- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

Re: Digital Postage (fwd)
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Jim Choate wrote: >> Ecash is in place right now. > >True, but there are only 3 systems and it is not clear at all which >will dominate and be used by all parties. No, there is only one system which provides anonymity. It's called ecash. The other systems do not have the features we want. There is a commonly held belief that one form of payment or another must dominate. This is an artifact of laws which require a society to use one type of payment. Historically there have been a wide variety of different currencies, just as there has been a wide variety of any "commodity." >Also there is the issue of security in regards to maintaning >anonymity when there is such a small pool of parties to use. Doesn't >take a genius to figure out where to hang out and watch the action. Do you mean watch the bank and see who is using e-cash? That might tell you who is using remailers, but not much else. >> > - how do you charge for the postage, per submission? What happens when >> > I want to send 10,000 parties the email. Do I still pay the digi-postage >> > equivalent of $.35? Or do I pay $350.00? >> >> This is easily worked out between the remailer operator and the >> customer. > >How? There is certainly no clear mechanism in place. Does the >customer contact each remailer operator prior to sending the traffic, >thus opening up N opportunities for anonymity cracking. Can do! Remailer operators can easily advertise what they sell and how much it costs without compromising the customer the same way they advertise their remailer and its features now. Price setting is a black art. People running businesses make decisions based on talking to potential customers, pilot marketing tests, and common sense. I recommend that people start pricing at a quarter per message per hop because it is easier to move prices down than to move them up. Besides, the remailer operators have been doing all the work while a bunch of free loaders like Monty Cantsin use their services and then carp about it. It seems fair for us to shoot some money towards the operators for a change. >If the operators agree to a system how do we get there? Is it time to have a >anon-remailer conference to settle on distributed payment schemes? Absolutely not. The remailers certainly don't have to charge the same rates. Each remailer operator should use a pricing scheme that works for them. >> Were I running a remailer, I would charge $350.00. As a customer, >> I would not see this as unreasonable. > >Unless it is pertty serious nobody is going to pay such a fee just to >send an email around. What is being sold is privacy and security, not e-mail transport. It has great value to me and many cypherpunks. If you don't value it, that's your business. >The problem I see is one of scale. The infrastructure for handling >physical mail is very 'bulky' and requires a lot infrastructure. >Email on the other hands effectively rides on the back of an existing >Internet infrastructure for nearly free. You are confusing one cost of doing business with the price the market will bear. >Because of the historicaly low cost for email this would tend to in >general indicate a low market value on anon remailers. Not to people who care about their privacy. But, I agree that the price per hop will likely drop far below a quarter, not because people won't pay more, but because they won't have to. If it's basically inexpensive to provide remailer services (and it is), price competition should reduce the costs. Monty Cantsin Editor in Chief Smile Magazine http://www.neoism.org/squares/smile_index.html http://www.neoism.org/squares/cantsin_10.html -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBNC6hkJaWtjSmRH/5AQGstgf9E92tnB0xPcaboYmMFc/73Qtducj/yS2n RyBiz86lpCLzrUup3qrSm10w3LX14O4XcUKUL5NQc81Xrd9J+Kppdzlsb2ZkT69s bWY4WqqqEkrWhu3JmEQ+mqniN5f8WehEtte3bkHjmpRhe+iGe9Xov6dTZxojXi/W O1SOSmpUVBIIwWJCGlDtc44jdUB7G9AcjUj1/RcDG8OtMK5tJdAOvFS4I2qj8e1i 2IamdXioEIk9at/anxjqpMvWDwFYUdWlEHIzbQP049+PTffbxKttvl1tX604VemT HrH4TXazOCo/CV+YBBlC3zkU8cTMKgInedk2If1OTaObPm0wnPPTow== =z+b0 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Remailers and ecash
