From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May)
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 94 12:52:42 PST
To: loki@cass156.ucsd.edu (Lance Cottrell)
Subject: Re: Anonymous Anonymous ftp
In-Reply-To: <9401271954.AA27799@nately.UCSD.EDU>
Message-ID: <199401272049.MAA12148@mail.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


The Other Lance writes:

> This will not work if Yancy is not trustworthy. She could then send the
> message through a chain of compromised remailers, to create the prepaid
> mailer packet. This would also happen, though less harmfully, any time the
> chain hit a bad node. Letting the nodes choose the other nodes is fatal.
> ----------------------------------------------------------
> Lance Cottrell	who does not speak for CASS/UCSD

Good points, and I'm sure there are other weaknesses and points of
attack.

Zeke may be able to mitigate the risks somewhat by providing Yancy
with an acceptable list of remailers, ones he trusts. Cut-and-choose,
etc.

Or his prepaid mailer may split the message into n pieces, for added
resistance to compromise.

The main thing I wanted to get across with reopening the debate on
this (and if it inspires Eric Messick, this will be reward enough) is
that the web of remailers may have many modes of use. Some in which
the nodes are known and named and the sender picks a route to the
receiver, others in which the receiver picks the route and arranges
for this kind of "prepaid mailer" which the sender simply drops into
the system.

The use of pools makes this more elegant, I believe. Some messages
could be copied out of these pools (or "digital dead drops," in
crypto-spy lingo) and then routed onward.

Thanks for the comments! And, again, I really wish we had some
blackboards to iron out some details and fix whatever flaws pop up.

--Tim May


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