I didn't imagine that people would take the off-the-wall assertions here seriously, but "Anonymous" seems quite worried, so some comments can't hurt. At 4:40 AM 3/4/96, Anonymous wrote:
Both presenters explicitly acknowledged that a number of anonymous remnailers in the US are run by government agencies scanning traffic. Marlow said that the government runs at least a dozen remailers and that the most popular remailers in France and Germany are run by the respective government agencies in these countries. In addition they
Oh really? And just which remailers are in France and Germany? (Raph's list doesn't show any ".de" or ".fr" sites, at least that I could see. It's possible that a site or two exists in France or Germany, but I'm skeptical. And certainly the "the most popular remailers in France and Germany" is an odd comment.) There are of course remailers in the Netherlands (Hacktic, for example), and Julf's site in Finland. Perhaps Marlow mistook these countries for France and Germany? In any case, the claim that the few sites in Europe are "at least a dozen remailers" and that they are run by the intelligence agencies of France and Germany is specious. I consider it unlikely that the remailer operators are working for the spooks. (Something to consider in the future, and even to be thoughtful about now. But unlikely at this time, with the current players, for various reasons.) Further, as with other recent comments we've seen, the authors seem to misunderstand the nature of chained remailers. These errors, plus the apparently slapdash way the article was cut-and-pasted together (from the Web pages of others, usually without acknowledgement), plus the scare tactic tone, makes me dismiss the entire "paper."
mentioned that the NSA has successfully developed systems to break encrypted messages below 1000 bit of key length and strongly suggested to use at least 1024 bit keys. They said that they semselves use 1024 bit keys.
As others have also noted, just FUD to confuse and scare.
I don't know about everyone else, but I consider this, if true, to be a MAJOR worry. It never ceases to amaze me how lightly the government takes lying to the people. Unfortunately I don't have the contacts or resources to do any further investigation, I hope this thread is resolved one way or another soon.
nobody@unimportant
"Investigation" can be done by doing what I just did: looking for these supposed "dozens" of the "most popular" remailer sites, looking for them in France or Germany, and not finding them. (Maybe they're secret, known only to CIA, SDECE, and BND operatives? The operative word being "paranoid.") --Tim May Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^756839 - 1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."