In the US, we are free to speak our minds and to spend money without being forced to reveal our identities - except when using the Web. Browsing the Web leaves digital tracks everywhere in the form of log files, and anyone who hosts a Web site can be easily traced.
This can be changed by extending the existing technologies of anonymous remailers and Web proxy servers. Secure browsing is straightforward: an anonymizer, acting as an intermediary between the browser and a given URL, resends the request from its own location and then directs the result back to the original requester. Serving Web pages is a similar process - the anonymous server retrieves and passes along requested pages without revealing the location of the source.
Crackdowns on Internet content make clear the need for an anonymized Web. Now, someone just needs to implement it.
-Jamais Cascio (cascio@gbn.org) is technology manager for Global Business Network.
