From: hughes@ah.com (Eric Hughes)
Date: Thu, 4 Aug 94 08:20:28 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Remailer stuff
In-Reply-To: <m0qVxpi-0005P6C@ideath.goldenbear.com>
Message-ID: <9408041450.AA12817@ah.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


   Sorry if I'm being dense - will someone please E-mail me and tell me
   why outgoing-only (or incoming-address-unavailable) remailers are 
   useful?

The original intention of remailers is to allow people _who already
know each other_ to do so without revealing that fact to the outside
world.  I would suggest that this use of remailers, rather than
pseudonymity, it much easier to integrate into existing mail software,
and would at this point be a good next step.  

But we don't even have encryption and signing well integrated yet, so
I'm not too hopeful today.

My criterion for a successful deployment is when the authors of a
mailer distribute encryption, signing, and remailing support as a
basic part of their packages.

True pseudonymity further reduces risk of linking physical identity to
online identity, but simply concealing communication patterns
accomplishes a lot of that already.

Eric