From: Bill Stewart <stewarts@ix.netcom.com>
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 16:01:56 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: frequency of remailer use? (fwd)
Message-ID: <199603130447.UAA07724@ix3.ix.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Multi-hop messages are probably more important than cover traffic.
If the average message does two hops, then dive your estimates by two, etc.
In a real privacy environment, almost nobody would send serious messages
by just one remailer hop.  On the other hand, for posting minor spam
and non-professionally-secure messages to mailing lists, one hop will do.

A first step at estimating this would be to check the fraction of mail
addresses to known remailers (since most remailers are more likely to
track destinations than sources.)  Most of pamphlet's bouncemail is
from other remailers, but that seems to be more of a configuration issue,
or people sending test mail to mixmasters or something.

>One could make some attempt to account for all known cover traffic. Given a
>known average quantity of cover traffic, the rest is either real or
>independent cover.
>> > I would be very grateful for pointers to data concerning the number of
>> > messages that pass through remailers.  (Not anon.penet.fi -- real
>> > remailers.) I am currently in a conversation with a journalist who should
>> > know better, but claims that secure anonymous remailers are never used by
>> > anyone -- just a curiosity.
>>Good question.  How do we determine this without ourselves being able
>>to distinguish between cover traffic and "real" traffic?
#--
#			Thanks;  Bill
# Bill Stewart, stewarts@ix.netcom.com, +1-415-442-2215 pager 408-787-1281
# "At year's end, however, new government limits on Internet access threatened
# to halt the growth of Internet use.  [...] Government control of news media 
# generally continues to depend on self-censorship to regulate political and
# social content, but the authorities also consistently penalize those who
# exceed the permissable."  - US government statement on China...