From: merriman@metronet.com (David K. Merriman)
Date: Sat, 6 Aug 94 11:40:08 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Remailer listings/strategy
Message-ID: <199408061843.AA17840@metronet.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


        This may have been hashed out in a previous incarnation, but on the 
subject of remailers and their availability, why not just have each one 
broadcast a message of it's availability periodically (hourly? every 4 
hours?) on, say, the Cypherpunks mailing list.  Then, each remailer could 
also listen in, read in who's up, and if it doesn't hear from a remailer 
within some period of time (or some number of scheduled broadcasts), assume 
that it's down until it hears from that system again.  This would also allow 
individuals to maintain personal listings of available remailers, as well, 
and automate the process of keeping track of what remailers are 
up/down/available.
        The additional traffic wouldn't seem to be _too_ much of a burden, 
those individuals who didn't want the broadcasts cluttering up their 
mailboxes could filter them out, and doesn't require massive effort or 
changes to implement (ie, new newsgroups, etc).
        What blazingly obvious thing am I missing here, or does it make too 
much sense to work? :-)

Dave Merriman
Finger merriman@metronet.com for PGP2.6ui/RIPEM public keys/fingerprints.