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Steve Schear wrote: >>Digicash has software for Unix platforms which one could very easily >>call from a Perl script. Sure, it wouldn't be pretty, it wouldn't >>be ideal, but it would work and should be easy to incorporate into >>many of the remailers. (I think.) > >True, but then the remailer's income would be available to LE, since >payee anonymity isn't supported by DC. Accountless operation is by >far a better alternative for some business. Agreed. But this is a feature to be added later, not one to stop us from using ecash now. I would also note that LE is not the only group of people that might be interested. Aside from various spook agencies (which are not law enforcement agencies), there are all sorts of other scary people in the world who should be kept out of one's financial affairs. Monty Cantsin Editor in Chief Smile Magazine http://www.neoism.org/squares/smile_index.html http://www.neoism.org/squares/cantsin_10.html -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBNC6H/5aWtjSmRH/5AQGnowf7B1zSIQjn7VEibh4TRqZGqSR16KFogAFw xOKfkhFWiA1Uvwc0QgWaRzlZ0qCUxnCaxzLYLqwhNqwoLtPeuNlZ1qPO2NnQkYlr vjKIb6JSbmqLbROUQg9OOgJG8LbKKKB7sL8S7hp8qT2g2eP84H2JIUfuZtyl4Yg8 dnDmIQo+yn87T81wF3e1H2uQwwmjPvpJQlKWPzHuhARtluoStRUhiXEBqsAxUawU COYO9/oRbHok7ta1yOw9f40GXuUIo809S99ENflA396F76xYbSbd25cH9vmzUcoW z1W9JxeFtaAF90aMxyartpKolkLvTc2fDJ//E/H8N7KAGrkqVrIXCQ== =Qiuq -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Remailers and ecash
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Robert A. Costner wrote: >Let's assume you want to setup a remailer for profit. You could use a >spare machine on your desktop and share a phone line part time by using a >PPP connection. But I take it this is not what you are suggesting. I'm >assuming you want a commercial quality service. You'll need a machine, >colocation space, UPS power, a router to separate from the rest of the >internal network, a phone line for complaints and administration, a domain >name, and a person who can do programming, server administration, and >administrative work, perhaps 20 hours per week. > > Machine $2,500 > Router 800 > Domain 100 > ------ >Startup costs $3,400 > > Colocation $ 700 > Phone line 45 > Salary 3,750 > ------ >Recurring costs $4,495 x 12 months = $53,940 >Fixed costs $ 3,400 > >This makes an estimated business cost of $57,340 for one year, or $4,778 >per month, or about $159 per day. based on 4,000 messages per day that >gives a base cost per message of less than 4 cents. Actual operation costs >would be higher, but even at triple that price, if there is a demand for >the service (which I have my doubts) the 25 cent price would make a profit. 1. You should be looking at the marginal cost of adding money collection to a remailer. It isn't fifty thousand dollars, it's calling Mark Twain Bank, downloading the ecash software, getting it set up, and then hooking it into your remailer. (This would be a good way for the EFF to collect donations, wouldn't it?) 2. Remember that this could be started as a side business by somebody who has already paid the fixed costs. 3. $50,000 is nothing for a high tech venture, anyway. If there is any indication that security services could be a real market, the investment money will flow like tap water. (People love web businesses that are really generating hard cash.) >What about the free system does not seem to work well? When I look at Raph's statistics I don't see a successful remailer network. Now, there is some question about what his numbers mean, and there are some questions about the causes, but it is believed (not just by me) that the remailers lose messages and that they are delayed by reasons other than waiting for reordering queues to fill up. Yesterday, I think you said that if you noticed a problem with your remailer at 1am, you would deal with it in the morning. You are a volunteer and that is perfectly reasonable. But, if your remailer was related to a flow of cash, you might find it worthwhile to stay up another 30 minutes. Also, there are really only a few remailers out there. If there was a market in place, we would see some more entrants, both as service providers and as customers. There are lots of people out there who would be delighted to operate a remailer for $5000/year. >I'll admit that I really have not used DigiCash. Maybe someone here >can tell me some experiences with it. It's a great product. You haven't lived until you've e-mailed money. >I found two problems. Last I checked, the bank account reuired to >have digicash had a service fee of about $10 per month. I don't think you have to pay this fee with every account. (Even if there is a $10 fee, I would think my $50 would help defray the expense.) The way it works (in e-mail) is you generate