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Would it be possible to incorporate a ping into the remailer? Say give it a list of known remailers for the chain and have it pick one at random, then ping it. If the remailer responds then send out the mail, otherwise pick a new remailer, and repeat....
One possible problem is that the final destination must then be available to every remailer. Say I construct an appropriate header consisting of nested encryptions, and I use it to send a letter from me -> A -> B -> C -> destination where A, B, C are the remailers I chose. Say that there are a total of 10 remailers in the universe that are known. Here, A knows me and B, B knows A and C, and C knows B and destination. However, if A chooses a random remailer from [A-J], then it must somehow make available the final destination to all of the remailers, since there is a chance that the next hop will be destination. Now instead of C knowing the final destination, [A-J] do. Even if I made C the "final" hop (and it will then forward to destination), then I have to make C known to all the remailers, where before only B knew C. Besides, some people may have set up anonymous remailers that aren't public or haven't been announced. <klbarrus@owlnet.rice.edu> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a iQCVAgUBLI1bsIOA7OpLWtYzAQHVaQP/cU7PYUkcM32WqE4oyFc4AzFEHFih/SlU UF4Z0utxAhQU4rKEi9FFW582Hasm7Bq3HYjW8cWOlwCbghWejxWMiw1J+W3u8MBG XvWER2TtDid8FN1fyj8Pf8sx6OeJ59aTkgGCJ3SjHTIVaU5y/Z1Z4mqGm49tIFBi 6OMh2r+lA7g= =C7BC -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----