Anonymity on the net

[Timothy C. May]

Skye Merlin Poier writes:

>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>
>I know of several anonymous remailers: would it not be a good idea to "link up"
>several of these hosts so that one mails the first remailer, which mails
>another
>and so on and so on.... This would be a real pain in the butt to retrace, as
>surely the owner info wont be rubber hosed out of all of the host bosses....

Chaining remailers is of course the basic idea of using remailers.

"Linking up" the remailers would sort of defeat the purpose of the
remailers, wouldn't it? The idea is for only the sender to really know the
sequence of remailers. 

(Of course, some of us aren't always using encrypted remailers--though we
really should be--and hence the first remailer node theoretically knows who
sent the message and where it's going. (Later remailers won't know, as all
header info gets stripped out, so most of the benefits are retained.)
Longterm, this will have to fixed, by more and easier encryption. For now,
just using remailers as I show below is a good exercise.)

Using remailers is easily done, and in fact I do this for nearly all of the
"remailed" messages I send (no, I won't say which of the "anonymous" or
"nobody" messages I sent...if more people used remailers, we'd all be
better off). I encourage everyone out there who has not yet played with
remailers to give them a quick try. You can see for yourself in the next 10
minutes what this all means, just by sending yourself an "anonymous"
message!

Here's an example script I use. Note that I favor the "double colon"
(sounds like a medical condition, doesn't it?) format, as my mailer doesn't
have a convenient way of messing with the headers. (You are of course free
to try the other remailer format, described in the documentation for the
remailers.)

To use the double colon method, simply place a "::" on a blank line in the
_body_ of your message (not the header) followed by a line with
"Request-Remailing-To: next address" in it. And then another blank line,
and then your message. The forms below should make this clearer. Then
_another_ such remailer form can be included, and another, and another, and
so forth. Very easy to use. (Whoever came up with the double colon format,
please keep it in future versions!)

Karl Barrus occasionally publishes a list of operating remailers. I
occasionally test these remailers by sending messages to myself, to assure
myself they're still up and running and are sending stuff through promptly.
I keep a small database of "functional remailers," with their speeds (most
remail within seconds) and such. Once I've "pinged" these remailers, I feel
more confidant about chaining several of them together.

Example of Several Hops:


To: ebrandt at jarthur.claremont.edu

::
Request-Remailing-To: hh at cicada.berkeley.edu

::
Request-Remailing-To: elee7h5 at rosebud.ee.uh.edu

::
Request-Remailing-To: final address

This is a test message. Several hops. Even more remailer addresses could of
course be included here. 



{this went through in just a few minutes}


To use this yourself, replace the "final address" with your own address.
You should get an "anonymous" or "nobody" message in just a few minutes.

Naturally, you can vary the order of the remailers, use others, etc. Check
out the list of remailers Karl Barrus publishes (and maybe it's even in the
soda archives?) and "roll your own." Even use PGP with the sites that
support it (and at least one of the sites *requires* PGP, last time I
checked).

If the last address is one of the mail-to-NetNews sites, you've just posted
anonymously.

Happy anonymous remailing!

-Tim May

--
Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
tcmay at 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: 2^756839 | Public Key: by arrangement
Note: I put time and money into writing this posting. I hope you enjoy it.