cyrnel

Assume that even secure channels (VPNs, SSL, custom crypto, etc.) branching to or from any anonymizing service will get special attention. (If you were monitoring things, wouldn't you pay more attention?) There are ways to make traffic look innocent but making anything mass market means you destroy the method. So, unless you know someone special or create it yourself it won't likely be effective for long.

Dilbert, I hear you about research caution. Like most of us I've been curious about things to a fault since a young age. Anything, including some that wouldn't be popular with law enforcement. Average things that have applicability to my average life might make it to a project, and some small percentage of those make it to completion. But, knowing how the world turns, some of the other shady things could lead to problems. If someone looks at the oddball searches isolated from the rest, doesn't understand the interest or they're just casting a wide net, then I'll be the one wearing spots. It certainly makes one think twice about casual searches. Hate that.

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There are a vast number of people who are uninformed and heavily propagandized, but fundamentally decent. The propaganda that inundates them is effective when unchallenged, but much of it goes only skin deep. If they can be brought to raise questions and apply their decent instincts and basic intelligence, many people quickly escape the confines of the doctrinal system and are willing to do something to help others who are really suffering and oppressed." -Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, p. 195