Actually, the nine servers are not operated by Chaum. They're operated by "highly skilled people in this room who know how to build and run a secure data center".

At least that's what he said at the talk I witnessed where he unveiled it.

Additionally, Chaum's design allows an entity operating one of the servers to introduce their own policy - "it's not up to me what policy you want to introduce; the system is neutral".

So, first of all there's Chaum's obvious failure to recognize that in the same room are the exact people who could hack into a "secure data center".

Second, he implied that, with the use of these policies, if a message were to traverse a network with nodes operated by the US, Canada, Egypt, India, Pakistan, Iran, Russia, China and Japan, it would require the admins from those countries to all agree to decrypt, turning the solution into a political - not mathematical - one.

Now, I'm personally hardly a supporter of the idea, and hate the fact that Chaum's idea lends credibility to Comey's "smart people just need to work on it" position. In fact, I consider any sort of backdoored system tantamount to treason to cryptography, and antithetical to its purpose.

But I do think it's important to debate on the actual facts at hand.

- A

On Saturday, January 9, 2016 3:58:46 PM PST Travis Biehn wrote:

> Dan,

> The 9 servers are operated by Chaum, and is the software and OS config open

> source and 3rd party verifiable as being the same as running on the servers?

>

> 9 servers will be operated in 9 different jurisdictions, not by 9 separate

> unrelated 'entities'.

>

> 'Trust us' is just something we've become accustomed to not needing.

>

> Travis

>

> On Fri, Jan 8, 2016, 11:48 PM <dan@geer.org> wrote:

> > Tracerneo writes:

> > | On 7 January 2016 at 05:51, grarpamp <grarpamp@gmail.com> wrote:

> > | >online privacy

> > | >encryption scheme

> > | >backdoor that allows anyone..to have their anonymity and privacy

> >

> > stripped

> >

> > | altogether

> > |

> > | I don't know, maybe I'm retarded, but this doesn't compute.

> > |

> > | What I'm afraid though, is that such abominations might catch on,

> > | because people like adopting flawed things, that give them illusion of

> > | control.

> >

> > With respect, the stripping involved requires unanimity amongst the

> > nine sites, each much different than the other. If one is to dismiss

> > Chaum's scheme due to the possibility of 9-way unanimous collusion,

> > then, in like manner, all threshold (split-key) cryptosystems are

> > unacceptable. And then there is the DNS where the possibility of

> > collusion amongst all root servers would also trigger disavowal of

> > the DNS.

> >

> > I'm probably missing your point.

> >

> > --dan