Tim McCormack says words
After upgrading Ubuntu Linux from Dapper Drake to Edgy Eft, I found that the login screen would malfunction with the message "The greeter application appears to be crashing. Attempting to use a different one." A different login screen would appear (which worked just fine), but it was still irritating.
Tor is a popular system for sending Internet traffic anonymously. It is mainly used for three purposes: hiding one's identity, hiding the identity of the site one is visiting, and hiding the data that one is sending and receiving. However, using Tor without some basic precautions is worse than not using Tor at all, leading to privacy violations, data theft, and security concerns. Here, I cover browser security with respect to preventing identity and data leakage when using the Tor network. If you are only using it to defeat web filtering, feel free to read only the section called "Locking yourself down".
At the end is an executive summary. Use it as a guideline, but make sure to read this entire post first -- it contains important instructions on how to change your browsing habits.
Anyone can create and maintain an anonymous online identity through the use of Tor and carefully chosen browser settings, but a difficulty soon arises: How does one pay anonymously for services? Some hosting and email providers accept digital currency (usually e-gold), but the process of getting e-gold in the first place is a bit trickier. Every reputable-looking digital currency exchange service that I've seen demands some proof of identity in a bid to prevent money launderers and financial fraudsters from using their system. There used to be a service that allowed anonymous digital currency transfers (YodelBank), but it closed when the operator became weary of running it. Where does this leave anonymity-seekers? I have a proposal for a system that could allow (though not guarantee) anonymous, blind transfers without opening avenues for money laundering.
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The Tor packages in the Debian (and Ubuntu) respositories are not up-to-date. This is dangerous, since people do rely on them for strong anonymity, even though the package warns them not to do so (it's still the best out there.) To get the latest stable version, you'll have to add another repository to your sources.list file and set your system to trust it.