Privacy and Anonymity

The Christian Militia Network receives lots of email asking how people can register for the message boards and protect their identity. Many of the people who inquire don't want to provide any information about themselves or any information that would link them to this Web site, and they are especially concerned about having their email address on a public web site that can be viewed by anybody.

A lot of people have communicated that they will not register for the message boards because they don't want to post their opinions and then be spammed, harassed for their views, or targeted by law enforcement or some government bureau. Many People choose to watch the message boards as passive viewers and forego any contribution in the interest of remaining anonymous.

Computer Tracking

Access Logs

The Christian Milita Network is hosted by a commercial web hosting service, and our Internet Service Provider (ISP) has access logs that track some aspects of a visitor's activities, such as source IP address, browser software used, etc. This is common practice, and may be required by law.

Those access logs would be made available to law enforcement upon receipt of a subpoena, and a complete record of what links were visited could be extracted by IP address.

IP Addresses

Networked computers have an IP address that may or may not be unique. When a computer connects to a Web site, the web server logs information about the client, such as the IP address, time of day, link that was visited, browser used, data transfer size, and data transfer time. Most home computers use an ISP that gives them an IP address, and in many cases that IP address can be used to provide a direct map from the web server to the household that made the connection.

One way to avoid the IP address trail of bread crumbs is to go to a place that offers a Wi-Fi connection to the Internet, and connect through their network. That will obscure the source IP address to some degree, because access logs will show a source IP address that belongs to the organization that supplied the Wi-Fi access.

For example, say you go to Jim's Coffee Shop who offers free Wi-Fi Internet access, and you connect to the Internet through their Wi-Fi network using a wireless network card on your laptop. The IP address that shows up in the logs of the web servers you connect to belongs to Jim's Coffee Shop, not your laptop.

MAC Addresses

The last bread crumb to eliminate is the MAC address of your network card. This is somewhat complicated, but if you are extraordinarily concerned about having your Internet activities tracked, you might want to get a removable wireless network card that allows you to change the MAC address. A simplified explanation of a MAC address is it is a hardware code that maps your specific network card to your computer's IP address.

Some wireless network equipment log the MAC address of the computers that connect along with the IP address that is given out to those computeres. If you were to go to a Wi-Fi hotspot and connect to the wireless network multiple times, using the same wireless card without changing the MAC address, it would be possible to track your computer, or more specifically your network card, by its MAC address. You can eliminate this by changing the MAC address of your wireless network card every time, prior to connecting to a wireless network. Depending on what operating system you are using, there are many card drivers that provide the ability to change the MAC address of the network card.

Aliases

Aliases should be used when registering for the message boards. Identify theft is a serious problem and should be taken into consideration when providing any personal information anywhere on the Internet. Email addresses are specifically mined by unscrupulous people using software packages that are very good at finding them, so be extra careful when providing an email address that will be posted for the public to see.

Many people have indicated that they are concerned about providing an email address as part of the registration process, and for good reason. One way to work around that problem is to go to a free email provider and sign up for a free email account without using any personal information (google gmail is a good choice). Once you get that email account, use it to register for the CMN message boards using an alias and without providing any personal information. Once you get the registration confirmation email, abandon, or better yet, wipe out that free email account. If you can wipe it out, anybody sending email to that email address will get a bounced email response indicating that the email is undeliverable. Creating the bogus free email account using the Wi-Fi hotspot advice provided above will also help to remove any audit trail from the email provider's access logs.

Government and Law Enforcement Monitoring

This site is almost certainly being monitored by law enforcement and/or government employees whose job it is to track potential threats from various sources. Based on the origin of some of the network addresses used by participants to register, it is highly likely that a number of law enfocement and counter-terrorism personnel have registered and are actively monitoring the messages on our message boards. Please be aware of this, and do not post subversive, threatening, or treasonous messages in any of the forums.

Technical Disclaimer

This information is not entirely correct in all cases, and should only be used to spur additional research into how to protect against identity theft and computer vandalism. It is possible, although highly unlikely, that certain exceptions to the examples provided exist, such as Jim's Coffee Shop having its own Internet point of presence and block of registered IP addresses, the existence of firewalls, routers, NAT devices, etc. No implied protections should be derived from any of the statements provided, and the Christian Militia Network cannot be held liable for any inconveniences, damages, loss of data, technical disturbances, or anything harmful or negative experienced by those who attempt to use any of the information provided. This information should be used at your own risk.

Contact Us

If there are any other privacy concerns, general concerns about identity theft or remaining anonymous, or any other general questions about the topic, please feel free to Contact Us!