From: tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)
Date: Wed, 7 Feb 1996 15:33:05 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: paper on remailers in the intelligence community
Message-ID: <ad3d8e9804021004edeb@[205.199.118.202]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 6:06 AM 2/7/96, t byfield wrote:

>        Surely you jest. It's one of the weirdest hodgpodges of inane free
>association I've ever read. The authors are a couple of regular Jack D.
>Rippers. Highlights:

It's about par for these "management" conferences. A deep, thoughtful
analysis is just not likely (and I don't mean this as a complete insult:
his paper is mostly just to touch on what these issues are, not to do an
academic study).

Strassman is a regular columnist for "Computerworld" and a member of
various advisory councils (including a conspiracy-feeding thing called the
"EC World Council"). He was a bigshot in the DOD, works for the
"Information Warfare" folks (the much-hyped new area generating so many
conferences), and has all sorts of ties to the mil-info complex. An Alta
Vista search on the string "Paul A. Strassmann" is revealing.


>>One of the most prominent anonymous re-mailers is <anon.penet.fi> is in
>>Finland. It is frequently used by the Russian (ex-KGB) criminal element.
>

Maybe he got this from all of the stuff that is sometimes attached
automatically to remailed messages: KGB, Sarin, Corona, Area 51, IRA, and
those cute slogans like "the shipment will be out of the Port of Oakland
at...," etc. :-}

But more seriously, any mil-info complex effort to demonize remailers must
of course invoke one of the Horsemen. At this time, "Russian Mafia
terrorists" is the putative focus of joint U.S.-Russian intelligence
activities, and was even the plot of the latest James Bond movie.

(Rumor has it that 007 will be doing battle with MEDUSA, the cyberspace
descendant of SMERSH, in this case meaning "death to tentacles.")

--Tim May





Boycott espionage-enabled software!
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^756839 - 1  | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."