From: Adam Back <aba@dcs.ex.ac.uk>
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 10:03:32 +0800
To: rdl@mit.edu
Subject: remailer resistancs to attack
In-Reply-To: <199801151705.MAA03621@the-great-machine.mit.edu>
Message-ID: <199801160125.BAA00650@server.eternity.org>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain




Ryan Lackey <rdl@mit.edu> writes:
> (Eternity-USENET is vulnerable to technical Denial of Service attacks
> with the current small number of indexing servers, even if it is protected
> from legal issues.  I think illegal or extralegal attacks are as dangerous
> as the legal ones)

Public access servers aren't a good idea.  Really people should be
running local access servers only.  The index is local, cache is
local, and USENET is a distributed broadcast medium.

Seems close to ideal to me, the problem being as Tim points out:
bandwidth limitations.  The bandwidth limitation is debilitating; to
overcome this we have to relax security, for example by using
remailers rather than USENET for all but indexes of documents.

One criticism I noticed several people raise was that USENET would be
shut down as a way to kill eternity USENET when something
controversial gets posted.

However it seems to me that the weakest point is the remailer network.
It seems likely that it would be much easier for governments to shut
down the remailer network than it would be to shut down USENET.  There
are only around 20 or so remailers, and they all have known IP
addresses, operators, localities, etc.  I expect the spooks could shut
them down with less than 1 days notice if they wanted to.

So, where would blacknet, and eternity USENET be after that?

How do we improve the resistance of the remailer network to well
resourced attackers intent on dismantling it?

Adam