If you’ve ever wanted to send an electronic message to a friend without spying eyes reading your network traffic, web app Whisper Bot might be just the ticket. Sending a message is as simple as entering your text, the recipient’s email address, and optionally adding a password to secure the note against anybody spying on your email. The recipient gets the link and enters the password that you communicated (through another means) to retrieve the message. The site is secured with SSL to prevent eavesdropping, but like any online service you are still at the mercy of a third party, so you probably shouldn’t use this for anything really sensitive. Granted, you should already beusing your secure https connection for your email anyway (you can even tell Gmail to always use a secure connection), but you can’t always count on your email’s recipient to do the same. Since the sender name field is optional, this could also be used as an alternative to previously mentioned NiceCritic for sending awkward messages anonymously.
Whisper Bot [via Digital Inspiration]Save yourself an embarrassing moment with the NiceCritic.com website, which can anonymously tell that co-worker to wash their hands before they leave the bathroom, or at least stop trying to shake your hand. Using the site is as simple as choosing between one of their pre-written messages. Unlike the similar previously mentioned Annoying Coworker site, there’s no option to create your own message, but they do cover a wide variety of topics for office as well as personal situations. Add in your recipient’s name and email address, and the message arrives in their inbox. It’s worth noting that the site is a little slow, and likely to get slower under the “Lifehacker effect,” at least for today. Have an awkward co-worker moment you’re just dying to tell somebody? Is Milton playing the radio at an unreasonable level? Share it in the comments—just don’t use your real name!
NiceCritic.comFree email protection service akapost isn’t the only way to hide your email from spam bots and unknown correspondents, but it is one of the most hassle-free ways of doing it, for both mailer and respondent. Once you set up your account with akapost, you can use it as a simple redirection tool by posting it in forums or on your website (and then using the right filter for mail coming through it), or by writing directly to people you don’t quite trust with your address yet. Add .akapost.com to a message sent directly from your protected, registered address, and your recipient just sees your akapost address, while any replies still come to you. akapost protects one email address for free, while charging for additional or group addresses.
Akapost [via gHacks]Just like email, communicating via text message can feel like a one-on-one exchange—but that privacy is an illusion. Yahoo Tech’s Gina Hughes runs down a few ways you can protect your privacy with SMS, like passwording your phone, using anonymous SMS services like AnonTxt.com, and completely destroying your cell phone’s data before your sell your phone. All of these suggestions don’t actually make SMS secure, because the transmission itself is not, and the copy of your message, in the end, is stored on someone else’s phone and there’s no way to control what happens from there. In short, the best way to protect yourself is to not text sensitive info, like passwords, PINs, or, um, flirtations you wouldn’t mind others knowing about. Text Messaging Privacy [Yahoo! Tech]
Web search site Ask.com has added a new privacy feature to their search called AskEraser, which, when enabled, deletes your search activity from the Ask.com servers within hours while it remains turned on (as opposed to the standard 18-month hold time). That includes your search query, IP address, user ID, and session cookies, which should make up the bulk of data that could possibly identify you. For more information, check out the AskEraser FAQ, or if you’re looking for something similar for Google, try the third-party Googlonymous—though it’d be great to see something similar to AskEraser implemented directly in Google. To enable AskEraser, just click the link on the top of any search page.
Ask.com with AskEraserVideo weblog Unwired explains how to browse the internet anonymously with The Onion Router network (commonly known as Tor). We’ve covered anonymous browsing with Tor in the past, but this Unwired explanation features a nice introduction to how Tor works and how to get started with Tor using the TorButton Firefox extension. Concerned about privacy at work? Check out more ways to bolster your browsing privacy on the job.
Using the Onion Router network [Unwired]
