[havenco-discuss] Re: [Announce] HavenCo Sealand Remailer Online

[Ryan Lackey]

I'm not sure if I buy that remailers are even going to have serious
problems in the future.  I see two approaches:

1) The aforementioned ecash-based system.  We don't have a problem
getting people to smuggle drugs, because people in the drug game get
lots of money, women, cars, etc.  I wonder how many drug dealers would
do it just for "moral goodness" (actually, a lot of last-stage dealers
do that, just buying for their friends and distributing, which
obviously doesn't work for remailers; also, allegedly the LSD
distribution chain is mostly profit-free for the whole thing...in
general, though, drugs are a highly profitable industry).

2) A system which remails without the consent of the remailing; a worm
or something which roams, infects, and as payload, will spontaneously
form "cells" in a mix-net.  Lots of ways to do this.  Also, the
mix-net itself can be used for passing the messages around.  Using 
anonymous services like yahoo for this kind of thing is one form, but
something which went a step beyond, and actually took over random
machines on DSL, etc. to use as middleman remailers, would be taking
this to another level.  Additionally, I think a level of steganography
is needed, both to protect the compromised nodes from detection and
disinfection, and for general security.

I generally agree with your assessment of the current "amateur"
remailer network, modulo the fact that a lot of remailer operators
have legal background, and would be content to actually fight
protracted legal battles.  I guess a lot of them would fold fairly
quickly if it were actually unequivocally exposing themselves to
serious criminal liability.

I don't think we'll have to wait long for this kind of theorizing on
anonymous communications and prosecution to no longer be merely academic.

-- 
Ryan Lackey [RL7618 RL5931-RIPE]	ryan at havenco.com
CTO and Co-founder, HavenCo Ltd.	+44 7970 633 277 
the free world just milliseconds away	http://www.havenco.com/
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