a new way to do anonymity

["Wei Dai" <weidai@eskimo.com>]

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A week ago I made a suggestion for a new protocol for untracibility, 
but only got one response.  I'll try again, this time more 
forcefully.  I'm not trying to convince anyone to implement this 
(though of course you're welcome to!), but just to think about it and 
give me feedback.

Why is another protocol needed?  Right now we have only two, 
each of which has its own set of tradeoffs.  To summarize:

	Mix-Net (i.e., remailer-net): high latency, moderate bandwidth 
		costs, and low complexity
	DC-Net: moderate latency, high bandwidth costs, and high complexity

While the DC-Net will probably never be widely used, the remailer-net 
has a fair chance of one day 
providing a way for many people to send e-mail that not even governments 
can trace.  However, I don't think this is enough.  Efficient 
social and business relationships require that people be able to 
converse to each other in real time.  Cryptoanarchy will not come about 
if people cannot do this anonymously.  How well can two pseudonymous 
agents negotiate a contract if each message they send must be delayed 
several hours?  The protocol I sugguested would have low latency, moderate 
bandwidth costs, and moderate complexity.  It would be well suited for 
people to interact anonymously in a textual environment.

This is what I wrote:
> Imagine a server that allows you to open a 
> low bandwidth (let's say around 100 cps, in order to reduce costs)
> link-encrypted telnet session with it, and provides you with a number 
> of services, for example a link-encrypted talk session with another 
> user.  You'll need to maintain the link 24 hours a day to defend 
> against statistical analysis, and of course you can chain a number of 
> these servers together in a way similiar to chaining remailers.

Lance pointed out the chain cannot be built quickly.  This is not a problem
if servers connect to each other with relatively wide link-encrypted pipes
and multiplex your connection into these pipes.

In this system, latency would never be more than a few seconds, bandwidth
cost is N*100 cps (point to point), N being the number of links in your chain.
Implementation would probably be harder than remailers, but much easier
than DC-Nets.  The protocol would also provide both sender and receiver
untracibility without any need for broadcasting.

Wei Dai

P.S. I never gave a name for the protocol... let's call it Pipe-net.
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E-mail: Wei Dai <weidai@eskimo.com>   URL: "http://www.eskimo.com/~weidai"
=================== Exponential Increase of Complexity ===================
--> singularity --> atoms --> macromolecules --> biological evolution
--> central nervous systems --> symbolic communication --> homo sapiens
--> digital computers --> internetworking --> close-coupled automation
--> broadband brain-to-net connections --> artificial intelligence
--> distributed consciousness --> group minds --> ? ? ?