A minor experimental result

[andrew_derry at sfu.ca]

>    If I wanted to be obnoxious, I could set myself up as a remailer,
>then screen all incoming messages to see whether they came from other
>known remailers.  If not, then I can archive the message, have a look at
>it, and maybe compromise the original sender.
>
>    Is this so?

Seems quite possible to me..  I think that's why it was suggested a while
back that as many remailers be set up as possible.  That way, one could use
several in a row and virtually eliminate the problem.

>    In this case, everyone wanting to use a remailer should in principle
>*own* a remailer, and you'd probably want your own to be the first
>remailer.  Then, to avoid compromise of the recipient, maybe you'd want
>yours to be the last remailer.  So why not use your own remailer
>exclusively?

I don't think you'd have to worry much about compromising the recipient, if
you encrypt the message with with her public key (except possibly traffic
analysis, which I doubt poses a problem to very many people, and which can
be overcome anyways).

>    To take this to an extreme, set up a remailer and then use this
>*all* the time for the mail you originate.  Does this gain you anything?

Well, it would probably be ok if a lot of other people used your remailer..
but if you were the only one, I doubt it would be very effective.
---
Andrew Derry - derry at sfu.ca       |
ACS at HCC - Simon Fraser University |
Standard disclaimers apply        |