Long-Lived Remailers

[E. ALLEN SMITH]

From:	IN%"hendersn at zeta.org.au" 23-MAY-1996 11:35:09.98

>I really like this idea. How about instead of a full-scale remailer being
>the final jump of the message, you have a _very_ simple remailer set up
>along the lines of anon.penet.fi. No encryption, just strip off the headers
>and send the message to its final destination. Sorry for being clueless in
>how this works(I'm learning as fast as I can), but wouldn't this kind of
>system be incredibly easy to start up and fold? You could have a host of
>such final emanation points winking in and out of existence while the actual
>encrypting remailers remain relatively safe.

	Well, an anon.penet.fi one has the disadvantage of not encrypting
between the final sendings.... which means that it's relatively easy to trace
back a given message to whatever remailer sent it, via traffic monitoring.
A forwarding remailer that decrypted mail according to a published key would
get around this, especially if it were being run out of a POP or other email
forwarding account (otherwise, the operator of the system could just look and
see what the private key was, and thus be able to trace back).
	-Allen