Re: message depots

[tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May)]

Jim Miller writes:

> One of the main unsolved problems with anonymous remailer networks is that,  
> somewhere, there has to be a remailer that knows the mapping from your  
> anonymous identity to your real identity (or at least your real e-mail  
> address).  This means that you will have to trust the person running the  
> remailer.

This is not so, and we have discussed this many, many times. Chaum's
1981 CACM paper, referred to again by Hal Finney recently, describes
how a series of remailers (or mixes, in his terminology) can prevent
this mapping from "real identity" to "anonymous identity."

This mapping is currently known to remailer in "Julf-style" remailers,
such as the one S. Boxx used. But what if, to pick a simple example,
someone first used an encrypted Cyperpunks remailer to mail to the Julf site?
Unless Julf and the Cypherpunks remailer owner get together (collude),
neither of them can construct the mapping.

With N remailers and use of encryption at each node, all any of the N
nodes can deduce is the mapping between inputs and outputs, neither of
which are necessariy either the "real name" or the "anonymous name."

Jim goes on to describe his ideas for a "message depot" system, which
bears close resemblance to Chaum's mixes, the basis for our existing
encrypted remailers, and Myron Cuperman's "pool" idea, first deployed
about a year ago. My own "BlackNet" example of a month or so ago (and
developed in 1988, conceptually) used both encryption and pools: the
messages I picked up and decrypted, using the BlackNet private key,
were readable only by me, and neither I nor the senders had any way of
knowing who the other person was.

I know some will call me an old fogey, or an old-timer who won't help
newcomers, or even a parasitic nym (or somesuch, says G. Toal :-})
intent on devouring the initiative of the creative talents here, but I
have to call 'em as I see 'em.

--Tim May


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Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
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