From: nobody@REPLAY.COM (Anonymous)
Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 16:00:43 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: No Subject
In-Reply-To: <199601261801.KAA07578@slack.lne.com>
Message-ID: <199601290724.IAA10178@utopia.hacktic.nl>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


I'm glad this interesting conversation came up. I apologize for
writing this anonymously, but I don't want to do anything to associate
my nym with my conventional name. The very act of comparing the
actions of the two entities would endanger my anonymity.

I use a nym to talk publically about a certain topic that, while it is
legal and not really that embarassing, I would rather not have
associated with my conventional name. In particular, I don't want my
thoughts on this topic to be archived by my conventional name. So I
use a nym, and it basically works. I think a really determined person
could break my nym even today, but I don't think anyone will ever be
that determined and I'm not that worried about it.

ericm@lne.com (Eric Murray) writes:
>But I have some problems/questions about using a nym:
>1. reputation.

Yes, each nym (and your conventional name, which in some ways is just
another nym) has to have its own, independent reputation. I don't know
any way around this. The whole point of a nym is so the actions of
your nym don't affect the reputation of your conventional name.

You could tell trusted people about the association between your nym
and your conventional name, but you're compromising your nym in doing
that. You have to develop a threat model - how seriously do you want
to keep your anonymity?

>2. does it (a nym) really help?

A perfectly secure one does, by definition - if no one can ever
associate your nym with your conventional name, in particular if no
one knows that you have a nym, then there is no problem. The question
is, how close are we today to that perfection?  Getting lots of mail
from remailers currently looks supicious.

>But if my nym is investigated for some future crime (fuck Exon) and
>my nym isn't secure enough to protect my RealName, it will be a liability.

Yes. One thing to remember is that a response block associates an
email address with a public key for ever and all time. To be safer,
you need to not let mail from the nym go back to a private email box.

True anonymity is inconvenient.