Re: Remailers and ecash
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Bill Stewart wrote:
Latency is essential to security, though high volume reduces the latency that's needed to get a given level of security.
Latency may be a means to get security in the current remailer design, but it is a means to the end and not the end itself. This doesn't mean we shouldn't use latency to get security, but it is undesirable, like using cinderblocks for construction. The reason I point this out is that it is important to separate design choices to achieve a goal from the goal itself. If we had a remailer network in which each customer had a constant bandwidth connection to one or more remailers, you could have zero latency mail. (Actually, this would be nice to use with those Comsec phones.) It is my understanding that serious naval vessels like aircraft carriers use constant bandwidth channels to defeat traffic analysis. That is, to every place they might wish to communicate, they continuously broadcast encrypted information. Most of the time the channel is empty, of course, but nobody outside can tell when. 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 iQEVAwUBNDHpnZaWtjSmRH/5AQF2Awf6AoTd0EnojWRoLGsTqVgkZdirRWqFcNNk nYE7Eh455GxPPfsapn/Q811cmzflrC6TUE6sY0sga/hdpQy4IgPsgRDnC5d+LCWR gO8CEwGXkd6Gl3DEduIL2k7eKeuXoZqK1VVgcEnY4Vsci4yJhcl/FLOx5yGcEVNM 850LGQz/PgEg1XhoMpeOkSBh7vtX+nMOyENzALwf11sg/64tKRCCTHfqgfKSn1tC IT6yrZ2NqUvMPxbomZ4U9DPsc0oz0TggrqHQneNWw1lYjzPDpXRn8jiSlalTZcFs kYFeyQQbw23e0Y/Qevtjn8/QngF/4BcyC21mPxaz35U1EwiFV0Lp/Q== =tfWS -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
At 09:59 AM 10/1/97 +0200, Anonymous (Monty Cantsin) wrote:
It is my understanding that serious naval vessels like aircraft carriers use constant bandwidth channels to defeat traffic analysis. That is, to every place they might wish to communicate, they continuously broadcast encrypted information. Most of the time the channel is empty, of course, but nobody outside can tell when.
If we had a remailer network in which each customer had a constant bandwidth connection to one or more remailers, you could have zero latency mail.
Let me get this straight. You are suggesting that anyone who wishes to be anonymous should send a continuous 24 hour stream of low bandwidth data to a central point in an effort to help keep anyone from knowing that they wish to be anonymous. While this may help correct the latency problem, how do you think this will effect anonymity? Do you think that by sending a continuos stream of data to the remailer, the sender will be less identifiable? -- Robert Costner Phone: (770) 512-8746 Electronic Frontiers Georgia mailto:pooh@efga.org http://www.efga.org/ run PGP 5.0 for my public key
At 2:03 AM -0700 10/1/97, Robert A. Costner wrote:
Let me get this straight. You are suggesting that anyone who wishes to be anonymous should send a continuous 24 hour stream of low bandwidth data to a central point in an effort to help keep anyone from knowing that they wish to be anonymous.
He was describing how a constant-traffic pipe defeats "sudden burst of activity" types of traffic analysis. (As, for example, when nightime activity in the White House is signalled by deliveries of lots of pizzas.) In fact, this constant traffic approach is the basis of PipeNet, proposed and described by Wei Dai, and, I think, being implemented. Obviously not everyone will want this, or want to pay for it, etc. Nothing surprising there. But some may. In particular, it makes more economic sense for sites already full-time on the Net, e.g., remailers not on dial-up lines. (And even on dial-up lines, a call every hour, with a packet of traffic, can implement this cover traffic scheme, albeit in a different form.(
While this may help correct the latency problem, how do you think this will effect anonymity? Do you think that by sending a continuos stream of data to the remailer, the sender will be less identifiable?
Again, _latency_ per se is not important, _mixing_ is. As I understand your example above, the sender becomes less identifiable because he can always be counted on to send some packets; an attacker cannot see a message after a long period of no messages and correlate it to a similar sudden increase of activity at a possible recipient machine. Traffic analysis is something you should look at. And think about. --Tim May The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^2,976,221 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In <v03102803b05829bdf10b@[207.167.93.63]>, on 10/01/97 at 09, Tim May <tcmay@got.net> said:
At 2:03 AM -0700 10/1/97, Robert A. Costner wrote:
Let me get this straight. You are suggesting that anyone who wishes to be anonymous should send a continuous 24 hour stream of low bandwidth data to a central point in an effort to help keep anyone from knowing that they wish to be anonymous.
He was describing how a constant-traffic pipe defeats "sudden burst of activity" types of traffic analysis. (As, for example, when nightime activity in the White House is signalled by deliveries of lots of pizzas.)
In Ian Slater's book Showdown such "burst activity" was put to use. In order to find where the rebel headquarters was located rummors were spread that the rebel leader was dead. Soon afterwards there was an increase in radio trafic from the headquarters in an attempt to kill the rummors thereby giving away their location as the "sudden burst of activity" stood out like a sore thumb over the normal radio traffic. - -- - --------------------------------------------------------------- William H. Geiger III http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii Geiger Consulting Cooking With Warp 4.0 Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail. OS/2 PGP 2.6.3a at: http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii/pgpmr2.html - --------------------------------------------------------------- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3a Charset: cp850 Comment: Registered_User_E-Secure_v1.1b1_ES000000 iQCVAwUBNDKH7o9Co1n+aLhhAQEITwQAh9rnbIYkX++cfXI9eT/E8Pv8y+6aUKqE qMP0NhQ7BAjg+emr2h8P2DNR0/wNtfEnsLj2PYozTYRlf+i1Qwh/V6/rBjvCUyLi 1aRPSwN09QbneeH7PgutlnNcHIyVh9+AXAgxSQEisK/N/mIpnSVXDflhu4TwFnKH 8k0QYhBefzY= =YEYR -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
participants (4)
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nobody＠REPLAY.COM -
Robert A. Costner -
Tim May -
William H. Geiger III