a block of ASCII text that looks sort of like a PGP message and give it to the person you want to pay. You can make the payment out to them in particular, or you can make it out to whoever takes the certificate to the bank first. For ease of use, remailers should use the latter method. This also means that you wouldn't have to have a merchant account (which might be more expensive) to accept cash with your remailer. Monty Cantsin Editor in Chief Smile Magazine http://www.neoism.org/squares/smile_index.html http://www.neoism.org/squares/cantsin_10.html -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBNC6YS5aWtjSmRH/5AQGJJQf+LkqYe9c001aUmfSczKAsr1Hy2WumTYD4 TfuiSppXglErlq9OAxPxX0DcswIgDGH2DuVxIkRcyGWji/kw3yJw8PykEvFpeTio b75SNDC2tKGDJDWJFuuSdAkbSI0gv1i7AmxF8T++hGE71o/6nYz1g8qKrfTKqeGG rG6C1JkKSRZxqFSKaXqdrxJQ/mCLiWL0IyfkArGjhvNSdnt2r8n6F/oCysS/NWTH C4ksSwOGv8Kg5ZQNvd3rKFDvOC24XVqVQ2pq1zgpKrCFgcPparM/sGUNG5CVhUio acHFTQhzPWcsMicBgkV6xkHQ3FilhA4mV7XsnJkuY0o/94KcodFlAw== =bIo+ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Digital Postage (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Sun, 28 Sep 1997 15:52:22 -0400 > From: Anonymous <anon(a)anon.efga.org> > Subject: Re: Digital Postage (fwd) > Jim Choate wrote: > >> Ecash is in place right now. > > > >True, but there are only 3 systems and it is not clear at all which > >will dominate and be used by all parties. > > No, there is only one system which provides anonymity. It's called ecash. > The other systems do not have the features we want. Yes, but it does not have a clear market advantage. In fact the anonymity issue may actualy work against it. > There is a commonly held belief that one form of payment or another > must dominate. I can assure you that any business will not use multiple protocols unless their interface is the same for all of them. There simply isn't enough business to have very many systems. Ask yourself this, how attractive would the Internet have been if it had required users to install and manage multiple communications protocols for every connection? > This is an artifact of laws which require a society to > use one type of payment. Historically there have been a wide variety > of different currencies, just as there has been a wide variety of any > "commodity." Different currenciens don't mean different payment systems. Even though we have dollars, yen, rubels, etc. the things people do with them and the way the systems are built are pretty much the same. This is why international business works in the first place; they got banks, we got banks. If I can buy a Quarter Pounder (Le Royale) in the US I figure I can work it out in Russia. > >Also there is the issue of security in regards to maintaning > >anonymity when there is such a small pool of parties to use. Doesn't > >take a genius to figure out where to hang out and watch the action. > > Do you mean watch the bank and see who is using e-cash? That might > tell you who is using remailers, but not much else. But who is using the remailers is the point in traffic analysis if I'm not mistaken. Not very anonymous if they know who you are. > >> This is easily worked out between the remailer operator and the > >> customer. > > > >How? There is certainly no clear mechanism in place. Does the > >customer contact each remailer operator prior to sending the traffic, > >thus opening up N opportunities for anonymity cracking. > > Can do! Remailer operators can easily advertise what they sell and > how much it costs without compromising the customer the same way they > advertise their remailer and its features now. Can do what? Anonymity cracking or create a payment system that allows for the intermediate parties to be paid but doesn't over-burden the user? The point is not to have the poor end user have to create a half- dozen payment arrangements to get chaining. It becomes a real hassle to do at that point. We're talking about the people that drive the one block to the store to get more beer... > I recommend that people start pricing at a quarter per message per hop > because it is easier to move prices down than to move them up. This is the silliest thing I think I have heard so far in this discussion. A quarter a message per hop is about 2,000+ times too expensive to make anonymous remailers work. The key to anonyous remailers is not the cost per message but rather the amount of traffic to be carried. Anonymous remailers are beasts of mass markets measured in millions of recipients. And my experience is that prices move up