Forwarded mail...

[Jim Choate <ravage@ssz.com>]

Forwarded message:

> Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 23:33:31 +0200 (MET DST)
> To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
> From: nobody@REPLAY.COM (Anonymous)

> >Basicly most of those 3400 message cracker handles daily are cover
> >trafic,...
> 
> How do you know this?  If the remailer network works properly, you
> should not have any knowledge of this at all.

Because if a remailer is working correctly for each incoming message n + 1
outgoing messages should be sent. Of those n + 1 messages, n are cover
traffic and 1 is the actual outgoing traffic. It is clear that n should be
larger than 1 to be effective. Therefore we know that at least half of the
traffic out of a given remailer is cover there simply to waste our cpu
cycles because the complexity of traffic analysis rises by the square of n
(I believe, working from memory here).

> This is like saying we should only encrypt messages which are really
> secret.  You should encrypt all of your messages - then nobody can
> tell when you have a secret.

This raises an intersting point. How would a remailer system be set up to
handle encrypted email on both incoming and outgoing? In other words the
sender would contact the remailer with a key set and the remailer would then
send the results onward with individual recipients key sets. The only way I
could figure out to solve this in my playing around was to have a key server
that kept listings of all the parties keys. Is there a simpler way? I figure
the key server should not be the remailer machine.

> definitely get some market activity going and start generating some
> real remailer traffic.

Nobody expects to get rich but such an activity should at least be capable
of recompensing its owner and operators in an acceptable manner.

>From who and doing what? There has to be more than anonymous speech,
laundering cash, and avoiding credit analysis. But what?
 
> Let me now note that this dialogue has been somewhat surreal.  Am I
> really begging the cypherpunks to use ecash?

No, at least not from my perspective. What we are asking is what we should
be using it for? I certainly have very little I would say anonymously. I
believe the best way to stay out of jail and reasonably secure is to be know
by large groups of people who might lend sympathetic ears in times of need.
I don't promote violence or unnecessary boat rocking, BUT (and it's a big
one for me) I do expect those who I charge with certain duties to carry
those duties out within the bounds of the contract we arranged. One aspect
of this is that if the charge is very controversial and you are known to be
vocal a gag order might be enforced. In such situations he who has already
had their say is much better off because then people realize the impact
clearly. Just consider the reaction to the Canadian criminal speech ban and
the resultant web activity for a real world example. With that kind of press
I can guarantee that the Canadians, even with their Draconian beliefs in
civil rights, are not going to use that sort of tactic widely. Now here is a
use for a <nearly> free anonymous remailer.

> It's a good idea to get ecash in now because it will be harder to
> incorporate payment methods later when there is more infrastructure to
> change.  (Look at the mixmaster problem.  It can't (according to
> Lucky) be used for ecash without modification.)
> 
> However, it appears that part of the problem with the remailers is
> that nobody uses them.  We should be making a concerted effort to do
> so, and not just for cpunk traffic.  We should use them for
> everything.  It won't take that many people to reduce the message
> delays substantially.  It will also advertise the remailer network to
> our friends who may not yet be cypherpunks.
> 
> The tools exist to do this.

Yes, but why would I?

> It is somewhat ironic that we complain that Joe Sixpack won't use
> tools that we will not (or even cannot) use ourselves.

I don't buy a screwdriver to sit and fondle, I buy it to use on screws...


    ____________________________________________________________________
   |                                                                    |
   |    The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there   |
   |    be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves.       |
   |                                                                    |
   |                                       -Alan Greenspan-             |
   |                                                                    | 
   |            _____                             The Armadillo Group   |
   |         ,::////;::-.                           Austin, Tx. USA     |
   |        /:'///// ``::>/|/                     http:// www.ssz.com/  |
   |      .',  ||||    `/( e\                                           |
   |  -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'-                         Jim Choate       |
   |                                                 ravage@ssz.com     |
   |                                                  512-451-7087      |
   |____________________________________________________________________|