Here at BlogNashville, there are about 25 people in the Anoniblogging Roundtable here at the Freedom Forum on the Vanderbilt campus.

We've had significant discussions on the technical aspects of blogging anonymously, including what measures that various governments have at their disposal to track down the original source of blog comments. Matthew Sheffield discussed some suggestions that he had posted on his blog a week ago about the use of P2P software to bury IP addresses and protect identities.

Adam Shostack from Spirit of America brought up the social aspects of getting people interested in writing or distributing information from behind whatever "wall" they were behind, such as bloggers in China. The concern arose after one person (can't remember her name!) asked how we really know that so-and-so is who s/he says s/he is when they show up on the blogging scene to report on what is going on in China, Nepal, etc. He suggests "letting a thousand flowers bloom," which is a simple way of saying that good information and bad information will always arise, but theoretically the truth will rise to the top. I'm in agreement with that, as I'd rather see whatever reports and stories might be coming out of a country where the media might not be reporting on it. Of course, you have to take everything with a grain of salt until photos, independent corroboration, etc. can be acquired.

"Knowledge about tools" seems to be a good take home from the session - as in, getting people aware of what websites they can write through, having someone else "re-write" your work so that your writing patterns won't be tracked down, or using some high-tech solution to work anonymously, among other things.