From: Michael C Taylor <mctaylor@mta.ca>
Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 05:28:55 +0800
To: Cypherpunks Distributed Remailer <cypherpunks@ssz.com>
Subject: Re: remailer@rcmp-grc.gc.ca ?? (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <199707122352.SAA13268@einstein.ssz.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.96.970713175352.11512B-100000@fractal.mta.ca>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



On Sat, 12 Jul 1997, Jim Choate wrote:

> Forwarded message:
> 
> > Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 18:45:56 -0500
> > From: John Deters <jad@dsddhc.com>
> > Subject: remailer@rcmp-grc.gc.ca ??
> 
> > There are many anonymous re-mailers in operation across the Internet.
> 
> That's being just a tad charitable I think.

Not really, several is often used to roughly translate in common usage as
about seven, so 'many' could be more than several. Just as a few is
roughly four. A couple is about two. 

At least there are too many to get court authorization for all of them,
especially those pesky non-North American sites. 

It would be nice to see more remailer. I do not know if transient
remailers themselves are a good idea, but I think transient operators of
same-named remailer is good.

remailer.com and remailer.net is taken, but remailer.org appears to be
available. Maybe we need a network of transient operators for a number of
remailers all out of a common domain. remailer@tcmay.remailer.org,
remailer@vulis.remailer.org, etc., which the machine names points to
different machines IP addresses weekly. 

It allows sites which want to block anonymous mail via remailers easily
(such as certain retentive commerical sites) via domain blocking. This is
both a plus and a minus. An Admin trying to stop harrassment of a user
could block all anonymous remailed mail with a simple block os all mail
from remailer.org. Security conscience sites could prevent outgoing
messages from sending to remailer.org. Legit users blocked by this
only need non-business access such as via a freenet or AOL trial offer
diskette.

This would provide an increase in overhead for legal hassle for
net.weenies.  "No, I do not operate the anonymous remailer at
tcmay.remailer.org..." <whisper> "but I did last week."

It does not even increase the complexity at the user's end. Existing
software like premail, and Private Idaho wouldn't break. 

The only stumbling block I foresee is that the PGP private key
passphase would have to be shared amongst operators unless there is a
better way.

This may of been discussed by remailer operators before, I don't know.
If there is good solution to the private key passphase sharing then I
think the operation is possible without a lot of complex work. Maybe the
code from pgp.net dymanic domains could be used.

--
Michael C. Taylor <mctaylor@mta.ca> <http://www.mta.ca/~mctaylor/>