From: analyst@netcom.com (Benjamin McLemore)
Date: Thu, 2 Dec 93 00:02:26 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: NSA Insecure Remailers
Message-ID: <199312020759.XAA12950@mail.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



---Some stuff deleted, basically my concern that through traffic
analysis of backbone internet traffic, at least the NSA can penetrate
the security of anonymous remailers----

 >probably only the NSA and some defense agency we haven't
 >yet heard of are actually performing this analysis right now. But 
 >given the declining price of storage media, even saving everything on
 >magnetic media and paying $1000/gig, it only costs about US$8.7 million
 >to keep a year's worth of traffic headers around (media cost).
 >
 >So what?

#So what indeed.
#
#Why oh why do we waste so much time seeking systems that are 
#mathematically unbreakable.  You don't need mathematically unbreakable 
#systems to have a free market on the nets.
#
#It costs a minimum of $50K to start a federal criminal prosecution (that 
#is if the perp is inside the US).  This means that the feds can only 
#afford a few tens of thousands a year.  When you add incarceration costs 
#it quickly becomes very difficult.  This being the case, they are 
#dependent on your obedience for law enforcement success.  Like any 
#predator, the government must gain more energy from the kill than it 
#expends on the hunt.  Otherwise it weakens and dies.  

 All I was trying to point out with my post is what I saw as a flaw in
my previous understanding of the depth of the security provided by
anonymous remailers. There is a difference between relying on the
mathematics of strong crypto to protect you from government spooks and
prying bureacrats-- and relying on one's belief that- although one's
security has been compromised, it will be too expensive or otherwise
difficult for the government to use this information against you.

It seems to me that anonymous remailers, despite my initial
assumptions that they were cryptographically strong, are probably
compromised by the ability of the NSA to monitor Internet backbone
traffic, a hypothesis I would love to see disproved. Additionally, my
understanding of the nature of the packet data that passes over the
Internet backbones is weak; someone posted the other day that they
felt the government would soon require that all data passing over the
nets be addressed and labeled, enabling the Feds to monitor it--it is
my understanding of networking that that day is here *now*. 

I want unbreakable security, untraceable communication and unforgeable
digital cash--ALL of it mathematically guaranteed and none of it
compromisable by some underpaid bureacrat who might decide to make a
little money off of ME in his spare time.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Benjamin McLemore
analyst@netcom.com

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