Net News as Cover Traffic

[Ray Dillinger]

On Fri, 1 Dec 2000, Trei, Peter wrote:

>
>> Ray Dillinger[SMTP:bear at sonic.net] wrote
>> 
>> I think that what we really need is some kind of NNTP-like system 
>> that distributes encrypted packets instead of cleartext ones.  If 
>> you want to baffle traffic analysis, just create a system where 
>> they can't tell the difference between your emails and tons and 
>> tons of news traffic.  
>> 
>	[...]
>
>
>You mean like the long standing and active news group 
>alt.anonymous.messages, but different?

Yes, different.  alt.anonymous.messages is simply a message mix.  
I'm talking about a system that would provide lots of encrypted 
traffic *ON THE SAME PORTS* as whatever other encrypted traffic 
you were sending.  IOW, no one should be able to look at logs and 
say, "well, we can ignore that packet, it's NNTP.  This other 
packet over here is mail, and probably the thing we're after..."

In a more general statement, I guess I'm saying that encrypted 
traffic should not be segregated into different services - at 
least not so you can tell which are which without decrypting. 
and furthermore, even high-volume ordinary traffic - like 
rec.pets.cats - should be distributed by encrypted means, so 
you can't tell at the protocol level what's inside.  

				Bear