Do not use any mobile service that ties to your phone number. Do not use any unenceypted mobile service. Also, get VPN for your phone, too ...

4a. In fact, get a PAYG burner. Not as easy to come by now that you need ID to buy one in most places. But ... there's always ways and means ... such as certain foreign countries or getting a total stranger to procure one for you ...

1. If you can: simply use a service along the lines of 4chan (but not 4chan, it's vile!) that simply doesn't tie users back to contributions
2. If you're going full on paranoia mode: get yourself a tor browser and use a .onion message board. The disadvantage of this is that it's not particularly accessible and many users will shy away from the "dark web"
3. Keep your devices clean. All the above steps will help fuck all once you've a key logger on your local machine or a packet sniffer on your local network. So, no competitions to win a brand new Merc for you, I'm afraid

Having said all this: if whatever you're up to happens to be of interest to GCHQ or the NSA, you're screwed anyway. But your average doxxer will give up long before even guesstimating your location.

For your email, use Protonmail.

It scares me that women are under such obsessive surveillance by men that we have to have these discussions. Can you imagine men discussing how they can hide from women online in order to stay safe?

Have found a lot of the advice given really useful for other reasons then the OP's reasons.

However to go back to the original question, if you have set up a private group whether on facebook or any other service, (en future yahoo groups will not be online only email) and it is a private group by invitation only and not viewable online, then the issue is about someone joining with bad intent. Or as a consequence of a bust up in the group, someone decides to share information from the group.

I'm just asking because I am not sure if you have a closed group, that isn't viewable online, that the issue would be doxxing.

I think there might be a little bit of what is sound privacy advice being mixed up with what is sound security advice. The two are linked but some fall squarely into one category and not the other. I'm by no means an expert on the matter but my workplace did do a surprisingly detailed online privacy course ahead of my recent trip.

A VPN doesn't provide automatic privacy from snooping in and of itself, it is more like using another internet provider at another location (this could be in your current country or another). It can help with disguising your identity from internet monitors and sites you visit but you're placing your trust in the VPN provider and your browser can transmit other information that identifies you. In terms of protecting you against doxxing, it helps if IP addresses leak from a site that you have submitted content that a would-be doxxer deems worthy of doxxing. However, I believe it is quite rare for people to be doxxed purely from their IP addresses, as ISPs tend to regularly rotate IP addresses between users and it's more of an issue for government snooping. Similarly, the dark web only helps you hide where your information is coming from, it doesn't help hide the information you willingly put out there.

No matter how secure an email provider (e.g. Proton Mail) is, if you use an email address for both public and private communications (e.g. giving it on your personal website and using it to register for doxxable activities) then that will allow a doxxer to find you. A throwaway email address means that you can be locked out of a forum if you forget your password.

With all private forums, both those you set up and those you use, assume any information you put on them could be compromised. If the information isn't there, it can't be used against you. This is why I would disagree with the private Facebook group and Whatsapp suggestions, since those both require real-world identities to use, meaning an interloper can begin doxxing if they make their way in (which becomes exponentially more likely as the group size grows). If you're looking to build your own forum, the manual for phpBB (open source forum software) seems to suggest that, while it's not possible to completely disable the need for email addresses, it can be set up so that junk will be accepted and account activation is done manually with no email confirmation required.

Doxxing isn't unique to GC individuals. People doxx those who they believe have committed a social transgression or even purely for entertainment, they can do this for everything from a sense of justice to their own amusement. I'm not equating being GC with, for example, white supremacy, it can happen to anyone for any reason.

stumbledin
No not a Facebook group or sm group.
I I have an idea on how to get active soon and I really appriciate everyone's imput.

A lot of discussion groups formerly on Yahoo have shifted to Groups.io, which is free and seems to work well. A group owner can control who's allowed to join, though there's no way to verify anyone's identity. That's good for preserving privacy, but bad because spies will undoubtedly join! Then if you do everything via an email address that you don't use for anything else, and you're careful not to be too knowledgeable about anything that your real-world self is involved with, and don't use any distinctive phrasing that can be searched for, I think you'd be pretty safe.

Slight derail but this man was part of a group who stalked and doxxed txxx s.

Stay safe all.

www.womenarehuman.com/man-hides-past-as-child-rapist-by-becoming-transgender-and-changing-name-allison-nee-dennis-woolbert/