Re: Eternity Uncensorable?

[Steve Schear <azur@netcom.com>]

>Mark Grant <mark@unicorn.com> writes:
>> On Wed, 6 Aug 1997, Adam Back wrote:
>The solution is to have disposable tents, lots of.
>
>What about AOL disks?  We need shorter lived, disposable remailers as
>exit remailers...  Let them take the heat, while the real remailers
>walk.  Lets see a series of "exitman" remailers.  Exitman remailers
>are walking targets left to fend for themselves as long as they may.
>
>I propose that an exit remailer is replaceable, that is another
>remailer can instantly step into it's place and take traffic.  The way
>to do this is to have a special automated reporting mechanism for
>exitman remailers.  An easy way to do it is to have the exitman
>remailers send mail to a given mailing list.  Other remailers which
>wish to use exitman remailers just subscribe to the chosen mailing
>list.  We just need a remailer command indicating the creation of a
>new exitman remailer.  I guess the exitman remailer just sends one
>message per day, or whatever, and if it stops, you write it off.
>
>Is there a military term for something sent in to get shot to bits,
>just to distract attention from other movement?  A decoy?

A possible problem is the motivation of those setting up decoys.  If
they're doing it to help thwart remailer abuse, fine.  But what if their
intent is to thwart remailers?  Couldn't these dissidents set up black-hole
remailers which are simply information sinks?  When a email is
chain-remailed and doesn't get delivered many, but not all, senders would
simply assume one of the remailers are having delivery problems and resend.
Will Raph's approach work to monitor  decoys when their number and identity
are constantly changing?  Won't this significantly complicate remailer
clients?

--Steve