From: loki@nately.UCSD.EDU (Lance Cottrell)
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 94 11:57:41 PST
To: tcmay@netcom.com
Subject: Re: Anonymous Anonymous ftp
Message-ID: <9401271954.AA27799@nately.UCSD.EDU>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


:Jim Miller asks for an example:
:
:
:> > - prepaid mailers, good for sending a packet to a
:> > destination. With the final address nested insided a
:> > series of encrypted packets, no mix along the way can
:> > identify Bob without extensive collusion with other
:> > mixes.
:...
:> I understand how you can do 2-way anonymous communication via message  
:> pools and Penet-style systems, but I don't "get" prepaid mailers.  Could  
:> you post an example showing how two people can converse anonymously via  
:> prepaid mailers.
:
:I'll use Lisp-like notation to encapsulate the sending of a packet to
:a remailer "Bob." If Alice wishes to send a packet to Bob, she creates
:this packet:
:
:(Bob (more stuff))
:
:I'm assuming encryption, which several remailers support and which all
:users and all remailers should be using.
:
:Bob gets this packet, decrypts with his private key and recovers the
:"more stuff." He may discover "more stuff" contains some digital money
:for his troubles, instructions on how much latency (number of
:messages, for example) to use, and where to send the resulting packet.
:All kinds of stuff can fit in here. But that's not the point.
:
:If Alice wanted to send a message to Zeke, through a bunch of
:remailers, she might create this initial message:
:
:(Bob (Charles (Doris (Ed (........ (Zeke (final stuff))))....)))

[Lots of stuff removed]

:
:Well, enough for now. There could be some fatal flaws, but this is the
:direction I've been thinking about. Eric Messick and Hugh Daniel had
:some ideas about "onions" about a year ago, but I never fully grokked
:--Tim May
:
:
:
:-- 
:..........................................................................
:Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  


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
loki@nately.ucsd.edu
PGP 2.3 key available by finger or server.

"Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra.  Suddenly
it flips over, pinning you underneath.  At night the ice
weasels come."
			--Nietzsche
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