Traceable Infrastructure is as vulnerable as traceable messages.

[mmotyka at lsil.com]

>On Fri, 3 Aug 2001, Tim May wrote:
>
>>>and wait for the next time something happens if you're on DHCP, or
>>>they may have to get the cooperation of one or more other governments
>>>if your login trail runs outside their jurisdiction -- but ultimately,
>>>it's traceable.
>>
>>You apparently don't even understand how even simple remailer chains work.
>
>Hello, earth to Tim. 
> (1) You can send anonymous mail by sending it through a remailer, but 
> (2) The remailers themselves are not anonymous.
> (3) If the remailers *were* anonymous, they could not operate 
>      because then the users would not know where to send their mails.
> 
>   As long as the remailers themselves are traceable, make no mistake: 
>they exist only because the lions have not yet passed a law against them.
>
This may yet be attempted but even so success is not a given.

>   You cannot have encryption technologies advancing and leaving the law 
>behind, so long as any vital part of the infrastructure you need is 
>traceable and pulpable by the law.
>
>                                Bear
>
I think you mean "palpable." I don't think pulpable is good usage but if
by that you mean able to be made into pulp well, OK, it's funny.

I haven't read the mixmaster source but it seems to me that end-to-end
encryption protects the contents. The traffic analysis part seems
vulnerable on two basic fronts : subversion of a node and overall low
traffic levels. 
Nested encryption protects a subverted node from being able to trace the
entire chain in one fell swoop. 

As long as there is one uncompromised node in a chain subversion doesn't
guarantee a matchup of "from" and "to" but it improves the odds.

With low traffic levels through a chain the statistics of traffic
analysis are also improved.

I like the idea of making a remailer part of a worm but it might be just
as well to make it an inherent part of a product since people will
attempt to eradicate a worm. Just imagine if Napster were still going
full steam with a built-in remailer - huge node count and shitloads of
traffic.

Mike