At 8:12 PM 4/10/96, Steve Reid wrote:

...

I thought that most or all of the cypherpunk anonymous remailers don't keep records. Not even on backup tapes. The whole idea is that there aren't logs. But maybe they have found some remailers that are

When a person recieves a message from someone using an anonymous remailer, the return address will usually work, depending on the remailer. The return address is for an address on the remailer, and sending to that address, the remailer will forward the message back to the person who owns that anonymous address.

Not the standard "Cypherpunks"-style remailers, except with some fairly cumbersome tricks with "reply blocks" and/or message pools. I think you are thinking of Julf's system, of which there is only one instance, his.

I don't really know much about remailers, but I don't think there's much to know... If I'm mistaken about any of the above, I'm sure someone will correct me.

Glad to oblige. I note also that Jim Byrd and Jim Warren are unclear on some details. (To Jim Byrd, that "alumni account at Cal Tech" that you mentioned was one of the Cypherpunks remailers at Caltech that our own pioneering Hal Finney runs.) Cypherpunks remailers account for something like 29 out of 30 of all the world's remailers, by site count, though not volume. Sophisticated users know that the Cypherpunks model is the only robust one; Julf's approach has an ecological niche, but is highly vulnerable to the very subpoena approach used recently (not "several years ago" as Jim Warren says). --Tim May Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^756839 - 1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."