Anonymity: A Modest Proposal

[s1018954 at aix2.uottawa.ca]

On Wed, 18 Oct 1995, Hal wrote:

> Modemac proposes sending messages to remailers via newsgroup postings.
> 
A fair amount of alt.test postings seem to be pgp'd (though a lot were
Detweiler Blacknet tentacles, not that I've checked since Tim's Blacknet key 
was factored ). There was also an alt.anonymous.messages or something 
along those lines. Bad propagation.

It seems to me that receiving messages through newsgroups (sent through 
remailernet) and having them retrieved automatically by your newsreader
might be a better method of defeating traffic analysis. Sounds like Vinge's
piece in True Names about downloading the entire world bbs. All you'd need
to do here would be to scan your local feed of alt.test .

While this would work in the short run, with a low level of users, in a 
high usage scenario, you'd post a destinated pseudonym (you might want it 
encrypted) in alt.test along with the name of the specific newsgroup the 
actual message would be posted to. Saves computing power.