and people expect them to. > >If the operators agree to a system how do we get there? Is it time to have a > >anon-remailer conference to settle on distributed payment schemes? > > Absolutely not. The remailers certainly don't have to charge the same > rates. Each remailer operator should use a pricing scheme that works > for them. But the system to post charges BETWEEN remailers must be pretty consistent to be acceptable. That is the key and it has NOT been discussed too any great degree. That inter-remailer traffic must be anonymous also or else traffic analysis can back-track. It seems to me that the remailers need some sort of anonymous payment server that is put in place for some other reason, that way they don't have to deal with the justification issue. The most obvious issue where anonymous purchasing would be of interest to the regular consumer is to prevent the collection of information about them through their purchases. Perhaps what we need is a business which purchases things as an agent of its members and then distributes them through some anonymous tracking system. That way the only stats collected by retailers are those of the aggregate purchasing requests. Then a member could request the purchase of some credit line on a remailer. The remailers could become members of such a system and purchase credit lines on each other to deal with chaining payment issues. > >Unless it is pertty serious nobody is going to pay such a fee just to > >send an email around. > > What is being sold is privacy and security, not e-mail transport. It > has great value to me and many cypherpunks. If you don't value it, > that's your business. What is being sold is anonymity. It does not necessarily provide privacy and may in fact decrease your security. > >The problem I see is one of scale. The infrastructure for handling > >physical mail is very 'bulky' and requires a lot infrastructure. > > >Email on the other hands effectively rides on the back of an existing > >Internet infrastructure for nearly free. > > You are confusing one cost of doing business with the price the market > will bear. How? What I am saying is that physical mail and the system developed for dealing with it went hand-in-hand. The design and advancement of the Internet technology is not driven by email or it's technology. That perhaps because of this difference perhaps we need to look at models other than the postage one. It in fact may be coloring our perception and a look at alternative models might help. > >Because of the historicaly low cost for email this would tend to in > >general indicate a low market value on anon remailers. > > Not to people who care about their privacy. But, I agree that the > price per hop will likely drop far below a quarter, not because people > won't pay more, but because they won't have to. If it's basically > inexpensive to provide remailer services (and it is), price > competition should reduce the costs. The remailer itself is cheap, it's the rest of the system that needs working on. Furthermore, most people who want privacy aren't going to be saying anything anyway, anonymous or otherwise. The people who will use anonymous remailers are people who have something to say but for one reason or another don't wan't it tied to them personaly. It's not privacy but 'plausible deniability' they are looking for. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there | | be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves. | | | | -Alan Greenspan- | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http:// www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

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Re: Memo From Washington Gestapo Tyranny
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Igor Chudov wrote: >In misc.survivalism, Anonymous wrote: >... >FROM: Representative Karen Schmidt, Chairman [sic] > Organized Crime Advisory Board > >>SUBJECT: Paper Terrorism My hat's off to the genius who perpetrated this hoax. They got the government lingo down so well that for a second I actually thought it was real! Note the total disregard for the law: >>* Distributing the extremist Citizens Handbook to foster jury >> nullification. Or this wonderful excerpt which confuses real terrorism ("Assassination Politics") with paper terrorism, just like reporters and politicians do all the time: >* using the Internet to promote extremist ideas such as > "Assassination Politics" or predicting the date of death of > a law enforcement officer or government official