From: me@muddcs.cs.hmc.edu (Michael Elkins)
Date: Sat, 13 Apr 1996 20:00:39 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Scientologists may subpoena
In-Reply-To: <1A5C983A02502C79@-SMF->
Message-ID: <199604121937.MAA18253@muddcs.cs.hmc.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Scott Binkley writes:
> What if we set up a chaining remailing system in as many countries as 
> possible, all working in double blind
> mode.  You could have it randomly pick 20 or so remailers before actually 
> sending the message to its destination.
> 
> That isn't a very clean method, but would sure slow down the process of 
> obtaining court orders in each respective country.

This is true.  We definitely could use more remailers outside the US.
Especially since we all know that if you have enough money, you can
get away with murd^H^H^H^Hanything in this country,possibly even getting
access to remailer records.

> I have this other idea, but it would be difficult to set up.  Again, with 
> many many remailers, you could set it up, so that 
> any message you send is sent to a random FTP site of the day.  Each of 
> the remailers randomly picks messages out
> of the pool at the FTP site, and sends it on its way (all is encrypted of 
> course).  At the end of the day, the FTP site is 
> erased, and  a new one is set up somewhere else (all remailers would then 
> scan there).
> 
> The beauty is that when a remailer pulls a message out of the FTP site, 
> it has no idea where the message came from, nor which
> remailer (country) sent it there (providing the pooled messages have had 
> the return addresses removed).  This would make it 
> very difficult to track down to the source.
> 
> The disadvantage is that it requires cooperation between remailers, and 
> that a message cannot be replied to.

Some of the cypherpunk remailers already sort of do this.  However, the only
thing it really does is make it a little harder to do traffic analysis.
The main problem with your scheme is that all of the remailers would have
access to the final destination of the message.  The best method is still
to use a randomly selected group of remailers for each anonymous message,
and change your reply block on your nym often.

me
--
Michael Elkins <me@cs.hmc.edu>			http://www.cs.hmc.edu/~me
PGP key fingerprint = EB B1 68 32 3F B5 54 F9  6C AF 4E 94 5A EB 90 EC