That ixquick allows unencrypted connections so its pledge not to keep IP logs is worthless. Without an encrypted connection (like those used by indymedia by default and for all postings) all you type and see is sent as plain text readable by whoever places themselves in between. Such a person doesn't need any IP logs from the company as they would already have everything they need.

Even you were using encrypted connections to ixquick, who are they that you'd trust their word not to keep information that would identify you or your interests. Even if it were true that they retained no such data, could you trust that none of their employees or an outside interest was not syphoning off this information on the sly?

If the indymedia thing has taught anyone anything it is that you have to take responsibility for security into your own hands - or simply assume that the cops are aware of everything you do on your computer or when you access the net.

infiltration & abuses. Human rights activists on imc & trade unionists only act against organisations breaking the law or working unethically. Seems like Good advice though above, in general it seems we are one up on the BNP just about who are one of the biggest security worries especially with euro & local council elections in june, so even though there maybe afew idtiots in it like any organisations its another good reason to support the green party or any candidate who supports human rights & the environment like most in cooperative labour party people. If BNP MEPs etc get in security issues get far worse as councils are allowed to legally spy on people now.
First security worry though is that even if well programmed computers can malfunction, whilst we still live in a dangerous generally undemocratic system this is amplified & alot of tech goes into war machines like AI fighter bomber system BAE are making & similar ones in USA,China etc. These artificially intelligent hunter killer droids could be a number one security issue in the next 10 yrs if they are programmed to just kill as they are today& malfunction& or get bad orders. There always needs to be good people-programmes in the loop& we definetely need to live in a real democracy before we have a planetary killing situ that could hit us far faster than climate change.
Its worth keeping important info going via encrypted paper etc if necessary.

thanks for the info. keep it coming

Using an internet searcher that claims not to log your IP is only a small part of the whole picture.

As someone pointed out correctly, any website you visit still goes through your ISP and your ISP could place a black box in the middle recording anything you search and visit.

You computer could also get stolen one day, just like Indymedia servers are, and anything you have searched for will then be recovered from the internet cache.

I actually use Ixquick, and they do have a HTTPS address (SSL), but that is only a small part of the picture and useless unless other measures like anonymous proxies are while searching.

You may also want to look into Scroogle:  https://ssl.scroogle.org/

Why does the article say "for all of us not on linux at the moment"?

I have used Linux for many years but I don't recall it has any special IP address hiding magic. IP addresses work the same way in all operating systems.

I would just use Tor if I wanted to hide my IP address, on Linux, Windows or Macs.

And I wouldn't rely on Ixquick, since it's a single point of failure and you shouldn't trust your security a single third party, although it might be nice to use as a minimal layer of security. But if the only people who use it are those with something to hide, it might draw attention to yourself far more than just using Big Brother Google.

Stumbled upon this article a few days ago and thought it may be relevent, although it's pobably just repeating what you may know already.

 http://cryptogon.com/?p=624

That's a good post in terms of education about the complexity of the subject. So thanks but it wasn't exactly helpful as it doesn't contain any solution.

It should always be remembered that the internet is a military invention, and that there is always likely to be someone more technical looking over your shoulder whether you realise that or not. The net is still an almost uncontrollable means of mass communication and so cannot be dismissed. The reason we don't have more court actions yet is simply because they are drowning in information that they can't navigate through.

So, if onion routing is currently compromised then what way forward? As an engineer I feel there are a myriad of anonymity solutions yet to be tried that are just crying out for implementation and yet currently my best advice is any public internet access, such as a cafe without webcams, submitted using gloves and a disguise. If you don't understand what I've been talking about then 'Turn Back Now', this post isn't aimed at you.

One solution could be to expand the number of onion routers exponentially. Let's face it, Tor etc are pretty unusable now and that would cure that problem.

I feel the answer lies in encryption though. Activists have won the battle for the desktop for the forseeable future. There is no excuse not to have every computer drive made impregnable to outside surveillance. I feel this is also the future of anonymous posting.

I have been thinking about this for months now and still don't have a 'magic bullet'. I have considered whether setting up a safe ISP or hosting site is the answer but these will become 'single points of failure'. Myabe encrypted P2P distributed messaging is more resilient. My best solution so far which I have passed to decent coders for consideration is encrypted tunneling networks within the net, where each computer creates a pseudonymn for each individual communication and accepts a pseudonominous request for communication.

I really don't know if TCP/IP is up to the job. It is a set of protocols developed by business and the military which relies on ID. Most surveillance software relies on this. Some of you will understand the protocol in depth and will know it is perfectly possible to connect computers using any other protocol that you care to invent as long as both computers understand the same protocol. For example, if one IM webserver understood my own protocol then I could communicate with it over the Internet without any IP connection, ISPs permitting.

Just now every protocol I have read relies on some form of ID. A message is fragmented and reconstituted according to some unique identifier. There are good reasons for that. But, a communications system could operate without unique identifiers when there is human intervention. If I posted this message here in fragments then an experienced operator would be able to reassemble them in the correct order fairly easily, and the worst case would be the odd message fragment would have to be dropped and resent.

It should be easy for a smart young kid to develop a routable P2P anonymous internet messaging protocol ideally suited to sites like IM and wikileaks. We have a vast amount of well-motivated and technically able people who could contribute. Because so much of the infrastructure of the internet is expectant of IP ( thanks Cisco) then it may have to be a new protocol encapsulated within IP.

Basically the world needs a way of communicating without any machine address, any thoughts /comments /criticisms /suggestions?