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Hiding in Plain Sight Narratives of Contemporary Online Anonymity

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Hiding in Plain Sight Narratives of Contemporary Online Anonymity Hiding in Plain Sight Narratives of Contemporary Online Anonymity Abstract This research combines social studies and software studies to analyse how anonymity manifests itself within the internet today. To this end, the concept of anonymity and its successor online anonymity are historically analysed by means of literature which is subsequently deployed as a framework for the analysis of Tor Browser, Signal, and Retroshare. (Online) anonymity has identity empowering qualities, adds to personal freedoms and has been a protective measurement for centuries. Overall it adds to the agency of individuals. This research examines how the encrypted browser, encrypted messenger, and encrypted social networking platform narrate online anonymity through their support- and about-pages, and interfaces. Alexander Galloway’s definition of the interface plays a central role for the latter. An examination of the architectures and interfaces of Tor Browser, Signal, and Retroshare demonstrates that the medium specific characters of anonymity enhancing tools add new layers to the concept of online anonymity. The way these tools structure information is influenced by cryptographic ideals, trust and functionality. While being effected by the latter, Tor Browser, Signal and Retroshare show that a different online culture can be established in which the individual’s anonymity plays a central role. Keywords online anonymity, encryption, interface, Tor, Signal, Retroshare Lieke Kersten 22 June 2016 Lonneke van der Velden Stefania Milan MA: New Media and Digital Culture TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................... 3 1. ANONYMITY THROUGH HISTORY ................................................................................ 5 1.1 Anonymity and urbanity ................................................................................................... 5 1.2 Anonymous authorship..................................................................................................... 7 1.3 The changing landscape of online anonymity .................................................................. 8 1.4 Encryption and anonymization ...................................................................................... 11 2. METHOD ............................................................................................................................ 13 2.1 Objects of study .............................................................................................................. 13 2.2 Approach ........................................................................................................................ 14 3. TOR...................................................................................................................................... 16 3.1 Tor Browser ................................................................................................................... 17 3.2 Interface ......................................................................................................................... 19 4. SIGNAL ............................................................................................................................... 23 4.1 Encryption and Network ................................................................................................ 24 4.2 Interface ......................................................................................................................... 27 5. RETROSHARE ................................................................................................................... 31 5.1 Encryption method and network topology ..................................................................... 32 5.2 Interface ......................................................................................................................... 34 6. FUNCTIONS OF ONLINE ANONYMITY ....................................................................... 39 6.1 Identity ........................................................................................................................... 39 6.2 Integrity .......................................................................................................................... 40 6.3 Protection ....................................................................................................................... 42 7. SHAPING CONTEMPORARY ONLINE ANONYMITY................................................. 45 7.1 Cryptographic ideals ..................................................................................................... 45 7.2 Technological trust ........................................................................................................ 46 7.3 Functionality .................................................................................................................. 48 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................ 49 REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................ 51 Tool documentation ............................................................................................................. 54 2 INTRODUCTION Information gathering seems one of the defining characters of civilized societies today. Information technologies are ubiquitously present in everyday life and the ability to store huge amounts of data has dramatically increased over the years. Almost all online activity is being recorded: for marketing purposes by companies, and security purposes by law enforcement agencies, but also for research purposes. Therefor, it has become increasingly difficult to achieve relative forms of anonymity. Yet, as the availability of the many anonymity enhancing tools shows, there seems to be a need for online anonymity. One can browse the internet using an encrypted browser, search the internet using a search engine which doesn’t track its users or communicate on the internet using an encrypted messenger. Moreover, users can overcome online tracking by installing privacy enhancing browser extensions or by installing private networks. Anonymity enhancing tools are often based on encryption technology. Encryption technologies can provide strong forms of anonymity by securing information with mathematical protocols. While the options for achieving forms of online anonymity are manifold, it is often put down as being obscure or even dangerous. American government officials accuse encryption of having created a “zone of lawlessness” (Koebler n.pag) and go as far as wanting to ban internet anonymity (McCarthy n.pag). Moreover, in 2015 the British prime minister intended to ban communication services with strong encryption methods if those services didn’t open up their data to the UK government (Kravets n.pag). In the year after, French lawmakers backed a plan to impose penalties on technology executives denying access to encrypted data during a terrorist investigation (Fouquet and Mawad n.pag). Clearly, the concept of online anonymity is controversial. Not for nothing in 2015 technology magazine Wired dubs anonymity as “the internet’s next big battleground” (Card n.pag). I will stay away from the “battleground”, but will address the problem of online anonymity from a different perspective. I will add to the debate on anonymity by analyzing how online anonymity is narrated by three tools which enhance anonymity, namely Tor Browser, Signal and Retroshare. Tor Browser is a preconfigured web browser which focusses on protecting the user’s anonymity; Signal is an encrypted calling and messaging application which anonymizes the user’s communication; and Retroshare is an alternative social networking platform which focusses on offering secure communication and 3 file sharing. The beta versions of these tools already date back to respectively 2002, 2010 and 2006, but the ideals they pursue are still very relevant. In the tradition of Geert Lovink and Miriam Rasch, and following their example also Robert Gehl, this research focusses on alternative new media forms. Lovink and Rasch believe that while new media create and expand the social spaces through which people interact, play and politicize themselves, these media are owned by a few companies which have phenomenal power to shape the architecture of these interactions (10). Therefor Lovink and Rasch advocate for research on alternatives to these closed and centralized environments (10). While they focus on social networking sites alone, I am expanding beyond social networking platforms. In doing so this research will focus on the juncture between the technical and the social against the background of new media studies. More specifically, by focusing on the software and the interfaces of anonymity enhancing tools, it adds to the field of software studies. Without falling into easy dichotomies this research will focus on what (online) anonymity has offered societies in the past and can offer societies in the present. I will do so through the following question: In what manner do anonymity enhancing tools create a narrative of anonymity, focusing on its functions for society? To answer this question, I will start by analysing the concept of anonymity from a historical perspective. This meta-narrative exposes several functions of anonymity before the existence of the internet and shows how the internet has changed the
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