A Quest for Anon… Mis-Attributed Trolling

The thing people don’t realize about the Gear Wars is that it wasn’t really about the gears. — Revolio Clockberg Jr.

I thought to embark on a quest for internet-anonymity recently — for the purposes of trolling. However, I was a bit conflicted at first. I want the shit I preach to be recognized, but I sure as hell don’t want to be associated with all of it. And for all you Redgren Grumbholts out there: there’s no such thing as anonymity. Your grandpa’s refusal to go on social media or to touch foot anywhere online isn’t completely seeded in paranoia. We leave behind a footprint whenever we do something, however minor it may be. A resourceful and persistent enough asshole will finger you eventually. They got the Dread Pirate Roberts and they’ll get you, Keyser Soze. This also goes for… well shit. I suppose it goes for everything. I mean the only thing that kept O.J., Gary Condit, and HRC safe was their influence and money.

With anonymity (also called non-attribution) a pariah, what’s a wannabe internet-troll who doesn’t want any of his online banter traced back to him to do? Mis-attribute my presence. The places I browse, the shit I register for, the comments I leave, and whatever other shit I get into will be logged somewhere. There will be various spooks, nerds, and Abradof Linclers looking to identify me for some dumb reason. I want to make doing that so miserably difficult and complex that they say, “fuck it; I quit.”

Why’d you even rope me into this? ’Cause he roped me into this! Well, him over there, he roped me into this! Well, he roped me into this! — Mr. Meeseeks

For me, using the Tails operating system seemed like a start. By defulat it uses Tor for browsing. Also, it comes pre-packaged with convenient tools and capabilities that make managing my attribution simple. I went the live USB route. Depending on one’s intent though, one may want to invest in a trustworthy VPN as well, to keep one’s ISP from knowing one is using Tor. Yes, those eavesdropping sons-of-bitches can tell who is using Tor. This is when I decided to put on my tin foil hat — so I could wear it while taping a sticky note over my webcam. You never know when that sucker is going to snap a photo of you. The safer you are upfront, the safer you are later on.

My endeavor to find a suitable e-mail address... Google failed. Despite the tricks I’ve read I couldn’t get around its SMS verification process. I tried receive-sms-online and other comparable sites — all were rejected. What’s funny is that Google doesn’t always require SMS verification from my experience. Apparently those assholes chose to discrimenate against me this time, either due to using Tor or the desired e-mail address differing too much from the name I provided. I have a workaround in mind, but I’m not sure its worth the effort. So for the time being fuck Google, wubalubadubdub, hello Protonmail.

You shall now call me Snowball, because my fur is white and pretty. — Snuffles/Snowball

Protonmail preaches all that privacy and security bullshit, but it’s probably as much a scam as the Clinton Foundation is — this might be a stretch. the CF is pretty fucking corrupt. In fairness to Protonmail, any site that preaches that shit privacty bullshit but forces you to allow javascript is full of it. It gives them the freedom to nab your password during a logon. Protonmail also has a verification step, but they give you an option of using an alternate e-mail instead of SMS for verification. After a few ‘throw away email’ addresses I found one that didn’t get rejected, emailondeck. With e-mail checked off my (figurative) list, it was time to join the ranks of social media and be a step closer to trolling.

Facebook can rot in hell with Google by the way. Fuck you guys and your shitty SMS verification. It’s not even recognized by security-nazis as a valid method for 2-factor authentication. On that note, what type of people are getting hacked that often? I expect the rich and social elites to worry. Should us average Joes worry though? It’s making the shit I want to do more difficult. I may want to use Facebook here and there. That doesn’t mean I want it on my phone. Even if I agreed to accept texts once in a while for verification, it’s apparently no longer good enough. To be good enough I need a smartphone with their app installed on it. Regardless, I tried using VoIP and the sms-online numbers, all were rejected. Another loss. Thankfully, Twitter didn’t put up much of a fight. Other than wanting my face, they had my back.

Don’t even trip about your pants, dawg. We got an extra pair right here. — Morty

Setting up a Twitter was easy since I could bypass the SMS verification process. The hardest part was uploading my profile photo. A page wouldn’t load, and after several reload attempts I was presented with a digusting mass of markup language. At the bottom of that blob an error message stood out. Apparently, during the mayhem of refreshing the page Twitter tried to activate my webcam. Maybe I clicked something while the paige was loading that caused it. Maybe. It was Tail’s configuration that ultimately blocked the webcam access, but my taped sticky note was ready.

So here I am now. I used my Twitter account to create this Medium account, and I’m getting my first blog out of the way. This post doesn’t cover the tradecraft or best practices of mis-attribution, but I intend to touch on those topics in a follow-on post. I appreciate any suggestions, corrections, comments, flames, Rick and Morty references, or anything else you care to add — especially if it helps get past SMS or voicemail verification. If you took the time to read this then take the fucking time to follow me on Twitter.