From: Hal <hfinney@shell.portal.com>
Date: Wed, 28 Sep 94 09:00:32 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Sufferance remailers
In-Reply-To: <9409281415.AA22580@runner.utsa.edu>
Message-ID: <199409281600.JAA06989@jobe.shell.portal.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


dwomack@runner.utsa.edu (Dave) writes:

>Great idea, but IMHO going offshore is a bit difficult...
>it might be easier to arrange with a `useful idiot` to
>get an extra phone installed in their closet, which would
>then call forward to a local (and changeable) phone
>number, where the computer would be physically located.

>The computer itself would be transportable, and ideally
>everything would be enclosed in a self-contained unit
>with just two outlets...one for electricity, and one for
>the telephone connection.

Can't they shut down the closet just as easily as they would have
shut down your computer?

This seems to be a problem with all approaches which seek to hide
the "real remailer" A behind a "front machine" B.  They could just
shut down B.  So sometimes people propose that they will just switch
to a different front machine C, and R is still safe.  Then they shut
down C.  So we switch to D, etc.  But really, couldn't B, C, D, ...
just have been remailers themselves?  What do you really gain by
keeping A secret?  Perhaps if the front machines are much cheaper than
remailer machines it might make sense, but it really doesn't take
much horsepower to run a remailer; probably the net connection is the
expensive part, so B, C, D, etc. are going to be just as expensive as
A.

Hal