From: pstemari@erinet.com (Paul J. Ste. Marie)
Date: Sat, 14 Jan 95 22:02:40 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: How do I know if its encrypted?
Message-ID: <9501150554.AA29412@eri.erinet.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 11:53 AM 1/14/95 -0600, Larry E wrote:
> ... Those who believe remailers are an evil will argue against any
>measure that will promote their presence (and I'm not suggesting
>you're in that group).  ...

True enough.

> ... Is encryption a step in the right direction, if an imperfect one?  If
>not I hope some other positive steps are proposed soon, else I fear
>remailers may face extinction.

The big problem I have with mandatory encryption for remailers is that it 
thwarts one of the two major purposes of remailers.  Basically I see 
remailers serving two goals:

        1)  Defeating traffic analysis of point-to-point communications.
            Mandating encryption for this is redundant--anyone who wanted this
            would be encrypting their mail to begin with.  Also, I don't     
               believe this mode of operation generates many complaints.

        2)  Anonymous broadcast transmission.  This one can generate a lot of
            complaints, but it is also very important for things like *.recovery
            newsgroups.  Mandating encryption renders this mode useless.

There is a third use, which is anonymous point-to-point transmission.  While 
this is of some benefit for anonymous tip line, it makes things like 
mailbombs and hate mail very easy.
        

    --Paul J. Ste. Marie
      pstemari@well.sf.ca.us, pstemari@erinet.com