[ot][spam] remailer notes
I’m reading some of
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/privacy/anon-server/faq/use/ . At the moment
I’ve read through part3 (but ended up taking notes through the end).
I’ve also read a couple list posts.
- the faq is considered out of date by many years
- there are paid remailer networks people use
- a lot of activity regarding windows machines
- running a remailer takes a little upkeep
- send test messages to alt.test or misc.tes
- cypherpunk or type I remailers accept commands and forward messages
- they can be crafted in a text editor [1]
- commands also accepted in subject line:
Subject: remailer-key
Subject: remailer-conf
Subject: remailer-help
Subject: remailer-stats
- mixmaster or type II remailers perform onion routing and obfuscation
- mixmaster remailers are used with client software rather than manually
part 4:
- the security of a remailer node relies on its secure administration;
hence encrypted hops
- the remailer people experienced traffic analysis attacks
- at the time of writing of the faq, four newer projects were listed:
WOF http://www.bigfoot.com/~potatoware/wof/,
RadioClash http://piratech.net/radioclash/, Publius
http://www.cs.nyu.edu/~waldman/publius/, Freenet
http://freenet.sourceforge.net/
- “middleman” remailers always add an additional hop if one is not provided
- using multiple hops is called “chaining”
- for the message to be hidden from basic node and network operators,
it must be both encrypted and chained
- manual chaining for old type I remailers instructions pasted at [2]
- mail2news gateways forward emails to newsgroups nonanonymously
- remailers can do this with command: Anon-Post-To: misc.test
- mail2news gateways respond to subject line commands: “help” “group”
“list RE” where RE is a regexp
- mail2news group list replies may leave out many groups actually supported
- remailers can barf when too many email headers accumulate
- you can abuse open smtp relays to forward mail by checking abuse
watch sites, faq explains this (people were probably asking about it,
crackers hide this way)
part 5 explains remailers’ stats pages
part 6:
- learn pgp
- major remailer clients included quicksilver (windows) and mixmaster
(cross-platform)
- i searched the list. a newer remailer is yamn (golang):
https://sec3.net/yamnhelp/ https://github.com/crooks/yamn crook is his
last name. also omnimix on windows: https://www.danner-net.de/om.htm .
there’s a newer mixmaster (last update 2021) too:
https://github.com/merkinmuffley/mixmaster4096
part 7
- nym servers let you send with a name and reply-to address by
registering with them
- nym servers don’t need to know who you are.
- nym commands must begin with “Config:”
- you can configure a nym server to send replies to alt.anonymous.messages
- the replies encrypt information to your private key for identification [3]
- remember to rotate all keys regularly
- usage problems are usually from broken material: nonresponding
remailers, nonworking reply blocks. verify each part of config.
part 8
- delay time can be set with Latent-Time: +0:00
- sometimes it can take days for a message to go through, but usually
this is due to understandable/comprehensible network details
- messages can also be dropped for a number of reasons [4]
1:
============
::
Anon-To: news.reporter@nbc.com
Latent-Time: +0:00
##
Subject: My Company Dumps Toxic Waste
I'm writing this anonymously because I don't want to lose my job.
My company has, for the past three years...
============
The above message is cut and paste into PGP and encrypted with the
chosen remailer's key, say gretchen@neuropa.net
============
-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----
Version: PGP 2.6x
hQCMA8asoPEC0e2BAQP9GqR2aXNOstRq8eJW2QVubioR0gO7Ue0AOL/rFdnxXknC
YPpe2X2TKlcvd961+lhe9w2Y8vo3JcBYYBifTJRwmMjnXLagCU4Mhh0VZtk/QXMZ
/FLeJWi67qsb45a2mNw0/Q8eXHKfOQyHcmEQ7cg/bq4Xz6LusfxBHF8zsojVOgal
8RVRtr9drjBlOzJvWxaq7LrKidME6q0tM7pRiLN5dvVBon2NKlmpJI6vAFjyi8ma
f5Bg6Zor+PMxcm3EmuWbjLEiOu5USrTgU4OiaC7PHF9INxwXuKmdNz/JprgOc0c6
6s6RvbOo6rsvlwqPKw==
=ICz/
-----END PGP MESSAGE-----
=============
Finally, the user has to append a directive to the top of the
encrypted message, making it look like this:
============
::
Encrypted: PGP
-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----
Version: PGP 2.6x
hQCMA8asoPEC0e2BAQP9GqR2aXNOstRq8eJW2QVubioR0gO7Ue0AOL/rFdnxXknC
YPpe2X2TKlcvd961+lhe9w2Y8vo3JcBYYBifTJRwmMjnXLagCU4Mhh0VZtk/QXMZ
/FLeJWi67qsb45a2mNw0/Q8eXHKfOQyHcmEQ7cg/bq4Xz6LusfxBHF8zsojVOgal
8RVRtr9drjBlOzJvWxaq7LrKidME6q0tM7pRiLN5dvVBon2NKlmpJI6vAFjyi8ma
f5Bg6Zor+PMxcm3EmuWbjLEiOu5USrTgU4OiaC7PHF9INxwXuKmdNz/JprgOc0c6
6s6RvbOo6rsvlwqPKw==
=ICz/
-----END PGP MESSAGE-----
============
The user then mails the above encrypted message (double colons and
all) NOT to the intended recipient but instead to the remailer's
address:
Now I want to use a chain of remailers? How do I do this? I'm guessing I should somehow encrypt the message using all the keys of the remailers in the chain? And if I send the message to the first remailer in the chain, how do I let that remailer know to send it to the next one? If someone could either tell me how to do this, or direct me toward an information source explaining this, I'd appreciate it.
Chaining messages is achieved by repeating the encryption steps.
Taken as an example, chaining through two remailers thus,
You -> A -> B -> Recipient
You start off with your message and prefix with
::
Anon-To:
participants (1)
-
Undescribed Horrific Abuse, One Victim & Survivor of Many