to win a > cash price. Or this section, which is clearly intended as a parody of the FBI. (Brilliant!): >This new purpose may take ordinary ideas to extremes, rationalize >their problems into blaming government, and cause members to compete >with each other to make stronger statements. Monty Cantsin Editor in Chief Smile Magazine http://www.neoism.org/squares/smile_index.html http://www.neoism.org/squares/cantsin_10.html -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBNC6v5ZaWtjSmRH/5AQGbegf/VZb2OvJ1BlsN2hdUqFpol/kt9unZXyHq rcc6doRAaSJw95DHgcIDF7ZOCcTOQxUY8Zv8t6Vw6WtJ/lSnIQ2jWn5SQ8I1pyK3 +Zwh+ne5sC6k+ciabaUPaQxWhChdvoyGvoCm71tDOPEUyz2NBmcqXSSY+gE7CeG9 jJfNTQtM585oEssPl6AXUHMd8UTpfrcaCGRWaww2ZVoBdkssfWG/laG9hpkr+zmw OlWT+xlsr0OzrTD2Jq61aeh8xYzcG3OsnPJk3lORWTxThkrj331qoMlYSki2E5Bu 3y5RTgHnDsAb/A7r6tOUlvVvmzz6lsy6eEsAIgZsGugu7wj9Hagbwg== =ns+X -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Remailer latencies
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- David E. Smith wrote: >> If so, what accounts for these message losses? I would expect that >> if your machine was down, even for a couple of days, that the >> incoming messages would be queued up on other machines and none >> would be lost. > >It's more like "of the last 1000 messages sent, 9964 of 'em have made >it back to me." Because of the way I have to have things set up, >there are almost always a few messages in transit. I have, very >occasionally, actually seen my remailer listed at 100%; somewhere >over 99% is far more common. But, presumably Raph waits awhile for the message before deciding the machine is down? If I understand correctly, you are saying that messages don't actually disappear, but they are sometimes delayed for longer than the two days Raph waits* for them to come back. (* Assumption made on the basis that his timing data doesn't describe any delays longer than two days.) >For me, the remailer doesn't consume any exceptional new resources, >so the added cost to me of running a remailer is very nearly zero. >(Those are mostly the "administrative" costs of dealing with >complaints, adding people to the blocklist, and cleaning up after the >occasional spam bomb.) Others, with different circumstances, may be >more eager to pursue a profit-making solution. It could cover the cost of that second line. ;-) If you haven't tried ecash, you might enjoy it. Setting up your remailer to accept it is a lot easier than you might think. Monty Cantsin Editor in Chief Smile Magazine http://www.neoism.org/squares/smile_index.html http://www.neoism.org/squares/cantsin_10.html -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBNC6PkZaWtjSmRH/5AQEg9Qf9F+GGZF733IDPbjuRSpIqH5KhhTVJTDMQ JCbzZdwfqvjzRvv6El/xH1y0cMvpcd2xes+QF3HMxRL+XU9tGpQOUwyBHXvTi247 sXB5TfgXLYowOjeR/PbjnT06SBG1ygj2kxe+0CZc9OQWlWgliMQG0OxPw3p/A3On WR7fxnlweRlPiDMZdXq/DMMpDs/Se+ypFpKZriTeS6iWzBG2Bi+F+GKHBEa3V7M9 hnVxGiFE0TnirII0n/h8yFcpQ/ULTG/Z3wqOxyZOvkaVyZlPCAl4mM0AOIWgNeZt HeSk18TERHcRg5u+QeeDRKnNQepeN3UJ5g/NYCGzaRe79f3SMg83mw== =zom6 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Remailer Attack
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Robert A. Costner wrote: >The downtime statistic is more an indication of when email has to be >sent more than once to get to Redneck. Apparently this is 17 out of >1,000 messages on the average. To be honest, I don't really know how >the stats program works, I'm just assuming this is what is being >checked. If the downtime statistic reflects connection failures it isn't that useful. This sort of problem is relatively common on the Net and is handled automatically. I strongly suspect it really does reflect disappeared messages. Does anybody know how Raph's stats are collected? Monty Cantsin Editor in Chief Smile Magazine http://www.neoism.org/squares/smile_index.html http://www.neoism.org/squares/cantsin_10.html -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBNC6RMpaWtjSmRH/5AQEl1gf+JU8Pd3hC3J5LpEL4duLAUu9rL68XF3J2 j4f/hQx8ZzY0mDHLuQEIC5Z0S6yJzE26lydye3lZmGsA1WT2LSK7VoLKd3K1ajjD asnK2J3NIokk2ndicgPbzITiBYyL48qJc8nxsbXV6Thzl5nP3JadNyF0QWudibp0 xxOFvmK0xnWA2BXYu8prXqZmfHE4z5i+ccGeZVP2g+EFQ/Dy04KinoMW+IQFms+M iI7iVRKTUmPPCSIoKJ4HZpGzyCGhkaSDBeu/gKkA+AOR9P7B2ZUllE9BMhxv4OEb zrLfbp6fwyJKv36Sob48pm0XHsDeV8mdcT9qM7MtAghryu27J+MfQA== =cIpG -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Remailers and ecash
