At 7:48 PM -0700 6/5/97, Huge Cajones Remailer wrote:

Has anyone concerned with remailer development spent any time actually doing remailer traffic analysis, similar to a cryptographer who does cryptanalysis to raise his level of competence? It would be interesting to see the results of messages being sent between cypherpunks and encrypted with a "TA" key so that they could be separated and logged for traffic analysis. I would like to see what kind of results could be divined by those who know remailer operations intimately.

Doing "cryptanalysis" on remailer networks would be very nice. The problem is that providing analysts with source material is vastly more difficult than the equivalent problems with conventional cryptanalysis, where ciphertext can be published, and even the algorithm is expected to be known, with only the key being searched for. Amateur cryptanalysts of remailers will generally have none of the source material needed. I can't imagine a simple solution to this, except by doing simulations of remailers and then doing cryptanalysis on the simulated results. (Possibly useful, but lacking in persuasive value to others, I suspect.) --Tim May There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws. Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!" ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- 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: 2^1398269 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."