is this: Just include a public key in your post. And ask any repliers to post to the newsgroup, encrypted with that key. No-one else but you can decrypt the reply, and no-one can know that you did, since everyone receives
all of my own and everybody elses schemes is that it requires an INVOLVED replier. I need some way that I can send out an anonymous email, and have the receiver of that email just hit "r" to reply to me. If they have
Ok, if that is what you want, then the following procedure will let you do exactly that: post anonymously, with a reply address that people can just 'r' to. And no-one (not even the host that is handling the replies) has to know who you are. There exists a site, lets call it remailer.com. It watches the newsgroup alt.key.announce for messages with the "Subject: remailer public key notice" that contain a public key. It takes each public key, and perofmrs some sort of hash function on it, tcreate a short "key id". (note: the hash function must be cryptographically strong, i.e. it should be very difficult to construct another key with the same hash value). It stores hash and the key in a database. Then whenever it receives a mail message to reply.HASH (where HASH is the key id), it encrypts the message with the associated public key, destroys the plaintext message, and posts the ciphertext to alt.w.a.s.t.e. So to use this, you would generate a public/private key pair, and compute the hash function of the public part. Anonymously post the public key to alt.key.announce, and then send your message by whatever means you like (anon mail, anon post to a regular newsgroup, anything) using reply.HASH@remailer.com as your return address. Then watch alt.w.a.s.t.e for replies and decrypt as received... All the recipient(s) have to do is press 'r' key and type the answer. You are guaranteed anonymity because no-one can find out who decrypted the alt.w.a.s.t.e message, since everyone received it. All you need is a good way to anonymously post to a newsgroup. -- Yanek Martinson mthvax.cs.miami.edu!safe0!yanek uunet!medexam!yanek this address preferred -->> yanek@novavax.nova.edu <<-- this address preferred Phone (305) 765-6300 daytime FAX: (305) 765-6708 1321 N 65 Way/Hollywood (305) 963-1931 evenings (305) 981-9812 Florida, 33024-5819