I don't think I've used "crisis" in a thread I started, so this tells you what I think. The remailers are stagnating, only very slowly adding important features, and the number is not growing...in fact, it's been shrinking. This, as the remailers are under attack. Editorialists are railing against the dangers of anonymity and remailers, and the "Church of Scientology" is threatening lawsuits against remailer operators unless they block certain newsgroups. (Lots of issues, clever workarounds proposed, etc.) Now whether or not the Church of Scientology, or RSADSI (for the RC4 code remailing), or anyone else could legally _win_ such a case is not the issue. Not many remailer operators would be able to mount a defense...they are not, frankly, folks heros as Zimmermann is--and even PRZ is struggling to raise money. Maybe the EFF (ugh) would leap into the fray, but I doubt it. Nope, I fear that the pressures that have driven several remailers to halt operation are just the tip of the iceberg. (Some remailers have quit because of words from their sysadmins, semi-threatening conversations with Brad Templeton--Hi, Brad!--, and so on. Real letters from real lawyers would have a profoundly more chilling effect.) We've debated this stuff many times, but the numbers of remailers are shrinking. Raph Levien summarized the situation nicely in a post to alt.anon-server: "We're down to fifteen remailers now, many of which are unreliable. I would say the remailer net is not in good shape right now. Fortunately, I know of a number of plans to bring new remailers up, as well as restoring old ones." (I hope Raph can share with us soon what some of the plans are, unless he fears revealing this will aid our opponents.) I could see the whole remailer system imploding. A few threatening letters, especially if sent by real lawyers, could demolish the few U.S. sites. And with the Netherlands toying with proposals to ban or limit private encryption, having Holland as the main remaining host for remailers would be rather precarious. We need lots more remailers, in many more countries. What can be done? * We need to get the number of "solid" remailers up from the current dozen or so up into the _hundreds_. * I favor separating the "account that remails" from the "owner of the site," as I have argued in vain in the past. (Example: a willing site gives out or sells many accounts...each is legally separate, and each must be legally challenged. My longer posts dealt with this.) (The owner of the site/machine can take a "hands off" attitude toward what his customers are doing in their accounts. This doesn't stop pressures from being applied, but it slows them down, and (probably) better insulates the owner from legal charges.) * Traffic needs to be increased. Remailers should probably go to constant padding traffic, to do this. Exhorting end-users to use remailers more won't be enough. * More offshore sites are needed. So far, only Canada and the Netherlands are offshore hosts (and Canada is effectively part of the U.S.). Some sites in Russia would be dramatic. Ditto for Asia, South America, etc. * The whole issue of "remailer businesses," with all the usual issues of digital postage, stamps, coupons, etc, has to be resolved. That is, we need to get some movement here. Most remailers are run as projects by students on machines they don't control, or that they can be pressured on, or with a committment to stay in business that will evaporate too easily. A business, with business responsibilities, is usually a more stable solution. I think we need to set some rough targets and brainstorm on how to get to them. For example, the Linux mavens could tell us if Linux-based remailer boxes could be hung on dedicated connections to The Little Garden network, as a specific example. A "black box remailer" such as several folks have suggested (Chaum (in 1981), me, Eric Hughes, others) might be buildable for under a grand. We could ask here for contributions, and might even raise this amount of money. Then each of us who contributed could have "accounts," maybe several of them. Imagine 100 or more "remailers" all on this one machine--I'm deliberately ignoring the security issue for now. Little Garden has stated categorically that they will not tell users what they can or can't do with their machines (though I can think of some cases where they might have to, as with spamming, etc.). Anyway, you can see where I'm headed. My big fear is that the one really major achievement of the Cypherpunks group, the remailers, are not increasing in number and could be knocked out all too easily with some legal attacks. It's time to get cracking on this crisis. --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