Wei Dai wrote: ...
Are there any theoritical tools developed especially for this type of analysis? If so, can anyone provide some references?
No, this is too small a community for such tools to exist off-the-shelf. Start with the standard mix papers, mentioned here often. Also, Hal Finney made a first stab at a more careful calculation of just how well remailer's do their job...this was about half a year ago, as I recall.
So, the situation: high-latency, low-bandwidth e-mail remailers the goal: low-latency, high-bandwidth interactive A/V type anonymity, but this seems too far away
The goal for whom? I find IRC a waste of time, so "anonymous audivisual" is not even on my radar screen of things of interest. I think it's >10 years off.
Perhaps we can tackle the problems of latency and bandwidth seperately. That is, develop 2 sets of anonymity tools: 1. low-latency, low-bandwidth, for use in textual interactions such as MUD and IRC 2. high-latency, high-bandwidth, for non-interactive A/V use, perhaps anonymous TV broadcasting
Think market. I don't see anyone paying for this until costs drop dramatically. --Tim May -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. Cypherpunks list: majordomo@toad.com with body message of only: subscribe cypherpunks. FAQ available at ftp.netcom.com in pub/tc/tcmay