From: Hal <hfinney@shell.portal.com>
Date: Sat, 17 Sep 94 18:25:20 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Stealth remailers
Message-ID: <199409180125.SAA22260@jobe.shell.portal.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


One "quick and dirty" way to get the effect of a stealth remailer is to
have all messages leave the remailer net via one or more politically
strong hosts.  For a long time now I have been having my remailer on
alumni.caltech.edu, which I judge to be politically weak, forward mail to
shell.portal.com, which seems stronger.  When people see some anonymous
mail they don't like, they look at where it comes from.  They seldom
think to blame other remailers in the chain (partially because they can't
easily find out who they are).  It is the final remailer which takes the
heat.  If that remailer were in a jurisdiction and/or political position
that would allow it to withstand the various threats we anticipate, it
would provide cover for the other remailers.  And by using other
remailers in a chain before going through this final remailer, users
don't have to trust the final remailer with any significant secrets.

Some time back I proposed a variation of this idea: "second tier"
remailers, which always forward their outgoing messages through one or
more "first tier" remailers, which work like the current ones and take
the political heat as a result.  Second tier remailers would be very safe
to run and it would be rare that a sysop or supervisor would get a
complaint about the remailer's activity.

Hal