FUD about Remailers--the Strassman/Marlow "Revelations"

[Timothy C. May]

I didn't imagine that people would take the off-the-wall assertions here
seriously, but "Anonymous" seems quite worried, so some comments can't
hurt.

At 4:40 AM 3/4/96, Anonymous wrote:

>
>>Both presenters explicitly acknowledged that a number of anonymous
>>remnailers in the US are run by government agencies scanning traffic.
>>Marlow said that the government runs at least a dozen remailers and that
>>the most popular remailers in France and Germany are run by the
>>respective government agencies in these countries. In addition they

Oh really? And just which remailers are in France and Germany? (Raph's list
doesn't show any ".de" or ".fr" sites, at least that I could see. It's
possible that a site or two exists in France or Germany, but I'm skeptical.
And certainly the "the most popular remailers in France and Germany" is an
odd comment.)

There are of course remailers in the Netherlands (Hacktic, for example),
and Julf's site in Finland. Perhaps Marlow mistook these countries for
France and Germany?

In any case, the claim that the few sites in Europe are "at least a dozen
remailers" and that they are run by the intelligence agencies of France and
Germany is specious.

I consider it unlikely that the remailer operators are working for the
spooks. (Something to consider in the future, and even to be thoughtful
about now. But unlikely at this time, with the current players, for various
reasons.)

Further, as with other recent comments we've seen, the authors seem to
misunderstand the nature of chained remailers.

These errors, plus the apparently slapdash way the article was
cut-and-pasted together (from the Web pages of others, usually without
acknowledgement), plus the scare tactic tone, makes me dismiss the entire
"paper."

>>mentioned that the NSA has successfully developed systems to break
>>encrypted messages below 1000 bit of key length and strongly suggested
>>to use at least 1024 bit keys. They said that they semselves use 1024
>>bit keys.

As others have also noted, just FUD to confuse and scare.

>     I don't know about everyone else, but I consider this, if true, to be a
>MAJOR worry.  It never ceases to amaze me how lightly the government takes
>lying to the people.  Unfortunately I don't have the contacts or resources
>to do any further investigation, I hope this thread is resolved one way or
>another soon.
>
>nobody at unimportant

"Investigation" can be done by doing what I just did: looking for these
supposed "dozens" of the "most popular" remailer sites, looking for them in
France or Germany, and not finding them. (Maybe they're secret, known only
to CIA, SDECE, and BND operatives? The operative word being "paranoid.")

--Tim May


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