Anonymity and cost
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Wei Dai writes:
Anonymous e-mail that goes through a chain of N remailers will cost at least N times as much bandwidth and have N times as much latency as normal e-mail. But e-mail is hardly the state-of-the-art of network communication, while anonymous e-mail IS the state of the art for anonymous communication. How long will it take for the technology of anonymous video conferencing to develope, for example? By then, of course, those who are not concerned with anonymity will probably have things such as full sensory virtual interaction.
At a very basic level, anonymous (not pseudonymous, like the remailers are) messages are *cheaper*, because they carry less information; they do not need to send the bits which identify the sender. This conversation seems to elide distinctions between low-level anonymity (where source information is simply not transmitted) and high-level anonymity, where source information is transmitted but is not used for social or political reasons. Anonymous remailers are considered "anonymous" because (some of us) agree that we won't treat the "From:" line as indicating the real author of the text below. We agree this because we know how remailers work; we know that (probably) the person who wrote the message isn't the same person as the owner of the "From:" address. When we say a message is "anonymous" we mean that its real author should not/cannot be connected with the text of the message. We could just as easily agree on an "Identify-Author:" header field by which authors could indicate whether or not they wished to be speaking "on the record" when they wrote the message. A multi-hop message where the "From:" line changes with each hop costs almost precisely what a multi-hop message would cost without the "From:" line changes. Folks feeling detail-oriented can calculate the cost of the CPU time to strip header information vs. the cost of sending that header information to the next hop. I don't care about the answer, so I'm not going to. Anonymous video conferencing is available now; go to Kinko's, pay cash for the use of their video conference room. Or, ask/convince the recipient to consider the conversation "off the record". Current remailer operators experience a cost in that they receive some amount of hassle and exposure to liability by running remailers; but this is merely a "cost" shifted from one person (the author) to another, the surrogate author. This may look like a cost of anonymity but it's more accurately described as the cost of being provocative or rude or illegal. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBLw8j133YhjZY3fMNAQGB5QP9HCgA2QiHLPVupVgOeU/Tez5SH8Ie3ch3 nSJreSYl3a97blPr/aI1Yx577EQuCwrHoyZKWWpVc/8u728i10gTbJPbavzpDBOw i3JawSt4+d/tMWBfLzYHzdrVALIcTZeGnmLLbfgzWzzC8NUDsDG/ppDB7sDq2ktf NiwvDeQzoYk= =oU42 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Greg Broiles wrote:
At a very basic level, anonymous (not pseudonymous, like the remailers are) messages are *cheaper*, because they carry less information; they do not need to send the bits which identify the sender.
I think the meaning of "anonymous" here is clearly with respect to _traffic analysis_. The "cost of anonymity" is with respect to the costs and delays of using digital mixes (remailers)). The relatively few bytes of header information don't affect the cost in any substantive way.
This conversation seems to elide distinctions between low-level anonymity (where source information is simply not transmitted) and high-level anonymity, where source information is transmitted but is not used for social or political reasons.
Again, traffic analysis is the issue. (And I don't necessarily mean NSA-type traffic analysis...Net-savvy investigators can trace messages back to origins even when a message is ostensibly anonymous. So far as I know, some form of mix/remailer is needed to ensure anonymity.))0
A multi-hop message where the "From:" line changes with each hop costs almost precisely what a multi-hop message would cost without the "From:" line changes. Folks feeling detail-oriented can calculate the cost of the CPU time to strip header information vs. the cost of sending that header information to the next hop. I don't care about the answer, so I'm not going to.
??? This is not the "cost" that is being discussed. Stripping or changing headers is a trivial cost compared to the latency delays that may result when mix reordering is done (how much latency is involved is a function of several things, including reordering desired ("N"), amount of other traffic).
Anonymous video conferencing is available now; go to Kinko's, pay cash for the use of their video conference room. Or, ask/convince the recipient to consider the conversation "off the record".
Neither of these kinds of "anonymity" are cryptographically interesting, or strong. --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
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Tim May wrote:
At a very basic level, anonymous (not pseudonymous, like the remailers are) messages are *cheaper*, because they carry less information; they do not need to send the bits which identify the sender.
I think the meaning of "anonymous" here is clearly with respect to _traffic analysis_. The "cost of anonymity" is with respect to the costs and delays of using digital mixes (remailers)).
I don't think it's useful to redefine "anonymous" to include some messages which identify the author, and to exclude some messages which do not identify the author. Then again, I'm not sure it's useful to play Language Cop, either. But count mine as a voice in favor of describing accurately what's being discussed. (Perhaps messages which defy traffic analysis might be called "untraceable" but not "anonymous", unless they also do not identify an author.)
Anonymous video conferencing is available now; go to Kinko's, pay cash for the use of their video conference room. Or, ask/convince the recipient to consider the conversation "off the record".
Neither of these kinds of "anonymity" are cryptographically interesting, or strong.
I agree. I fear I've been influenced by some of the authors on that Cypher[something] list who've recently argued persausively in favor of applying technology appropriate to local conditions; e.g., not wasting time on the techno-gadget-of-the-month when more pedestrian but functional means are available. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBLxA7I33YhjZY3fMNAQGIQAQAqzEU6ru3/9/ScfHCZ6DnVK8bDewPVrg2 LAAZpVWuxfAW0W1oJ7NSXxrMmrIEX7MJetrpzlb+D5A1JuOVdtJ8gUwMxCRIMOeI LU78Q/MuSp1oWbPEARDJ6JLZztU3Zs0bQH13kTY1tSZaZlQWj/cmWKUrmis4ZRkE +px7kuMB8lg= =Ty1L -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
participants (2)
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Greg Broiles -
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