Re: How do I know if its encrypted?

At 11:53 AM 1/14/95 -0600, Larry E wrote:
> ... Those who believe remailers are an evil will argue against any
>measure that will promote their presence (and I'm not suggesting
>you're in that group).  ...

True enough.

> ... Is encryption a step in the right direction, if an imperfect one?  If
>not I hope some other positive steps are proposed soon, else I fear
>remailers may face extinction.

The big problem I have with mandatory encryption for remailers is that it 
thwarts one of the two major purposes of remailers.  Basically I see 
remailers serving two goals:

        1)  Defeating traffic analysis of point-to-point communications.
            Mandating encryption for this is redundant--anyone who wanted this
            would be encrypting their mail to begin with.  Also, I don't     
               believe this mode of operation generates many complaints.

        2)  Anonymous broadcast transmission.  This one can generate a lot of
            complaints, but it is also very important for things like *.recovery
            newsgroups.  Mandating encryption renders this mode useless.

There is a third use, which is anonymous point-to-point transmission.  While 
this is of some benefit for anonymous tip line, it makes things like 
mailbombs and hate mail very easy.
        

    --Paul J. Ste. Marie
      pstemari@well.sf.ca.us, pstemari@erinet.com

In article <9501150554.AA29412@eri.erinet.com>, 
   pstemari@erinet.com (Paul J. Ste. Marie) wrote:
> 
>         1)  Defeating traffic analysis of point-to-point communications.
>             Mandating encryption for this is redundant--anyone who wanted this
>             would be encrypting their mail to begin with.  Also, I don't     
>                believe this mode of operation generates many complaints.

Agreed.

> 
>         2)  Anonymous broadcast transmission.  This one can generate a lot of
>             complaints, but it is also very important for things like *.recovery
>             newsgroups.  Mandating encryption renders this mode useless.
>                          ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Here, I don't understand your point.  If you mean an encrypted
message to a remailer cannot result in a plaintext usenet posting,
that of course is not true.  The remailers have PGP keys of their
own, just as any private user may.  In addition, some of the
remailers support direct usenet posting.  Thus, a message may be
encrypted to the remailer and posted as plaintext as the remailer
decrypts the message.


> There is a third use, which is anonymous point-to-point transmission.  While 
> this is of some benefit for anonymous tip line, it makes things like 
> mailbombs and hate mail very easy.
>         

Agreed.  At least some remailers accept requests from users that they
not receive anonymous mail.  The process of "kill-filing" outbound
anonymous mail targeted for specific locations could of course be
automated.