Re: Remailer latencies
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- David E. Smith wrote:
Incidentally, if somebody offered you colocation space, would you be willing to set up your machine there?
I wouldn't, and I hope not many other remailer operators would either. A lot of the security on my machine comes from having physical control over it.
Good point. Also, using a dialup gives you another layer of physical privacy. You could even move the machine around from time to time. This could even foil the Big Boys if they don't want to reveal how well they can track things. (Corollary: Even if PGP is NSA breakable, you can still use it for drug dealing and bribery.)
(That includes the ability to rapidly delete things with extreme prejudice should the spooks come knocking at the door.) If I'm not sleeping in the room next to my machine, I don't have that kind of control.
What is on your machine that has to be deleted? I suppose you'd want to power cycle it since the private key (or a passphrase) will be sitting in memory. Is there anything on the disk that must be deleted? More operations questions: according to Raph's chart, your machine has an "uptime" of 99.64%. I assume that means Raph's experiments showed that 36 messages out of 1000 disappeared. Did I assume correctly? If so, what accounts for these message losses? I would expect that if your machine was down, even for a couple of days, that the incoming messages would be queued up on other machines and none would be lost. BTW, my intention is not be critical of your volunteer work running a remailer, but to develop an understanding of the issues involved. Even a response like "the machine was down for three days because I was in Las Vegas partying" is useful because it would suggest that remailer operators are not adequately compensated for their work. Monty Cantsin Editor in Chief Smile Magazine http://www.neoism.org/squares/smile_index.html http://www.neoism.org/squares/cantsin_10.html -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBNCyf1JaWtjSmRH/5AQG1lAf9HS5Hu9HX32Uij93MEaWzG4BOqgj9/mok W+Ngjnz2yDKW3g7MoN+Ypvy05EGPNtwZjhigRkUzSIHfT7gYGlbclcf1p2aZk4L5 MT1wP1zdT0cdUoIjTwSa/VXgHuuPLTo68LhnbdCTVgLjbqMaC7DxvrGam7C7CXcT POxjh7bpwrz8LJ0YmALuhqITv+QxPqv0jeCigsYqtv9wEcPdIp9Y+If4+u5+aln4 FejVogjqSGl8E8bICc5GMNFifXKcpGkGNb992P4IUHjyZmmgQRqMhuS6yWjHM2cM uWj0fbH+/Yab+svKsULz0aqbG670A5VzriP+800JAJd8XtZd7T5y9w== =gqzn -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Sat, 27 Sep 1997, Anonymous (nee Monty Cantsin) wrote:
Good point. Also, using a dialup gives you another layer of physical privacy. You could even move the machine around from time to time. It has been :-)
What is on your machine that has to be deleted? I suppose you'd want to power cycle it since the private key (or a passphrase) will be sitting in memory. Is there anything on the disk that must be deleted? I would feel better, and I'm sure a lot of others would too, if I had the time to safely wipe the remailer's private key (in addition to cleaning the passphrase from memory). Ditto for my personal keys :)
More operations questions: according to Raph's chart, your machine has an "uptime" of 99.64%. I assume that means Raph's experiments showed that 36 messages out of 1000 disappeared. Did I assume correctly? More or less.
If so, what accounts for these message losses? I would expect that if your machine was down, even for a couple of days, that the incoming messages would be queued up on other machines and none would be lost. It's more like "of the last 1000 messages sent, 9964 of 'em have made it back to me." Because of the way I have to have things set up, there are almost always a few messages in transit. I have, very occasionally, actually seen my remailer listed at 100%; somewhere over 99% is far more common.
BTW, my intention is not be critical of your volunteer work running a remailer, but to develop an understanding of the issues involved. Excellent. You certainly can't be faulted for that :)
Even a response like "the machine was down for three days because I was in Las Vegas partying" is useful because it would suggest that remailer operators are not adequately compensated for their work. I thought that much was a given. AFAIK nobody's making any money anywhere off the remailer net; it's a labour of love.
To contribute to another thread at the same time: there is a semi-experimental hack for Mixmaster that parses a message for hashcash. IMO, it's unlikely that hashcash, Digicash, or anything else is likely to become the preeminent modus operandi for remailer operators anytime soon, but it's likely to happen eventually simply because it's possible, so someone will do it. For me, the remailer doesn't consume any exceptional new resources, so the added cost to me of running a remailer is very nearly zero. (Those are mostly the "administrative" costs of dealing with complaints, adding people to the blocklist, and cleaning up after the occasional spam bomb.) Others, with different circumstances, may be more eager to pursue a profit-making solution. dave (bureau42 admin) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGPfreeware 5.0i for non-commercial use Charset: noconv iQA/AwUBNC20Ga6m0j5YvamrEQILGQCgzBQzXwBdA8sjWZ9uzUSetlr8OMMAn0ls KWUDo94R/eRCyMLWof2uonXu =EG5C -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
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David E. Smith