From: Adam Shostack <adam@homeport.org>
Date: Wed, 5 Jun 1996 16:32:39 +0800
To: ravage@ssz.com (Jim Choate)
Subject: Re: Remailer chain length?
In-Reply-To: <199606011336.IAA11002@einstein.ssz.com>
Message-ID: <199606050357.WAA29773@homeport.org>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text


Jim Choate wrote:

| > I don't think multiple remailers at the same site help anything.
| > 
| 
| I agree completely. If traffic analysis is going to be done on a single box
| it isn't going to matter how many remailers are there.  The monitor will
| simply grab them all. At this point it simply maps them thusly:

|       incoming message > remailer #1 > .... > remailer #n > outgoing
| 
| 
| That this really maps to is obvious:
| 
| 
|       incoming message > remailer #1-#n > outgoing

	Analyzing the traffic through three remailers is more
difficult than analyzing the traffic through one.  One remailer with
three N messages per day is more secure than an equivilant remailer
with N mesasges.

[much good thought deleted.]

|         5. Automaticaly limits spamming unless a remailer allows cloning
|            AND all recipients share a commen private key.

	Or unless the remailer mails to a mail to news gateway.

|         6. It maps 1:1 onto the physical remailer model with the same limits
|            on information at each stage. This allows one to directly apply
|            the current history of precedence involving anonymity and
|            physical remailers.

	With physical remailers, you can open the inner envelopes and
read the message, leaving the end user to wonder where the post office
lost the message.  With 'real' remailers, the lost message can't be
read, only not delivered.


| This is the basic model that the Austin Cypherpunks are working on at the
| currrent time. The big problem we have right now is determining if the body
| is actualy encrypted. We have done some basic tests of encryption-spoofing
| using pgp and it is looks to be a thorny problem. It simply is not trivial
| to look at a block of characters and determine if they are actualy
| encrypted. You can't rely on the wrapper around the data put there by the

	I'm not sure I see why this matters?  If you check that the
message is not obviously readable, why not assume that its well
encrypted?  You're rarely required to contort yourself to ensure your
customers are obeying the law (weaponsmiths, cryptographers, and banks
excepted.)  

Adam


-- 
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once."
					               -Hume