Actually, the nine servers are not operated by Chaum. They're operated
   by "highly skilled people in this room who know how to build and run a
   secure data center".


   At least that's what he said at the talk I witnessed where he unveiled
   it.


   Additionally, Chaum's design allows an entity operating one of the
   servers to introduce their own policy - "it's not up to me what policy
   you want to introduce; the system is neutral".


   So, first of all there's Chaum's obvious failure to recognize that in
   the same room are the exact people who could hack into a "secure data
   center".


   Second, he implied that, with the use of these policies, if a message
   were to traverse a network with nodes operated by the US, Canada,
   Egypt, India, Pakistan, Iran, Russia, China and Japan, it would require
   the admins from those countries to all agree to decrypt, turning the
   solution into a political - not mathematical - one.


   Now, I'm personally hardly a supporter of the idea, and hate the fact
   that Chaum's idea lends credibility to Comey's "smart people just need
   to work on it" position. In fact, I consider any sort of backdoored
   system tantamount to treason to cryptography, and antithetical to its
   purpose.


   But I do think it's important to debate on the actual facts at hand.


   - A



   On Saturday, January 9, 2016 3:58:46 PM PST Travis Biehn wrote:

   > Dan,

   > The 9 servers are operated by Chaum, and is the software and OS
   config open

   > source and 3rd party verifiable as being the same as running on the
   servers?

   >

   > 9 servers will be operated in 9 different jurisdictions, not by 9
   separate

   > unrelated 'entities'.

   >

   > 'Trust us' is just something we've become accustomed to not needing.

   >

   > Travis

   >

   > On Fri, Jan 8, 2016, 11:48 PM <dan@geer.org> wrote:

   > > Tracerneo writes:

   > > | On 7 January 2016 at 05:51, grarpamp <grarpamp@gmail.com> wrote:

   > > | >online privacy

   > > | >encryption scheme

   > > | >backdoor that allows anyone..to have their anonymity and privacy

   > >

   > > stripped

   > >

   > > | altogether

   > > |

   > > | I don't know, maybe I'm retarded, but this doesn't compute.

   > > |

   > > | What I'm afraid though, is that such abominations might catch on,

   > > | because people like adopting flawed things, that give them
   illusion of

   > > | control.

   > >

   > > With respect, the stripping involved requires unanimity amongst the

   > > nine sites, each much different than the other. If one is to
   dismiss

   > > Chaum's scheme due to the possibility of 9-way unanimous collusion,

   > > then, in like manner, all threshold (split-key) cryptosystems are

   > > unacceptable. And then there is the DNS where the possibility of

   > > collusion amongst all root servers would also trigger disavowal of

   > > the DNS.

   > >

   > > I'm probably missing your point.

   > >

   > > --dan