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Matthew Ghio wrote: >What people often forget is that these structures tend to evolve thru >incremental changes rather than the immediate adoption of entirely >new paradigms. The 'barrier to entry', is often the deciding factor. Good point. I appreciated the following detailed discussion. But, I disagree on a few points. >So, assuming that for-pay remailers are the goal, how do we get >there? If attaching chaum-cash to remailer messages were the answer, >everyone would be doing it. An economist was walking down the street and saw a hundred dollar bill. The engineer with him snapped it up. Later, the engineer asked why his friend hadn't taken the money. "Well, the economist explained, I knew that it couldn't really be there because if it was, somebody would have gotten it." >One potential scenario is "I'll let you use my remailer if you let me >use yours," where people earn remailer credits by remailing other >people's messages. These remailer credits allow one to send >anonymous messages via other remailers. Once these remailer-credits >become sufficiently valuable, they can be sold using whatever >monetary system is popular at the time. Think of ecash as "remailer credits", only somebody else has gone to the trouble of solving all of the hard problems (including infrastructure), and you can get remailer credits by doing any productive activity for anybody in the world who will pay you in dollars. Some people will get ecash (i.e., "remailer credits") by running remailers. Others will get it by working for Microsoft and converting part of their income to ecash. Ecash suits the bill perfectly and it is available and working right now. It is actually easier to use ecash than to write some sort of "remailer credit" system from scratch. >Both of the above scenarios provide the desired end, which is that >people pay for their remailer usage, and neither involves the >(unlikely) model where people attach digicash to their remailer >messages using the current system. Again, there seems to be this idea that it's hard to get set up using ecash. If it were, long discussions about how likely it would be to work with the remailers might be worthwhile. But, the fact is, it isn't hard to get a remailer to accept ecash. So, we should get a bunch of remailers accepting it and see how things go. It should also be quite easy to modify existing client software to put ecash into chained messages. Consider premail. Raph would have to add a keyword to his remailer description table which means "accepts 25 cents ecash". Premail could have a command line option to add ecash. The ecash itself could come from a file of blocks of ASCII ecash made out to cash, which are automatically clipped by premail and then pasted into the message. Easy, right? Nobody even has to interact with the ecash application from the program. So where do these files full of blocks of ASCII ecash going to come from? People with ecash accounts can generate them by hand or by having a program call the ecash software to generate them. Then they can give or sell them to their less fortunate friends who don't have an ecash account. If you don't use up all the ecash ASCII blocks, they can be redeposited. It's that easy. It will work. Monty Cantsin Editor in Chief Smile Magazine http://www.neoism.org/squares/smile_index.html http://www.neoism.org/squares/cantsin_10.html -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBNC66rpaWtjSmRH/5AQHVEAf+MZai7O4vzm18BQy8NDjRFzQcvGT8YT7Q lCdY8+NcTIKntsdoLET/u3nZIq8zv3CLKSQMJDwYpBXmgmQtLL4pOct+6noDa94a qTdPO+yqG0LMjBSPPfN0l5f1kggcWQcAHPdLgBu32NQRtQOwFT9sNky9Jb53Vwce 4UGDfZ96DplBVQXS3MP6v7rf0jRH5qnRUAfFLobrtmebDAG20X4OnoFNmbTYeUTw jY5CA7HvKClHHuUUf3p9f03RLq/KdRJ0pegsxx7mGNv0LU78f6yY+olaeyM31suk tq9mDJbJBwCMuIq9x7oHrOFcrifHLMGoll9vPdRZe+MTYxUHV3xpFg== =IPLp -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Digital Postage (fwd)
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Jim Choate wrote: >> No, there is only one system which provides anonymity. It's called ecash. >> The other systems do not have the features we want. > >Yes, but it does not have a clear market advantage. In fact the >anonymity issue may actualy work against it. We are not talking about an abstract "what will the market do" issue here. We are talking about how to get a working payment system up for remailers which gets us great service and provides privacy and security. The rest of the world may or may not catch on to ecash, but if it's going to start, it will start with a small group. I think it should be this one. >> There is a commonly held belief that one form of payment or another >> must