From: wcs@anchor.ho.att.com
Date: Fri, 3 Feb 95 15:24:04 PST
To: skaplin@mirage.skypoint.com
Subject: Re:  Is the remailer crisis over?
Message-ID: <9502032313.AA04793@anchor.ho.att.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


> Well folks as of 11:30 on 1-30-94 there are 14 remailers with uptimes
> greater than 99%. What's the consensus...Is the remailer crisis over?

The "remailers are broken" crisis may be over, but until there
are a lot of remailers in service, and 14 isn't a lot,
with a lot of traffic on them, remailers won't be a very effective
security tool.  

If the Bad Guys wanted to watch all 14 remailers,
it'd probably not be hard to figure out which messages came from
which senders, just because there aren't enough for real tracking.
If the Bad Guys decided to confiscate 14 remailers, they could do it.
If your machine got busted or sued for sending an anonymous message somebody
didn't like, and you contended that you're a remailer and there was
no way to prove it originated on your machine, "they" could respond that
you're not one of the 14 well-known remailers and if you were "they"
would have been watching you because they watch every machine that
talks to the well-known remailers, and you're not one of them.

As the folks in the nuclear-war planning business say, fewer than
100 of anything isn't reliable.  

		Bill