Remailers vs Nyms - conflicting assumptions?

[Bruce Baugh <bruce@aracnet.com>]

I've been enjoying the discussion of "disposable" remailers, but I note a
problem. If this has been addressed before, well, now it's being noted again.

In my (admittedly limited) experience with nym servers, the reply path is
fixed - it goes through specified hops. This creates A Problem when any one
of the remailers involved goes down. There's no way for the mail to get
through. There's not even a way for the nym holder to verify that there is a
site down, as opposed to some more transitory problem, without information
from an external source.

This seems to me a fairly serious weakness, given prevailing governmental
attitudes.

What would it take to create a nym server that could route around the death
or disability of any given mailer?

--
Bruce Baugh
bruce@aracnet.com
http://www.aracnet.com/~bruce