From: fnerd@smds.com (FutureNerd Steve Witham)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 94 17:25:12 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Chained Remailing Strategy and Tactics
Message-ID: <9406301631.AA10232@smds.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


anonymous says-

> In order to preserve anonymity and thwart traffic analysis in 
> chained remailings, it would seem useful to include a very BUSY 
> remailer in the chain, and try to ensure that the message arrives 
> at the busiest time of the day for that remailer, from a traffic 
> standpoint.  Hitting a remailer at a slack time when, let's say, 
> only one message arrives over a period of several hours would 
> seem most unwise.

The problem for someone trying to trace a message is, which of
some set of outgoing messages matches this incoming message?
(Or vice-versa.)  The size of the set of possibilities 
determines how much uncertainty is introduced.  If the remailer
works by delaying messages a random amount of time up to a
maximum, then the number of possibilities varies with the traffic.
But if the remailer works in terms of sequence instead of
time, it can hold the size of the set of possibilities
constant (which makes the maximum delay time vary as a side
effect).

So, sequence, not clock time, is what matters (or ought to),
all other things being equal, and there's no reason a remailer
should be any less effective in low traffic periods.

-fnerd


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the liquidy snack that drinks like a beverage!
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