From: uri@watson.ibm.com
Date: Wed, 24 Feb 93 13:15:37 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com (cypherpunks)
Subject: Re: Anonymous flooding
In-Reply-To: <9302242031.AA10553@toad.com>
Message-ID: <9302242113.AA16811@buoy.watson.ibm.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Marc.Ringuette@GS80.SP.CS.CMU.EDU says:
> I wonder if full crypto anonymity as we envision it will be stable?
> I'm very concerned about the problem of anonymous users intentionally
> flooding the network with garbage in order to bring it to its knees.
> Current practice, in the non-anonymous world, is to trace excess
> traffic to its source and stop it from being generated.  This will no
> longer be possible when true anonymity is available.

Yes, this is a REAL danger. But if the network providers will
charge per-packet fee (what an ugly idea :-), and no packet
will be moved without being "taxed" (:-) - i.e. some
digital cash removed from it's header (:-) - well,
I see no reason, why somebody can't invest his
$1,000,000 in shutting y'all up for a day (:-).

> This would particularly be a problem if a remailer is willing to forward
> an incoming message to more than one destination.  In that case, by sending a
> single anonymous message, a saboteur could generate an exponential amount
> of net traffic.  This would be bad.

It only depends on who pays for each packet (:-).

> However, I still have some fundamental concerns that an anonymity-based
> system is vulnerable to flooding and denial of service by the bad guys,
> including Big Brother, who may wish to prevent effective use of such
> systems.  This may make operating a remailer a difficult proposition.

Yeah, THIS can be a problem: our Big Brother has enough
money to do all the smelly things we discussed above...
And if not - he'll tax us more...

> I'm discouraged.  Any thoughts?

There's no way to limit Big Brother's power, except
for getting rid of him altogether, I'm afraid...
--
Regards,
Uri         uri@watson.ibm.com      scifi!angmar!uri 	N2RIU
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