From: Karl Lui Barrus <klbarrus@owlnet.rice.edu>
Date: Wed, 22 Jun 94 18:04:42 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: MAIL: Using "nobody"
In-Reply-To: <772247601/vac@FURMINT.NECTAR.CS.CMU.EDU>
Message-ID: <9406230104.AA05037@flammulated.owlnet.rice.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Vincent.Cate@FURMINT.NECTAR.CS.CMU.EDU wrote:

Using "nobody" as a remailer is pretty interesting ;) the only problem
being you have to be root or be allowed to choose your own username.

> Imagine remailers also had addresses like "nobody@vox.hacktic.nl",
> and "nobody@jpunix.com".  Now if someone doing an internet wire-tap
> sees mail to "nobody@furmint.nectar.cs.cmu.edu" it is hard for him to
> tell if this means:
>  a) It will just end up in /dev/null like it does on 99% of the machines
>  b) furmint is another remailer
>  c) someone on furmint gets mail as "nobody"

I don't understand: why can't the somebody do a telnet to port 25 and
"vrfy nobody" to see if it points to /dev/null?  Or find out if mail
is piped to a script? 

> So it would be nice if sites with remailers would set the "nobody"
> alias to point to their remailer to start this convention.  Assuming

Again, a pretty good suggestion, but I don't think most remailer
operators can do this even if they wanted to.  I know I couldn't have
with remailers I've run in the past.

-- 
Karl L. Barrus: klbarrus@owlnet.rice.edu         
2.3: 5AD633;   D1 59 9D 48 72 E9 19 D5  3D F3 93 7E 81 B5 CC 32 
2.6: 088C8F21; 97 73 9E 8B 98 3E DD B5  E8 97 64 7E 20 95 60 D9
"One man's mnemonic is another man's cryptography" - K. Cooper