Marc.Ringuette@GS80.SP.CS.CMU.EDU says:
I wonder if full crypto anonymity as we envision it will be stable? I'm very concerned about the problem of anonymous users intentionally flooding the network with garbage in order to bring it to its knees. Current practice, in the non-anonymous world, is to trace excess traffic to its source and stop it from being generated. This will no longer be possible when true anonymity is available.
Yes, this is a REAL danger. But if the network providers will charge per-packet fee (what an ugly idea :-), and no packet will be moved without being "taxed" (:-) - i.e. some digital cash removed from it's header (:-) - well, I see no reason, why somebody can't invest his $1,000,000 in shutting y'all up for a day (:-).
This would particularly be a problem if a remailer is willing to forward an incoming message to more than one destination. In that case, by sending a single anonymous message, a saboteur could generate an exponential amount of net traffic. This would be bad.
It only depends on who pays for each packet (:-).
However, I still have some fundamental concerns that an anonymity-based system is vulnerable to flooding and denial of service by the bad guys, including Big Brother, who may wish to prevent effective use of such systems. This may make operating a remailer a difficult proposition.
Yeah, THIS can be a problem: our Big Brother has enough money to do all the smelly things we discussed above... And if not - he'll tax us more...
I'm discouraged. Any thoughts?
There's no way to limit Big Brother's power, except for getting rid of him altogether, I'm afraid... -- Regards, Uri uri@watson.ibm.com scifi!angmar!uri N2RIU ----------- <Disclamer>