dominate. > >I can assure you that any business will not use multiple protocols >unless their interface is the same for all of them. There simply >isn't enough business to have very many systems. Businesses use multiple forms of payment all the time, even in the United States where multiple currency use is legally discouraged. When I go to a restaurant I can pay in cash or use a variety of credit cards. And credit cards cost the establishment a substantial amount of money and headache, too. >> >Also there is the issue of security in regards to maintaning >> >anonymity when there is such a small pool of parties to use. Doesn't >> >take a genius to figure out where to hang out and watch the action. >> >> Do you mean watch the bank and see who is using e-cash? That might >> tell you who is using remailers, but not much else. > >But who is using the remailers is the point in traffic analysis if I'm >not mistaken. Not very anonymous if they know who you are. I hope we are all assuming that The Enemy knows who is using remailers, at least at the moment. There's no hiding those telltale PGP messages sent to a certain short list of suspected remailer addresses. Some day we will have good steganography and it won't be possible to tell who is using a remailer, but this is not the best problem to solve right now. > >How? There is certainly no clear mechanism in place. Does the > >customer contact each remailer operator prior to sending the traffic, > >thus opening up N opportunities for anonymity cracking. > >> Can do! Remailer operators can easily advertise what they sell and >> how much it costs without compromising the customer the same way >> they advertise their remailer and its features now. > >Can do what? Anonymity cracking or create a payment system that >allows for the intermediate parties to be paid but doesn't >over-burden the user? The point is not to have the poor end user have >to create a half- dozen payment arrangements to get chaining. It >becomes a real hassle to do at that point. No it doesn't. Watch carefully: $remailer{'cyber'} = '<alias(a)alias.cyberpass.net> alpha pgp'; $remailer{"mix"} = "<mixmaster(a)remail.obscura.com> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut ek ksub reord ?"; $remailer{"replay"} = "<remailer(a)replay.com> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut post ek"; $remailer{"jam"} = "<remailer(a)cypherpunks.ca> cpunk mix pgp hash middle latent cut ek money25cents"; $remailer{"winsock"} = "<winsock(a)rigel.cyberpass.net> cpunk pgp pgponly hash cut ksub reord ?"; $remailer{'nym'} = '<config(a)nym.alias.net> newnym pgp'; $remailer{"squirrel"} = "<mix(a)squirrel.owl.de> cpunk mix pgp pgponly hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{'weasel'} = '<config(a)weasel.owl.de> newnym pgp'; $remailer{"reno"} = "<middleman(a)cyberpass.net> cpunk mix pgp hash middle latent cut ek reord ?"; $remailer{"cracker"} = "<remailer(a)anon.efga.org> cpunk mix remix pgp hash ksub esub latent cut ek money25cents reord post"; $remailer{'redneck'} = '<config(a)anon.efga.org> newnym pgp'; $remailer{"bureau42"} = "<remailer(a)bureau42.ml.org> cpunk mix pgp ksub hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{"neva"} = "<remailer(a)neva.org> cpunk pgp pgponly hash cut ksub ?"; $remailer{"lcs"} = "<mix(a)anon.lcs.mit.edu> mix money25cents"; $remailer{"medusa"} = "<medusa(a)weasel.owl.de> money25cents mix middle" $remailer{"McCain"} = "<mccain(a)notatla.demon.co.uk> mix middle"; $remailer{"valdeez"} = "<valdeez(a)juno.com> cpunk pgp pgponly hash ek"; $remailer{"arrid"} = "<arrid(a)juno.com> cpunk pgp pgponly money25cents hash ek"; $remailer{"hera"} = "<goddesshera(a)juno.com> cpunk pgp pgponly hash ek"; $remailer{"htuttle"} = "<h_tuttle(a)rigel.cyberpass.net> cpunk pgp hash latent cut post ek"; See if you can figure out which remailers accept money and how much they accept. Now, in figuring that out, did you do anything that would reveal your identity? Do you think a simple program could handle the task? Also, the remailer can still offer free operation, but it can give nonpaying customers lower priority, delaying their messages by a few hours, for example. This means remailers still have a low barrier to entry, but people can also pay a little money to get excellent service. >We're talking about the people that drive the one block to the store >to get more beer... You might be. I'm interested in smart people who want to protect their privacy. >> I recommend that people start pricing at a quarter per message per hop >> because