If you have the program Mixmaster installed on Windows, or if you
now decide to download and install it, the setup is not difficult.
Basically, there is one small configuration file, of which many
persons here can help with the settings. The homepage to download
it is here:
http://mixmaster.sourceforge.net/faq.shtml. After
installing it, you will also need to install another program to
serve as the Sendmail component. There is a simple enough sendmail
program for Windows available here:
http://glob.com.au/sendmail/.
It also contains a one page readme file explaining the simple
config settings, which again are easy enough for most moderately
capable techies. With it too, many of the persons frequenting this
group would be familiar and would gladly give a hand to help get
you set up and going. If you wanted to stop with only these two,
they alone would nicely suffice to allow you to send anonymous
messages over the mixmaster network on the internet. They enable
you to send anonymous mail messages to others and to send anonymous
usenet news messages to groups. You could use pseudonyms to send
messages with them, and the recipients of your messages would not
know, or be able to backtrack, from where the messages had come.
The sendmail program is quite impressive in and of itself, and it
will work with any SMTP server you have locally or want to connect
to over the internet. That's anonymous remailing in a nutshell.
Although this Windows Sendmail program supports encrypted data
communications via TLS and SSL, once you get a taste of doing that
much, if you are like most persons, you will also want to get a
little more sophisticated with the security of your messaging. The
best way to improve on it at that point would be to get Stunnel,
which allows you to have encrypted data connections and
authentication using some of the best and modern protocols
available. It is "top gun" and actively supported by some of the
brightest user base around. Stunnel ties in nicely with these
other two programs, and, again, many of the persons here in this
group can help you with the initial settings needed to configure
them for working together. Sendmail and Stunnel have no problems
connecting when you get them set up right. Stunnel will also allow
you to configure many other programs to use encrypted
communications. It has wide-ranging applications and appeal, and
its settings can get as sophisticated as you might need at some
point with another program in the future.
At the same time, if you haven't already got it, you will probably
want to have a full-featured newsreader and mail program to use as
a frontend with these other programs already securing your backend.
One of the best and smartest choices to make for this purpose
would be Thunderbird. It is an opensource Mozilla application, top
notch, actively developed and it has a reputation for security and
flexibility that is as good as it gets. With Thunderbird you get a
versatile newsreader AND an email client. Even by itself,
Thunderbird natively supports SSL/TLS and tor proxy connections.
It also provides numerous additional capabilities as a result of
the variety of add-ons and plugins made for it. Thunderbird
supports multiple accounts and user profiles, easily communicating
across them from one to the other. You can set it up with some
newsgroup accounts downloading or sending across the tor network
and some not. You can download with one account and then reply
with a different account using a different server and user profile.
They are all simply integrated, multiple servers, multiple users,
multiple protocols and connections, multiple accounts. Thunderbird
has built-in database and password protection too for those who
need extra precautions. Before I forget, I want to mention also
that Thunderbird has a built-in Templates folder functionality.
Once you set up templates, as many as you want, it is a simple
matter of clicking on one to use it for a new message or reply.
Thunderbird is also easy to install and configure, and there are
numerous support groups online, irc, forums, newsgroups, etc.
One of the neatest things about having Thunderbird, together with
Mixmaster and, if you like, with these other security applications,
is that there is an easy way to make them connect and work
together. This program is what you need to do it for you:
https://www.cotse.net/news2remail/. It allows you to use Mixmaster
from Thunderbird. This capability eliminates the need for your
having to use the minimal user-interface of Mixmaster itself.
Instead, you get the full-featured capabilities of Thunderbird as a
seamless frontend. No more minimalism or cludgy cutting and
pasting as you may have needed to settle for.
As its website explains:
"It means being able to reply and post to usenet anonymously from
within your favorite news reader. Reading from your regular news
server while replying and posting through the Mixmaster remailers
without having to copy and paste nor switch to a different
application".
The Cotse news2remail proxy is also easy enough to configure with
just a few settings in the config file and a one page readme file.
Perhaps one of the program's greatest strengths is the ability to
let you add any and all of the headers you may need, saving them as
Templates in Thunderbird works efficiently and conveniently too.
Of course you can make on the fly modifications if need be. Most
anyone here can help you with setting it up as well. Did I
mention yet that Thunderbird has a program add-in component called
Enigmail? That is the gpg supported integration for your
encryption of messages and a key management facility. It does not
get much easier, or stronger, than that. Thunderbird, Enigmail,
Gpg, and Mixmaster, will all run on any version of Windows, (or
Linux if you want to get really ambitious). Do yourself a big
favor. In the long-run you will be damn glad you did. It may take
a little longer in the beginning to get set up, but not much really
and there is plenty of help available here. Afterwards, you can
smile because it is time for smooth sailing and secure computing,
all to your little heart's content. You might even enjoy feeling a
little smug. ;)