a blackmail opportunity

While writing some appropriate paranoia for a canned response to
remailer info requests, I realized that running a remailer is a
perfect prelude to blackmail.  An unscrupulous person running a
remailer can obviously keep records of truenames, along with
messages that their senders do not want associated with them.
Making use of this information could involve a scenario to the
crypto-extortion previously discussed, but blackmail would be far
more believable than anonymous threats.  Alternatively, the
blackmailer could be low-tech and resort to present techniques.

Always encrypting helps with mail, but not with news.

	 PGP 2 key by finger or e-mail
   Eli   ebrandt@jarthur.claremont.edu

Eli Brandt writes:
>An unscrupulous person running a
>remailer can obviously keep records of truenames, along with
>messages that their senders do not want associated with them.

>Always encrypting helps with mail, but not with news.

If you don't trust your remailer operator, use more than one.  This is
the whole point of multiple chainings.  A single point failure can be
any number of different threats: blackmail, coerced disclosure by
threat of violence, compromised equipment.  All of these can be
defended against by making a system proof against single point
failure.

For posting to news, one should always use two hops.  The first
destroys any the identity of the poster and the second one decrypts it
for transmission.  Both hops are encrypted, but the second relay sees
the plaintext and cannot link it to anyone because the first relay is
anonymous.

Eric