From: eric@remailer.net (Eric Hughes)
Date: Fri, 3 Feb 95 15:14:54 PST
To: remailer-operators@c2.org
Subject: Re: MX'ing and jpunix.com
In-Reply-To: <199502022127.PAA14199@jpunix.com>
Message-ID: <199502032312.PAA15531@largo.remailer.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


   From: "John A. Perry" <perry@jpunix.com>

	   Additional masking can be provided by having the MX record point
   to myriad.pc.cc.cmu.edu. What good does this do? I have an agreement with
   myriad.pc.cc.cmu.edu (Matt Ghio) where myriad will take the MX-pointed
   record and additionally alias it through the smail daemon on myriad. 

This is the beginning of private name service.  The machines behind
this MX record are not particularly visible to the outside.  Given the
existence of such machine, it makes sense to consider giving them
names which are also not too visible from the outside.

A group of remailer operators who had access to the DNS setups on
their machines could create their own personal top-level domain.  For
sake of discussion, let's call it ".cp".  Now random Unix boxes on the
Internet won't be able to gain access to .cp addresses, but the
remailer club would.  Outside parties would be able to be shown .cp
addresses but would not be able to resolve where the machines actually
were on the Internet, much less find them IRL.  (Access control on who
can pull .cp records will have to be added the the DNS software in
order to do this.)

Consider this in the light of Matt Ghio's MX service.  Matt MX's for
the alias.net addresses.  Inside alias.net, the individual remailers
could use .cp addresses to talk to each other.  In fact, those who
want zero contact with the outside world could advertise only .cp
addresses and mail only to other .cp addresses.

For sake of experimentation, I've set up a primary top-level
nameserver here on my machine for ".cp".  In order to access it,
you'll need to act as a secondary name server for the domain.  Hacking
alternate roots into BIND comes later.  Just add the following line to
your named.boot file:

    secondary       cp      204.94.187.1    db-secondary.cp

If you do this, you'll be able to ask for a second-level domain.
If you want a .cp domain, send mail to

    hostmaster@ndip.cp

Tell the kind hostmaster what name you want, what you want it for,
where you name servers are, etc.  This is an experimental service and
is not guaranteed to be reliable.  It might also serve as a test bed
for doing cryptographic name service trials.

Eric