Diogenes the Anonymous Barrel Shifter writes:

Tim May pondered:

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And even that last remailer may be able to claim ignorance (and win in court) if he can show that what he mailed was unreadable to him, i.e., encrypted to the recipient. (This is another reason I favor a goal of "everyone a remailer.")

The only problem I see with the "everyone a remailer" concept is that, in the presence of traffic analysis, a locally generated message will show up as an imbalance between incoming and outgoing messages, will it not?

Several easy ways to avoid this: 1. No reason that "N messages in, N + M messages out" can't be a common occurrence, e.g., dummies. (Messages will in fact get absorbed by sinks, so dummies/padding/MIRVing is expected anyway.) (And the values of N and M will have scatter anyway.) 2. Or could delay one of "other" messages, inserting the locally-generated one. (Pushes the "problem" to next transmission, one could say, but I doubt it matters.) 3. Circulate dummy messages into one's won remailer, replacing the dummy with the "real" message. N messages in, N messages out. 4. No reason for the "N in, N out" approach anyway, as a probabalistic method can be used, with the (dreaded) "random delays" used. (Provided sufficient reordering occurs, as we've discussed so many times.) I don't think it's likely that all remailers will have some fixed policy for the value of N.

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With canonical remailers, and no logging, earlier remailers should be safe.

That brings up an interesting point -- does the very act of logging remailing activity, specifically the recording of sources and destinations of forwarded messages perhaps open the operator up to INCREASED liability? IOW, if the remailer is being used in the furtherance of a "crime", the presence of a log which records

This has always been a likely possibility, but not tested in court. Logging is a VERY BAD THING, though I understand why remailer operators feel compelled at this point to do it. (I don't run any remailers, so I won't moralize...the point about it being a very bad thing is in terms of what a "mix" is supposed to be. People should go out and find Chaum's 1981 CACM paper, which has been referenced so many times.)

Also, I suspect that if increased activity on a remailer is useful in thwarting traffic analysis, then foreswearing the keeping of logs should serve to INCREASE the throughput as users gain confidence that any "footprints" they might leave behind are promptly erased. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Forward security, a la certain Diffie-Hellman protocols, is needed. A true Chaumian mix does this with some security hardware (tamper-responding modules), and the DC-net approach eliminates even the need for TRMs. --Tim May -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."