From: nobody@REPLAY.COM (Anonymous)
Date: Sat, 27 Dec 1997 02:33:28 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: actual, on-topic post (tm)
Message-ID: <199712261804.TAA06045@basement.replay.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



jkthomson <jkthomson@bigfoot.com> writes:

>does a large number of 'bounces' between randomly selected remailers
>increase security/untraceability?  what if you made each message go through
>ALL remailers, or nearly all?

Going through all the remailers is overkill. The rationale for multiple
remailers (four are usually recommended) is that it's harder to trace a
message through the remailer network.

Say you want to send a message to person X. So you send it to remailer A.
Now there's a chain linking you to that remailer (probably your ISP's smtp
log), and your friendly local jackbooted thug could say, "Aha! You sent a
message to that remailer, and then person X got an anonymous message! It
must have been you!" They might not be able to make it stick, but they'd
certainly be able to take you downtown for a quick wooden high colonic.

Now, suppose instead that you'd sent it through a chain of four remailers,
chosen in some reasonably random fashion. So the thug has a record of you
sending something to remailer A, but the message came from Remailer D. He
has to construct a chain linking you to Remailer D, via remailer B and C.
If you PGP-encrypt the messages in layers, as with Premail, then no
remailer other than the last in the chain has the final destination, and no
remailer other than the first knows where the message originally came from.

Hope this helps.