-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I have a suggestion on building future remailers. Let's not overlook the idea of operating them "Out of band." At intervals ( preferably random) it would be possible to transmit messages via the phone network, or spread spectrum, to other remailers. (encrypted links of course)( encrypted UUCP?) This would make traffic analysis more difficult. It would also be possible to bounce messages through diverters in other states, further hindering TA. This might also work well for random sources for one time pads. Brian Williams Extropian Cypherpatriot "Cryptocosmology: Sufficently advanced comunication is indistinguishable from noise." --Steve Witham -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a iQCVAgUBLYYmetCcBnAsu2t1AQGrcAP9Frr3RqyemW+SsQ/aCJKMK1qrGbxBNsmN hioP1tZFVkCWBEUi5lKxn3xcy5fh3neN8ow6tDQbBBy8KmBNvfwiaM6cmRu0VAJ5 sUKNUz0drcgnoEdSyiV4BHFLTz1X0XdeYZ8brtLBC2uu991yf3sw6J7XA5z6E93x +fk13mAssMQ= =KeL3 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
I have a suggestion on building future remailers. Let's not overlook the idea of operating them "Out of band." At intervals ( preferably random) it would be possible to transmit messages via the phone network, or spread spectrum, to other remailers. (encrypted links of course)( encrypted UUCP?) This would make traffic analysis more difficult.
It would also be possible to bounce messages through diverters in other states, further hindering TA. This might also work well for random sources for one time pads.
Brian Williams
Furthermore, the continuing expansion of "private" networks--LANs and WANs, within companies, within households, within other entities that no government can plausibly claim monitoring authority over--will make Digital Telephony II and traffic analysis much harder to implement. When Alice send her remailer traffic down the hallway over her own Ethernet line to Bob, the confusion grows. Not necessariy any better than would be had with more ideal mixes, but certainly this sort of thing can only work to make traffic analysis more complicated. (Yes, the authorities can monitor all messages. But imagine what happens when a company with hundreds of PCs, workstations, multiple mini-networks, etc., gets into the remailer business.) The rapid growth of proprietary networks (such as the one linking me to my next door neighbor) makes Digital Telephony almost unenforceable. --Tim May -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | 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. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."
Tim May wrote:
The rapid growth of proprietary networks (such as the one linking me to my next door neighbor) makes Digital Telephony almost unenforceable.
hehe... I did something similiar about two years ago with my friend who lived across the street... We took wires, laid them down on the street, and poured roofing tar over it, then let it dry overnight. Over the next few days, heating from the sun and cars driving over it compressed it to a barely perceptable bump. The rest of the connection was buried in plastic pipe under the lawn. We hooked up a serial line connection. It worked well for several months... tho a few minor repair jobs were needed. The connection met its fate when the street crew came thru and tore up and repaved the entire street. We never re-laid the line. (The old street was in pretty bad condition, so our "patch" wasn't very noticable... however it would have been fairly obvious on a newly paved street.) Neat trick tho. I wish it was easier to do things like that... Has anyone made any progress with networking over unliscensed radio spectrum?
Ed Switalski <E.Switalski@bnr.co.uk>:
*** use Meteorscatter links: A low power, fairly covert, burst transmission medium.
dwomack@runner.jpl.utsa.edu (David L Womack):
Why worry about unliscensed? I believe I've seen a laser (low power Helium/Neon), possibly in the Edmund Scientific catalog, that you can modulate. You'd have a nearly impenetrable, highly directional signal.
True... But a simple radio transciever is much cheaper and easier to build than a laser system or sophisticated meteor bounce hardware. It might be possible to use a highly focused beam from a LED instead of a laser. Unfortunantly, there is still the problem with the beam getting blocked...
Failing that, stick to 250mw or less; unless I'm mistaken, that's almost completely unregulated, and certainly doesn't require a license. Lots of hand held CB units, and the Maxon headsets fall in this category.
About how far can one transmit with 250mw?
For higher powers, you might consider getting a Ham license, probably at the technician grade. It's true that you aren't permitted to send encrypted messages...
Now, how many cypherpunks do you know that would send unencrypted data over the aitwaves??? Not many. I know there isn't much respect for the law, but I don't want to make an obvious ass of myself.
but did you know that many hams use SSTV (Slow scan Television) to send still photographs around the *_World_* on long wave (i.e. 10 meter) bands? Of course, only a shamefully irresponsible person would think of violating their duties as a Citizen-Unit (per Mr. May) and use Stegonography to include an encrypted message...
