Remailers next generation?

[Tim May]

On Tuesday, August 7, 2001, at 03:54 PM, Paul Harrison wrote:

> It has been several years since any significant changes in
> anonymous remailer technology were proposed.  Much of the
> latter day thinking has been directed more to Democracy
> Walls such as MN, freehaven, freenet as possible improvement
> on good ole Usenet alt.anonymous.messages.

I disagree, slightly. The same old "improvements" are still not 
implemented. Notably, pay-for-use remailers.

What _has_ changed is that interest in running remailers is waning.

I attribute this mainly to a decline in interest in the _politics_ of 
remailers and Cypherpunks technologies in general. Despite the 
controversy about recent developments like the Adobe arrest of Dmitry 
(er, the FBI arrest...same difference), the nonsense about 
"globalization," and the usual paranoia about traffic cameras, the fact 
is that WE HAVE NO CLIPPER TO RALLY AROUND.

The heyday of remailers, this list, and "crypto activism" was when two 
critical things were happening:

1. Clipper.

2. The threatened prosecution of Phil Zimmermann.

Neither is happening now. Cracking down on Napster, or proposing traffic 
cameras at intersections, or "allowing" multinational companies to 
prosper, is HARDLY the stuff of activism.

Also, the "Cypherpunks write code" mantra has been interpreted by some 
to mean that only discussion of S-boxes in DES and the strength of 
Rijndael are appropriate Cypherpunks topics.

Thus we see a lot of "crypto only" mailing lists, siphoning off 
technical contributors from here on Cypherpunks.

The problem is, in my strongly held view, that "code without politics" 
means mundanity about S-boxes and Rijndael!

Without a political focus, there is no longer any sexiness to crypto.

It will take a new crackdown to stimulate a new round of interest in 
Cypherpunks technologies. (Were I a Brit, I'd certainly consider the RIP 
types of crackdowns to be reason enough to code politically. Alas, we 
have few Brit members.)

--Tim May