theregister.co.uk: Anonymous Remailers Survive Politech Attack

[Incognito Innominatus]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/21639.html

The anonymous remailer network isn't closing, despite an alarmist and 
inaccurate story by Wired's Declan McCullagh, and postings to his own 
widely-read Politech mailing list. 

Len Sassaman, a security expert and privacy advocate who runs the Randseed 
remailer, is cited by McCullagh as having "pulled the plug" on his system 
in the wake of the World Trade Center bombings, and the report hinted that 
others had too. 

But Sassaman's system didn't go off-line and McCullagh, it turns out, 
hadn't been in touch to check. An announcement rapidly followed explaining 
that Randseed had been switched into middleman mode, which simply prevents 
it from being the last machine in the remailer chain. 

And real-time statistics at press time showed thirty six Type II 
'Mixmaster' remailers in operation, more than are usually running. Many 
more Type I remailers were also active. 

Sassaman told us that the precaution was to preempt concern about hate 
mail or threats being made using the system. His remailer processes around 
three thousand messages a day, and out of a million messages over the past 
year, only two have drawn the attention of the authorities. 

[...]