Long-Lived Remailers

[Loren James Rittle]

>From: "David E. Smith" <dsmith at midwest.net>
>Date: Tue, 21 May 1996 17:31:23 -0600

>Actually, there's an Idea.  Set up a single address; use added
>headers in the style of:
>
>::
>Remailers-To-Chain: 7
>Remailers-To-Avoid: remailer at nsa.gov
>Final-Destination: tcmay at got.net

David,

This will not work.  The original sender must pick the path himself,
if maximum encryption to hide the final destination is to be used.
The properly used cypherpunks-style remailer network provides that as
long as even one remailer in the chain is trustworthy, your secret is
safe.  Under your scheme, if the first remailer is untrustworthy,
everything is blown.  This is because unless the original sender
pick's the path (or at least the last hop explicitly), the final
destination and message must be available to each hop.

Loren