Alt.Anonymous.Messages Newsgroup

For two people who want to communicate securely and keep their association secret there is the alt.anonymous.messages newsgroup. This newsgroup posts PGP encrypted messages received through mixmaster or similar posting methods. Messages are encrypted with the intended recipient’s PGP Public Key, and then anonymously posted to the newsgroup. There are several ways of posting to the alt.anonymous.messages newsgroup, but one of the most commonly used methods, and the one that I  like is AAMDirect. Using the AAMDirect software, you create a PGP Key Pair, prepare and encrypt messages, and then anonymously post to the alt.anonymous.messages newsgroup. The other party to the conversation simply uses AAMDirect to download all encrypted messages and is able to decrypt the messages encrypted with his or her PGP Public Key. There is no direct connection between the sender and the recipient of the messages posted to the alt.anonymous.messages newsgroup. AAMDirect has other built in encryption tools, such as a symmetric encryption program and a one-time pad program. 

Alt.anonymous.messages has been around since the early days of the cipherpunk movement in the early 1990s. In 2013, at DEFCON-21, Tom Ritter discussed de-anonymizing alt.anonymous.messages. His presentation can be found on YouTube. If you use plan on using alt.anonymous.messages frequently watching Mr. Ritter's presentation is recommended to help you understand the strengths and weaknesses of this newsgroup and its supporting services.

A.A.M Direct, also known as simply AAM Direct is a freeware program, available from different sources on-line such as http://aamdirect.sourceforge.net/. It’s a particular kind of newsgroup application for both reading and posting, hence communicating via the alt.anonymous.messages newsgroup. As such, it can be considered a private annex anonymous email system that doesn’t use an email account. The text content of the messages will be automatically encrypted either via the Mixmaster remailer system or a secure TLS connection using Stunnel and GnuPG.

Without going into further technical details, with AAM Direct you’ll get a solution that will enable two parties to communicate without them having to be linked together, besides a program that can be used to download all newsgroup alt.anonymous.messages.

Having a secure and private means of communication is an important part of survival planning. Not every survival situation is a case of being 'lost in the Tiaga'. It may be that your situation will be one where you have access to the Internet and other infrastructure, but one in which you must remain hidden and undetected.  AAMDirect and alt.anonymous.messages gives you one means of communication that is very difficult for an adversary to exploit.