From: "Mark M." <markm@voicenet.com>
Date: Fri, 8 Nov 1996 15:41:55 -0800 (PST)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Blocking addresses by default
In-Reply-To: <199611072025.PAA22083@spirit.hks.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.95.961108192926.947A-100000@gak.voicenet.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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On Thu, 7 Nov 1996, Rich Graves wrote:

> I think this threatens serious security problems for the remailer
> network in two ways:
> 
> 1. You'd create a list of people interested in anonymous information,
>    which could potentially be obtained by police or other armed thugs.

True.  I wasn't proposing any centralized list or a complete alternative to
the current way remailers are set up.  Just an alternative for some people who
don't have time to go through all the complaints.  The only unblocked addresses
could just be the addresses of other remailers.  Others could be set up to
only deliver mail to other remailers, mailing lists, and newsgroups.

> 
> 2. The traffic would go down so substantially that traffic analysis
>    would be trivial.

If every remailer adopted this system, then this would be true.

> As a counterproposal, I'd like to see better disclaimers on remailed
> messages. The reason the people complaining are so pissed off is that
> the blocklists are neither advertised nor automated enough. I'd like to
> see disclaimers and block list instructions at the top of the body of
> every single message. This would be encapsulated in some mark characters
> so that it could easily be removed by remailer chains. E.g.,

This is a good idea.  I also like the idea of remailers forwarding some sort
of notification to a first-time recipient where the recipient actually has to
request that the mail be delivered.  However, the storage requirement might be
a little impractical for some remailers.  If the disclaimers are really
annoying, it would be easy enough to remove these disclaimers with a simple
procmail recipe or some equivalent.


> What's wrong with this scheme? Other than the fact that all remailers
> would have to change their software at the exact same moment. :-)

The "cutmarks" option would allow backwards compatability.  Alternatively, the
remailer might be able to determine whether the next hop is a "real" email
address or another remailer.  I believe this would be pretty easy with
Mixmaster since a remailer can tell if it is the final hop or not.


Mark






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