Darklogs: anonymous blogging service using Bitmessage
Depending on where you live and what you want to blog about, you may want to make sure that you stay anonymous doing so. This can be because of simple things, like writing about topics that interfere with your current work situation or environment you live in, to bypass censorship attempts, or write about things that would get you or your family in a lot of trouble.
While you can try and publish on public blogging platforms, ideally by using additional means of staying off the radar such as using TOR or virtual private networks, you can also try the Darklogs service instead.
Darklogs is a web service that accepts Bitmessage messages. Bitmessage itself is a messaging software based on Bitcoin, but without the virtual currency mining and trading that is involved usually.
The software is available for Windows, Mac OS X and as a source code for Linux distributions. If you use the Windows version, you only need to run it once it has been downloaded to get started.
Note: Your security software may object to the program. An analysis of the latest Windows executable on Virustotal returned that it is clean. Make sure you allow the program to run on your system.
You are asked if you want to go online right away, which you can do if you want. Before you can do anything you need to create at least one identity for yourself, and make sure that the network settings are properly configured.
Bitmessage listens on port 8444 by default, so make sure your firewall or router allows this to happen.
You can create a new identity easily by selecting Identities > New in the interface. Either have the program create a random address for you, or use a passphrase to create one manually instead.
Once that is out of the way, switch to the Send tab. DarkLogs accepts messages to the address BM-2cTUZmrFaypXnAR4DAXLbAb6KrFPRhGyEe, so add that one to the to address part of the form.
Add a subject, which will become the title of your new blog post, and the message here, and hit the send button afterwards.
The sending may take some time, usually less than a minute but sometimes more than that depending on a number of factors.
Once you get the "Acknowledgment of the message received" status under Sent, you can check out the new blog post in the following way:
- Go back to the identities tab in the Bitmessage interface.
- Right-click on the address that you used for the message and select copy address to clipboard.
- Load http://www.darklogs.com/YourAdress in your browser of choice, e.g. http://www.darklogs.com/BM-2cTeYSPLfNTKDUB8jMRUrnjmePHmiJmm1o/
It needs to be noted that this is a basic blogging service. HTML is not supported, which leaves you with plain text and paragraphs, but nothing else.
It is also important to note that recent posts get published on the frontpage of the service, so do not use this for private messages (use Bitmessage direct for that).
To remain anonymous, do not post any personally identifiable information in your messages. The creator of the service notes that entities with access to an Internet backbone connection or access to network traffic from both Bitmessage clients, may be able to identify your location or you.
To overcome this, it is suggested to make use of TOR while using Bitmessage.
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Doesn’t Windows 8 know that www. or http:// are passe ?
Well it is a bit difficulty to distinguish between name.com domains and files for instance.
I know a service made by google that is similar to Google bookmarks.
http://www.google.com/saved
@Ashwin–Thankful you delighted my comment; who knows how many “gamers” would have disagreed!
@Martin
The comments section under this very article (3 comments) is identical to the comments section found under the following article:
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/15/netflix-is-testing-game-streaming-on-tvs-and-computers/
Not sure what the issue is, but have seen this issue under some other articles recently but did not report it back then.
Omg a badge!!!
Some tangible reward lmao.
It sucks that redditors are going to love the fuck out of it too.
With the cloud, there is no such thing as unlimited storage or privacy. Stop relying on these tech scums. Purchase your own hardware and develop your own solutions.
This is a certified reddit cringe moment. Hilarious how the article’s author tries to dress it up like it’s anything more than a png for doing the reddit corporation’s moderation work for free (or for bribes from companies and political groups)
Almost al unlmited services have a real limit.
And this comment is written on the dropbox article from August 25, 2023.
First comment > @ilev said on August 4, 2012 at 7:53 pm
For the God’s sake, fix the comments soon please! :[
Yes. Please. Fix the comments.
With Google Chrome, it’s only been 1,500 for some time now.
Anyone who wants to force me in such a way into buying something that I can get elsewhere for free will certainly never see a single dime from my side. I don’t even know how stupid their marketing department is to impose these limits on users instead of offering a valuable product to the paying faction. But they don’t. Even if you pay, you get something that is also available for free elsewhere.
The algorithm has also become less and less savvy in terms of e.g. English/German translations. It used to be that the bot could sort of sense what you were trying to say and put it into different colloquialisms, which was even fun because it was like, “I know what you’re trying to say here, how about…” Now it’s in parts too stupid to translate the simplest sentences correctly, and the suggestions it makes are at times as moronic as those made by Google Translations.
If this is a deep-learning AI that learns from users’ translations and the phrases they choose most often – which, by the way, is a valuable, moneys worthwhile contribution of every free user to this project: They invest their time and texts, thereby providing the necessary data for the AI to do the thing as nicely as they brag about it in the first place – alas, the more unprofessional users discovered the translator, the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, the greater the aggregate of linguistically illiterate users has become, and the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, as it now learns the drivel of every Tom, Dick and Harry out there, which is why I now get their Mickey Mouse language as suggestions: the inane language of people who can barely spell the alphabet, it seems.
And as a thank you for our time and effort in helping them and their AI learn, they’ve lowered the limit from what was once 5,000 to now 1,500…? A big “fuck off” from here for that! Not a brass farthing from me for this attitude and behaviour, not in a hundred years.
When will you put an end to the mess in the comments?
Ghacks comments have been broken for too long. What article did you see this comment on? Reply below. If we get to 20 different articles we should all stop using the site in protest.
I posted this on [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/] so please reply if you see it on a different article.
Comment redirected me to [https://www.ghacks.net/2012/08/04/add-search-the-internet-to-the-windows-start-menu/] which seems to be the ‘real’ article it is attached to
Comment redirected me to [https://www.ghacks.net/2012/08/04/add-search-the-internet-to-the-windows-start-menu/] which seems to be the ‘real’ article it is attached to
Article Title: Reddit enforces user activity tracking on site to push advertising revenue
Article URL: https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/
No surprises here. This is just the beginning really. I cannot see a valid reason as to why anyone would continue to use the platform anymore when there are enough alternatives fill that void.
I’m not sure if there is a point in commenting given that comments seem to appear under random posts now, but I’ll try… this comment is for https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/
My temporary “solution”, if you can call it that, is to use a VPN (Mullvad in my case) to sign up for and access Reddit via a European connection. I’m doing that with pretty much everything now, at least until the rest of the world catches up with GDPR. I don’t think GDPR is a magical privacy solution but it’s at least a first step.