Seems like more trouble than it's worth... certainly not a convienient e-mail system.
>About how far can one transmit with 250mw? *** Quite Far ! With coherent CW you can key morse Japan/US i.e cross the Pacific on a few watts. CCW involves getting the Tx master oscillator and the receivers local oscillator phase-locked (by using the local time/frequency standard transmitter (e.g. WWV MSF etc -one can also get nifty little rubidium standard clocks quite cheaply these days). US readers might care to look in the ARRL handbook for 1982 or thereabouts. CCW implies slow signalling speeds- a few baud, very narrow detection bandwidth few hertz (to match signalling) and coherent TX and RX. The ultimate limit is probably phase shift in the ionosphere. Use a frequency that a bit off Big Brother's scanner channel spacing and your emmission may not be detected -unless the spook is right on top of you. Which is just as well given it might take DAYS to download a .ps document ;-( Note this is a slow and gentle way of doing things, as opposed to a high-bandwidth, time-compressed (fairlyly high-power) "screech" transmission with somthing like meteorscatter. Regards, __o __o Ed \<, \<, _________________________________________()/ ()_____()/ ()_____________ Ed Switalski email: eswitals@bnr.co.uk Dept GM21, BNR Europe Ltd, Oakleigh Rd South, tel: +44 (0)81 945-2924 New Southgate, fax: +44 (0)81 945-3116 London, N11 1HB LON40, internal ESN (730) 2924 _______________________________________________________________________
Ed Switalski <E.Switalski@bnr.co.uk> wrote:
*** Quite Far !
With coherent CW you can key morse Japan/US i.e cross the Pacific on a few watts.
If so, this might make a very convienient email/chat system... and with encryption, a great way to hide our anonymous remailer connections from 'Big Brother'. I must admit I don't know much about radio hardware... But would it be possible to link up a large metropolitan area via radio links of this type and transmit email and such? I think I could find a lot of sysops interested in that... no more waiting until night to get netmail! If the system worked at 300 bps, you could transmit a 2K message in about one minute. That would allow over 1000 messages per day, much less than most small BBS networks, and certainly enough to keep up with this list. (Not to mention that ASCII text is very compressable, 50% or more compression is not difficult in many cases.) How hard would it be to build a small transmitter/receiver system to handle data at low bps rates? And how much would it cost?
Hi,
Ed Switalski <E.Switalski@bnr.co.uk> wrote:
*** Quite Far !
With coherent CW you can key morse Japan/US i.e cross the Pacific on a few watts.
If so, this might make a very convienient email/chat system... and with encryption, a great way to hide our anonymous remailer connections from 'Big Brother'.
*** you said it, only prob is that a slow signalling method is ungood for cryptoprotocols with lots of overheads! e.g RSA wil take 512/1024 bits to encrypt just a single session key. Such efficiency considerations might temp users to change keys on a per-day rarther than per-message basis
I must admit I don't know much about radio hardware... But would it be possible to link up a large metropolitan area via radio links of this type and transmit email and such? I think I could find a lot of sysops interested in that... no more waiting until night to get netmail!
*** probably, the slow signalling means very narrow bandwidth per station so you could pack lots into any unused slice of RF spectrum. I would use gaps in your local cellular 'phone system (etc!) as then the spooks would be hard pushed to even find the traffic and could not jam without annoying/alerting every local yuppie.
If the system worked at 300 bps, you could transmit a 2K message in about one minute. That would allow over 1000 messages per day, much less than most small BBS networks, and certainly enough to keep up with this list. (Not to mention that ASCII text is very compressable, 50% or more compression is not difficult in many cases.)
*** Sounds OK. Disguise the receiver and antenna (my Polish partisan mama's washing line with wire plaited all along the length of the string) and leave it on all day. save the days messages to protected RAM and read out at will.
How hard would it be to build a small transmitter/receiver system to handle data at low bps rates? And how much would it cost?
*** Incoherent - QRP (ham-speak for low power) TX/TX transevivers cost 50-80 pounds for a shortwave kit in the UK -VHF/UHF bands maybe more. Low power means no exotic transistors, no big power supplies, no noisy cooling, fancy protection etc -the ouput tranny might need a modest heatsink -thats all. A data modulator woul be 20-30 pounds extra. Coherent addons bit probably 100 pounds (quessing here) As electronics are cheaper in US, so for sterling read dollar. Stay Cool, Hang Loose, Hack Crypto. Ed
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