Re: Broadcasts and the Rendezvous Problem

[eric@remailer.net (Eric Hughes)]

   From: "L. Todd Masco" <cactus@hks.net>

   That's not a very good approach: a human has to add a new remailer into
   the "net" by adding it to the systems polled.  Not only is the human
   intervention a Bad Thing, but having a central registry of remailers
   is bad infrastructure.  A more "web-of-trust"-like mechanism is desirable.

In terms of autopinging, certainly human intervention is not desirable.

This begs one question though, namely, "how does one gain trust in a
remailer?".  Certainly likelihood of service can be automated, but
other forms of trust cannot.  Human intervention is necessary each
time someone begins to trust a remailer.  That intervention can be for
one's own use or for someone else's, but automatically trusting new
remailers is Not Good.

The question then becomes "what is the structure of human intervention
required to change the trust in a remailer?".  Use of agency will be
desirable, certainly.

These questions of human relations need to be examined before
technical means of communication can be profitably pinned down.

Eric