Anonymous offers alternative to Pastebin.com

Computerworld - The Anonymous hacking collective has launched a new site that it claims will allow users to post material without fear of being tracked down.

Anonymous described the new site, dubbed AnonPaste, as a safer site than Pastebin.com, which has been used by hackers to post evidence of their exploits.

In a joint statement issued Tuesday, Anonymous and a group calling itself the People's Liberation Front said the new site will allow people to post any material with complete anonymity.

The statement said posts to the new site would not be censored or moderated in any way.

The two groups said AnonPaste offers 256-bit AES encryption at the browser layer. All data posted to the site will be encrypted and decrypted in the browser so no "usable paste data [is] stored on the server for the authorities or anyone else to seize," the statement claimed.

"There will be no need for us to police this service, and in fact we don't even have the ability of deleting any particular paste," it said.

AnonPaste supports a URL shortening feature and allows users to post up to 2MB of text snippets at a time. Users can specify how long they want the text to remain available on the site.

Pastebin.com was originally created for programmers to temporarily store and share snippets of code and configuration information. Over the years, people have used the site to post and share all sorts of documents and has become a favorite for hackers looking to publicize details of their exploits.

Anonymous, LulzSec and other groups routinely post documents obtained from hacking attacks. Often, the documents posted on Pastebin have included personal, financial and confidential information of individuals and businesses.

Anonymous and the People's Liberation Front said AnonPaste was launched after learning that Pastebin.com may move to censor content and pass on the IP addresses of people posting on its site to law enforcement authorities.

"As many might be aware, PasteBin has been in the news lately for making some rather shady claims as to what they are willing to censor, and when they are willing to give up IP addresses to the authorities," the statement said.

According to Anonymous, leaked emails show that Pastebin has provided IP address information not just to government's but also to an unnamed private security firm.

Jaikumar Vijayan covers data security and privacy issues, financial services security and e-voting for Computerworld. Follow Jaikumar on Twitter at @jaivijayan, or subscribe to Jaikumar's RSS feed . His e-mail address is jvijayan@computerworld.com.

Read more about Security in Computerworld's Security Topic Center.