1996-01-13 - Re: Novel use of Usenet and remailers to mailbomb from luzskru@cpcnet.com

Header Data

From: Adam Shostack <adam@lighthouse.homeport.org>
To: abostick@netcom.com (Alan Bostick)
Message Hash: 9d6915f36c29d7344648c21c76da2dfdc6d19180dfa9477535c7cb923875d40a
Message ID: <199601122336.SAA24814@homeport.org>
Reply To: <Q6q9w8m9LYlM085yn@netcom.com>
UTC Datetime: 1996-01-13 21:30:12 UTC
Raw Date: Sun, 14 Jan 1996 05:30:12 +0800

Raw message

From: Adam Shostack <adam@lighthouse.homeport.org>
Date: Sun, 14 Jan 1996 05:30:12 +0800
To: abostick@netcom.com (Alan Bostick)
Subject: Re: Novel use of Usenet and remailers to mailbomb from luzskru@cpcnet.com
In-Reply-To: <Q6q9w8m9LYlM085yn@netcom.com>
Message-ID: <199601122336.SAA24814@homeport.org>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text


Some remailers (read: Mixmaster) include a destination.block capability.

The target can be taught about mail filters.

	The target can ask the remailer op to remove the particular
alias, after verifying that he receives mail sent to it.  Too clever
by half solutions such as ZKP would work, as would the remailer-op
sending an arbitrary message encrypted to the complainer to the
address in question.  If the complainer gets the message, either he's
sniffing well, mucking with the DNS, or is the intended recipient of
the nym server.

Adam

Alan Bostick wrote:

| Thousands of horny net geeks will send in the message; some of them
| will even follow instructions correctly so the remailer forwards the
| message to its intended target.  The result is that the target will
| be mailbombed -- and the remailer operator can't stop the abuse by
| blocking the abuser's address, because it's coming from all over the
| net.

| Cypherpunks:  is there any way to respond to, or prevent, this sort of
| attack short of actually shutting down the remailer?

-- 
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once."
					               -Hume






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