Arsen Ray Arachelian writes:
...Even better, have each remailer send a specific number of messages to each of the other remailers on the network. These messages would be bogus messages, however, there would be a fixed number of them.
If a real nym message arrives, it is sent to the next mailer up the chain, as part of the n (n-1 now) that are bogus. That way a spook couldn't tell where a message was going since he couldn't count the number of messages going out of the mailer.
Also if a target remailer has n real messages to be sent to, any messages over that assigned packet size of messages get spooled for the next round of bogus mail. This way each remailer will send exactly n messages to every other remailer on the net every specified period of time.
I like this idea. It seems to use fewer CPU resources than having a remailer route a bogus message through a random set of other remailers and back to itself. If I understand the encrypted remailer scheme correctly, the "route through random set" mechanism requires a remailer to enclose a bogus message in a set of nested digital envelopes (one for each remailer in the random remailer set). The "round-robin send to peers" mechanism only requires the remailer to create one envelope per bogus message. I also like the idea because it seems easier to analyse, and therefore easier to describe/formalize the properties of the system as a whole. Jim_Miller@suite.com