it is easier to move prices down than to move them up. > >This is the silliest thing I think I have heard so far in this >discussion.... >...And my experience is that prices move up and people expect them to. Mind your manners. Then look around. For the last few hundred years just about everything has been dropping in price. And, in the computer and information industry in particular, prices drop like crazy all the time for decades, even when you adjust for inflation. Buy memory recently? >A quarter a message per hop is about 2,000+ times too expensive to >make anonymous remailers work. If you want to run a remailer and charge a fraction of a cent for each message, or for an account, or whatever, please be my guest. >The key to anonyous remailers is not the cost per message but rather >the amount of traffic to be carried. Anonymous remailers are beasts >of mass markets measured in millions of recipients. That is obviously untrue. Remailers are used by a small highly specialized market of perhaps a few hundred people. Some day, if we do good work, there will be millions of users. Can you think of any mass market which started out as a mass market? I can't think of a single one. But, there are lots of mass markets that started out with a small group of people paying fairly high prices. As time went by, the prices dropped, more people came in, and eventually a mass market developed. >But the system to post charges BETWEEN remailers must be pretty >consistent to be acceptable. Untrue. You just have to know what each remailer charges. That's about as hard as knowing what services it offers or that it exists. >That is the key and it has NOT been discussed too any great >degree. That inter-remailer traffic must be anonymous also or else >traffic analysis can back-track. I may be misreading this, but you do realize ecash is anonymous, right? Nobody can tell who sent the money, just who received it. Perhaps you are arguing that The Enemy would notice that you withdrew a bunch of coins and then make a guess that all those remailers making deposits three minutes later are depositing your coins? That is easily solved by generating the ASCII ecash certificates once a week or so and then pasting them into your messages when you send them. >It seems to me that the remailers need some sort of anonymous payment >server that is put in place for some other reason, that way they >don't have to deal with the justification issue. What justification issue? Ecash is available right now. You don't have to justify it to anybody, just use it. Hopefully, once the cypherpunks start using it regularly, it will begin to catch on with people peripheral to the group, and then with everyone. >> >The problem I see is one of scale. The infrastructure for handling >> >physical mail is very 'bulky' and requires a lot infrastructure. >> >> >Email on the other hands effectively rides on the back of an existing >> >Internet infrastructure for nearly free. >> >> You are confusing one cost of doing business with the price the market >> will bear. > >How? You seem to think that because the cost of transporting mail is inexpensive, the price for protecting somebody's identity can't be high. >What I am saying is that physical mail and the system developed for >dealing with it went hand-in-hand. The design and advancement of the >Internet technology is not driven by email or it's technology. That >perhaps because of this difference perhaps we need to look at models >other than the postage one. It in fact may be coloring our perception >and a look at alternative models might help. The only models that have been proposed so far require a lot of work and evangelism. Ecash doesn't require much work, and it will be easier to evangelize. Monty Cantsin Editor in Chief Smile Magazine http://www.neoism.org/squares/smile_index.html http://www.neoism.org/squares/cantsin_10.html -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBNC7PVpaWtjSmRH/5AQEt0wf8COJyUDKDbQCGVlbwKY5DuYaCdmAMQ6X2 7XmsVMzFdhMG0PifCslh5WhXyvFemLU93GSFvXBo/XS3WnzWei503prLWuz7VvEm nDPxTCxcGUYDDejlJbDm7aKtGkFaEnGa8kAExLTDGu/bXcHVetPO2dnSF6civHKe YT5uL7D6c2a+6eJqAmw79s6ClB0WEDG0rByKzO9Jd58SjSGcYmWAnb+SSJsNTgB3 jUgAC6SAJVWvRoKilH+71hEYV+199K0SLiqhmdUmzEntNktTJa6jZEjyfDi2TSJP M6V62Wjb3Y8W3RauUfHvGRRvYsyniG6dct36fQgq9Bdl0GF8VmdYyg== =r8Kc -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Encrypted terrorist plot information
by dlv＠bwalk.dm.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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