Anonymous blogging means writing a blog or diary online in such a way that the writer will hide his/her identity. There can be different reasons why some writers don’t want to disclose their names and style of writing a blog to the public. Since blogging has become popular, some programmers create different tools to make simplifications on the methods of anonymous blogging.

Authors Get Involved in Different Blogging Forms

The traditional weblog is the most commonly known type of anonymous blogging. These are the kinds of blogs which usually run short to moderate length articles created on a daily or weekly basis. However, longer common entries which focus on a specific topic are also available. There are also other writers who chose to pose more concise messages using microblogging such as twitter. Some others will also participate anonymously in multiple user blogs wherein different authors will contribute the same or separate articles which will be posted in the same site.

Why Choose Being Anonymous

One of the reasons why people get involved in anonymous blogging is to avoid possible confrontation when gossip or complain arises. Writers with this kind of motive are mostly have negative things to say to a certain individual or institution but will not be considered whistleblowers because they will not be revealing any unethical or illegal behavior. These kinds of blogs are not protected by whistleblowing laws; therefore, if there will be certain false and damaging statements presented by the author in these blogs, he /she may be sued for libel.

How to Become Anonymous

There are different kinds of method used by writers to keep anonymous. Bloggers usually chose to be unknown are usually influenced by technical skills and resources from people who aim to discover someone’s identity. In most cases where resources are not available, using a false name would be enough. For some cases a more technically complex solution might be necessary. This includes being always connected to the blogs through an unknown web proxy or using a more advance service like The Onion Writer (TOR). Even if the best advanced technology will be used to protect a writer’s identity, there are still possibilities of accidental revelation of his confidential information. This is the reason why some authors make alterations on the details they post for every article.

Personal Vs. Business Matters

Anonymous blogs enables total separation between personal/professional life and blogging life. This can be true to individuals who blog about sensitive topics on adult blogs etc.
With anonymous blogging, the risk of stalkers will be controlled. This type of blogging also provides clarity that the write is just writing for himself, his place of employment and does not have to worry about the possibility that readers may think that the writer is one of the subject of his blogs. Moreover, writing under various names lets bloggers to express a variety of aspects of their personality which include parts that may be not right to be shown at other times. Writing an anonymous blog provides writers the permission to play as they are not dealing with the violence of their established personality.

This is a guest post by Sarah. She writes for Gamesht which has different Technology Reviews & has lot of  Software training material which will help student in their studies.

Windows is the most popular PC operating system around with a whopping 91% market share( That’s also the share Google has in its search Engine market). Unfortunately, more popularity means more and more people searching and exploiting loopholes. In this present scenario, security threats and exploits are on the rise and the default level of protection in Windows is not at all enough to meet them.There are some security steps that you must follow in order to stay safe from hackers and identity stealers.

Automatic Updates

The first thing is to check Whether Automatic Updates for your OS has been enabled or not. Microsoft regularly patches security loopholes and vulnerabilities and its the best bet to stay safe. Even patchy versions(read :pirated) require updates and can get all security updates(not the functional ones) here also. If everyone would have patched their systems regularly, we wouldn’t have been hit the Conficker worm which spread virally on Windows Systems due to an already patched  vulnerability In Windows affecting millions of PC’s worldwide.

Users affected by the Conficker worm in all countries

Install an Antivirus for security

This is the most important rule of thumb that most people ignore. An anti-virus is the most basic protection you can get against any form of malware and its the best practice to scan all devices and downloads before executing them. Microsoft offers its own Anti Virus, Microsoft Security Essentials, to Windows users, which along-with having  excellent detection rate,is also completely free. Users looking for something advanced can try out the various paid Security suites by Norton, Kaspersky, McAfee etc. or the free ones from AVG,Avst, Avira etc.

Don’t disable UAC

UAC stands for User Account Control which Is used by Windows to detect suspicious programs and activities going on and also, which I admit, is pretty annoying. But, instead of disabling it, you can decrease the intensity  level via the slider present in the Control Panel. Also, instead of blindly clicking on Allow on all the pop-ups, look twice to see whether that program is genuine or fake.User Account Control can serve as an important enough tool if  you look past its irritating nature

Always use Updated Software

Take care to ensure that apart from your OS, all the softwares which you are installing should be the latest and updated version. Hackers are quite well known to exploit the various softwares from other manufacturers,especially Adobe’s popular PDF reader and flash player. The manufacturers usually patch their programs from these exploits and regularly updating the tools may very well save you from getting hacked. Mostly, its the common and more popular softwares which are exploited so make sure that you get their latest versions running on your PC.

Change Your Browser!!

Although most of the people stick with the default Internet Explorer browser, its better to change it to the other popular one like Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome. Internet Explorer 6,which is bundled in Windows XP, contains a lot of security holes and if you’re using a Patchy copy of your OS, chances are you won’t be able to update to Its version 8 or above, which is definitely more secure and better.

At the end, a little common sense and basic knowledge goes a long way in staying safe. The Internet is a dangerous place , but if the end user be aware, all is well