From: Sameer <sameer@soda.berkeley.edu>
Date: Mon, 14 Mar 94 14:36:10 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: A "standardized" remailer syntax
Message-ID: <199403142235.OAA00730@soda.berkeley.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text


	In writing my client-end software for my anonymous server I
came across the difficulty of building remailer paths because I was
unsure that the cypherpunks remailers all act in a similar fashion,
with a certain set of syntax.
	I've been out of touch with the list lately so maybe I missed
something, but some sort of standard would be a good idea so that even
though the underlying guts of the remailers, and even the latency,
padding, and special features of remailers are different, there is a
standard set of commands and actions which will make it easier to
build tools for the user to make remailing easier.
	Here's my suggestion..

	Header pasting:
	The '::' header pasting syntax should be available-- i.e. when
a message comes into a remailer with a body starting with '::' the
lines following until a blank line are pasted into the header.

	The '##' header pasting syntax-- when a remailer is sending
out a message, if the body begins with a '##' line then the lines
following that are pasted into the header of the outgoing message.

	Header commands:
	"Anon-To","Request-Remailing-To": strips headers and sends the 
message to the specified recipient.

	"Encrypted: PGP": The message has a pgp block encrypted with
the remailer's key. The remailer will decrypt the pgp block before
acting furthur upon the message.

	I *think* that this is the scheme that all the remailers are
using, but I can't be sure. All remailers should have at *least* this
functionality. Furthur features can be added-- commands for those
could be standardized as well, but I can't think of anything.
Comments?

	I can put this standard up on the ftp site, after some discussion.

-Sameer