Re: Anonymous Remailers

[tzeruch@ceddec.com]

On Wed, 14 May 1997, Roger J. Jones wrote:

> Why is it that some who are very concerned about their personal privacy utilize anonymous remailers that:

> 1) Log all of their mail messages? 

Good.  They will mainly waste space on a bunch of encrypted stuff with the
possible exception of the very last entry in the chain (which may only
give the recipient, and a message, which might reveal the author when
decrypted by the recipient's key).  Everything else will point to another
remailer and be readable only by it.  They can log who is using it if they
are first in the chain (so run your own remailer), but all they will know
is who is using it, assuming it is not a nym.

> 2) Are in many cases reputed to be run by foreign intelligence services?

So who says they don't provide a public service :).  Although I would
resent my tax money supporting something that can be done in the private
sector if I lived in such a country.  There should be a move to privatize
them.

> Do they really trust the owner of the remailer? (Unless of course, it is
> their remailer?)  I seem to be missing something. 

I shouldn't have to unless I only use one remailer exclusively.  If I use
random chains, or mixmaster type remailers, I don't HAVE TO TRUST the
remailer.  The worst they could do is not pass on mail (which would show
up in the stats), or selectively not send mail, or log content when they
were last on the chain and if the message was actually plaintext at that
point.

There are a few subtleties, but if you do things right, things are very
secure.  It depends if you are trying for 100% security or merely want to
avoid spam.