On Fri, 28 Mar 1997, Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote: -> I just came up with another idea which definitely has some holes in it, -> but perhaps someone wants to improve on it. -> -> There's a big distributed database of pgp keys on the several keyservers. -> Add a bit to the database specifying whether the key owner wants to receive -> anonymous e-mail. By default set it to true for the existing addresses. -> -> When the final remailer in the chain wants to send someone an anonymous -> message, it attempts to retrieve a key from the keyservers. -> -> If it fails to find a key, it junks the mail (you don't want to keep it -> around, it's baiting the LEAs!) and instead sends a notification to the -> recipient that some anon e-mail was addressed to it, but it was junked; -> and if they want to receive anon e-mail, they need to give a pgp key -> to one of the key servers this remailer uses. -> -> If it finds a key, it looks at the anon mail bit; if it's on, it encrypts -> the e-mail with the recipient's key and sends it; otherwise it junks it. -> -> Obviously, the key servers would need to be modified to allow users to -> specify whether they want anon e-mail when then store their keys, and -> to change this setting any time. -> -> Right now, there's a very large number of addresses in the key servers. -> Instantly making them into a list of addresses that accept anon mail -> will make it hard (hopefully infeasible) for the LEAs to investigate -> everyone willing to accept anon e-mail as a suspect in sending it. Unfortunately, key servers can not be trusted. I'm sure you're aware that anyone can submit a key, and thus forgeries abound. If the above model is adopted, key servers will be the first target of the prospective spammer. ............................................................................ . Sergey Goldgaber <sergey@el.net> System Administrator el Net . ............................................................................ . To him who does not know the world is on fire, I have nothing to say . . - Bertholt Brecht . ............................................................................