ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Forward anonymity

Forward anonymity means keeping your identity hidden when you communicate with someone. It's like pretending you're Batman talking to Robin without Robin knowing who you really are.

Sometimes when we talk to people over the internet, we don't want them to know who we are. Maybe we're sharing a secret or maybe we're just having fun. Whatever the reason, we want to keep our identity private.

Forward anonymity can be achieved with tools like Tor or VPNs. When you use these tools, all of your internet traffic is first routed to a different computer/server that is outside your network. This server then passes your web traffic to your intended recipient. Your recipient only sees the server's IP address and not your own. It's like using a secret agent who can deliver messages on your behalf without revealing your identity.

This way, even if someone tries to spy on you, they'll only see a bunch of encrypted traffic and not know where it's coming from or where it's going. It's a bit like when you write a secret message in code and only someone with the decoder can read it.