What Are Anonymous Servers?

No, anonymous servers are not undercover wait staff on a secret mission. They do not go around in long khaki trench coats. This is more about email servers and what happens when you send emails or receive emails than it is about secret decoder rings. An anonymous server is used when someone wants to hide their IP address from the recipient. There are many reasons why someone would want this to happen, such as for security or to thwart detection.

Every time you send emails or receive emails, your POP3 mail server and your own mail server attaches an address to the mail. This numeric address is the location from which you sent the email. Any emails from this fixed IP address can be traced back to the server from which it came. From there it is just a matter of time and a few clicks before any person gets the information they wanted.

So why would you need to deal with anonymous servers that strip your IP address from your emails? Well, consider the information stored on your computer. Many people store their credit card information, banking information and other personal information on their hard drive. Some people have work information that they would not want to fall into the wrong hands. Hackers can follow your IP address from an email and target your computer for an attack.

You should know that using an exchange email server such as Hotmail or Yahoo does not mean that your message is anonymous. They would like you to think that, but in reality this is not true. They do not offer encryption and they do not hide the IP address that is attached to each message. You could find yourself in danger if you continue using one of these programs for sending out important information.

People use anonymous servers all the time for avoiding work and school firewalls. Most often this is because they do not want someone else to know what the exchange mail server has been used for, and under these circumstances, this kind of action can lead to termination of employment or a severe warning. But by using an offshore server, this means that your information can be protected because most of these offshore businesses have strict privacy laws and guarantee than no one will get your information.