Fundamental Question?
Although I understand the need for remailers for anonymity, is it not true that the whole idea of encryption (good encryption, that is) is that no matter who gets the encrypted text, it really doesn't matter? Does this not mean that something like USENET is *perfect* for this? -Anthony
| Although I understand the need for remailers for anonymity, is it not | true that the whole idea of encryption (good encryption, that is) is that | no matter who gets the encrypted text, it really doesn't matter? Does | this not mean that something like USENET is *perfect* for this? Its awfully expensive to send messages all over creation so one person can read them. Much better to send it to the person who wants to read it. Besides, USENET propagation can be slower than remailers; the far ends of the chain can often take around a week. Adam -- "It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -Hume
Anthony Ortenzi wrote:
Although I understand the need for remailers for anonymity, is it not true that the whole idea of encryption (good encryption, that is) is that no matter who gets the encrypted text, it really doesn't matter? Does this not mean that something like USENET is *perfect* for this?
Well, it's happened in the past. Doesn't mean Usenet is perfect for it, since nobody wants to sift through several thousand messages a day for messages encrypted to him/her. Also, imagine all the traffic sent to a remailer duplicated on overy site that carries that Usenet group... Rob
I guess that I don't have any real idea about how much traffic goes through remailers, myself having only used anon.penet.fi, and even that only to reply to others who were anonymized... anyone have any approximate statistics about traffic through other remailers? And although I know it might be a pain, could there be simple encryption (read: fast) that could be implemented so messages could be doubly encrypted, the plaintext by pgp, and the pgp text by something else and have the identity of the recipient inside the second encryption, where each message coming in could be checked to see if it should be pgp decrypted? Maybe using a simple hash of the recipient's name or other identifying mark? -Anthony On Wed, 1 Feb 1995, Robert Rothenburg Walking-Owl wrote:
Anthony Ortenzi wrote:
Although I understand the need for remailers for anonymity, is it not true that the whole idea of encryption (good encryption, that is) is that no matter who gets the encrypted text, it really doesn't matter? Does this not mean that something like USENET is *perfect* for this?
Well, it's happened in the past. Doesn't mean Usenet is perfect for it, since nobody wants to sift through several thousand messages a day for messages encrypted to him/her. Also, imagine all the traffic sent to a remailer duplicated on overy site that carries that Usenet group...
Rob
Date: Wed, 1 Feb 95 23:00:18 EST From: Robert Rothenburg Walking-Owl <rrothenb@ic.sunysb.edu> Well, it's happened in the past. Doesn't mean Usenet is perfect for it, since nobody wants to sift through several thousand messages a day for messages encrypted to him/her. It's easy to automate and you are incorrect in saying that nobody does it. alt.anonymous.messages was created as an implementation of an anonymous message pool. I wouldn't go so far as to say that it's perfect, but it's simple and it works. If you post a message encrypted for my public key and include my name and/or my key id in the subject, I'll get it. And, no, I'm not the only one who uses it. Rick
participants (4)
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Adam Shostack -
Anthony Ortenzi -
Rick Busdiecker -
Robert Rothenburg Walking-Owl