From: Tim May <tcmay@got.net>
Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 00:11:20 +0800
To: cypherpunks@Algebra.COM
Subject: Re: Jeff's Side of the Story.
In-Reply-To: <199707020337.UAA17514@you.got.net>
Message-ID: <v03102800afe02a4159d2@[207.167.93.63]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



At 7:40 AM -0700 7/2/97, Kent Crispin wrote:

>This probably has been suggested 20 years ago, but wouldn't Jeff's
>problem have been solved if the following slight modification were
>made to the algorithm: If you are the last remailer in a chain, then
>with probability p you pick another randomly choosen remailer to send
>through.  If p is 1 end user mail would never come from you; if p is
>0.5 then half the time you send the mail on one more step.  The end
>user, then, can never be sure of which remailer will ultimately
>deliver the message.
...

This general sort of thing has been discussed...though not 20 years ago! :-0

I don't know about this particular mathematical algorithm, but things
generally like it.

Long before a remailer shuts down, he should certainly adopt a strategy
like this. Sending "his" traffic through randomly selected other remailers
is certainly an option. (Any remailer can at any point insert additional
hops, or even chains of hops, merely be addressing them correctly. Of
course, the "original" (which may not be the real original, of course, as
other remailers may have done the same thing) needs to "get back on track,"
else the decryptions won't work. But this is all a simple problem.

I don't know what gets discussed on the "remailer operators list," not
being on it, but it sure seems to me that remailers have stagnated, and
that some of the robust methods of reducing attacks on any particular
remailer are not being used.

--Tim May

There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws.
Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!"
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^1398269     | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."