Opinion | Are these forum posts on working overseas, wiretapping by a young Edward Snowden?

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Published: 6:34pm, 13 Jun 2013Updated: 4:13am, 29 Aug 2013

US whistle-blower Edward Snowden may not have a digital footprint on Facebook or Twitter, but a search of what has been reported as his old internet username has revealed forum messages potentially by a Snowden in his late teens and early twenties.

Originally appearing on the forums of technology site Ars Technica, the posts were uncovered by journalist Anthony De Rosa and quoted from on his blog Soup. The posts show an interest in computers and overseas work, and were all published under the username "TheTrueHOOHA". The first post dates from 2001, when Snowden would have been 17 years old, and the last is as recent as 2012.

In the earliest post, from December 29, 2001, the user asked how to build a web server and said that he would "like to build a nice little beige box that gets forgotten in a closet somewhere that can host sites such as Ryuhuna Press".

Earlier on Thursday, Reuters revealed that Ryuhuna Press was a Japanese anime art start-up that Snowden worked for in 2001. On the now-defunct Ryuhuna Press website, a profile for a user listing his name as “Ed Snowden” and alias as “TheTrueHOOHA” can be found, suggesting that the posts on Ars Technica were made by the same person.

In 2003, the user made a post about seeking greater anonymity on the internet:

“I'm familiar with the layman's version of how remote proxies can be used to make yourself more anonymous. However, while I have a fairly deep understanding of networking, I've got some serious holes that need to be filled… Ultimately, my goal is to further my own understanding of what would be logged at any given point during transmission. I wouldn't want God himself to know where I've been, you know?”

In another post in the same forum thread, the user said:

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