Re: Remailer problem solution?

[Sergey Goldgaber <sergey@el.net>]

On Sat, 22 Mar 1997, Greg Broiles wrote:

-> At 01:56 PM 3/22/97 -0800, nobody@hidden.net wrote:
-> 
-> >Why would not one of these solutions work?
-> >
-> >1. Accept and send PGP encrypted messages only.
-> 
-> This "works" in that it reduces the number of people subjected to messages
-> they don't want to see, but it also makes it more difficult (or impossible)
-> to use remailers for tasks like:
-> 
-> sending info to crypto-illiterate reporters/politicians/whatever
-> ("whistleblowing")
-> sending messages to newsgroups and mailing lists which don't have a shared
-> private key

This is only a practical problem related to PGP's lack of popularity.
The proposed solution will work in the long run, assuming PGP achieves
great popularity.  Thus, education of the public concerning PGP and remailers
will help make this solution more effective.

Of course, interim short term solutions should be sought as well.

-> >2. Keep a list of addresses of people who do not wish to receive mail
-> >from the remailers.
-> 
-> This is done already, but the group of people who don't want to recieve mail
-> from remailers but haven't signed up yet (because they don't know about
-> remailers) is orders of magnitude bigger than people who've signed up. Mostly
-> people get on the block list(s) because they've already been mailed things
-> they didn't want to see; by the time they learn about blocking, it's too
-> late.

Information explaining blocking could be sent with each piece of mail from
a remailer.  Alternatively, to conserve bandwidth, a pointer to a web-page
could be attached.

-> Also, it's difficult to apply this solution to many remailers - should all
-> remailers block an address because one remailer operator claims to have
-> received a request? Or should each operator act alone, which means that one
-> anonymity-hostile end user must send multiple block requests?

A web page could be dedicated to propagating multiple block requests, in
the manner of those extant sites which propogate new web-page information 
to search engines.  This could also be made easy, intuitive, and mostly 
transparent to the end user.


 ............................................................................
 . Sergey Goldgaber <sergey@el.net>      System Administrator        el Net .
 ............................................................................
 .   To him who does not know the world is on fire, I have nothing to say   .
 .                                                      - Bertholt Brecht   .
 ............................................................................