Anonymous remailers are a virus spreading online! (Replies)

Forwarded from Computer Privacy Digest. These messages are in reply to
the Strassmann/Marlow paper archived at:
     http://fight-censorship.dementia.org/fight-censorship/dl?num=1159

-Declan

---------- Forwarded message begins here ----------

From: cnordin@vni.net (Craig Nordin)
Date: 15 Feb 1996 15:02:16 -0500
Subject: Re: Anonymous Remailers are a Virus Spreading Online
Organization: Virtual Networks 
References: <comp-privacy8.14.10@cs.uwm.edu>

Note the SAIC name in the byline.  Note that CIA folk have often
published stuff and not fessed up to having a CIA background.

Anonymous remailers are the number one threat to total control via
government.

If you read something anonymous you can discard it simply because the
writer is unwilling to stand beside his words.  Or, you can see if it
is an apt piece of writing and decide that it does apply, even without
an author.

This thread is part of a "school" of such topics now reaching us
through various media.  Note the recent news made by an internet
announcement that a girl was being abused by her mother. Kids are said
to be making bombs from instructions via the Internet (and why were
they making so many bombs learned from libraries and colleges before
and not even making it past the local news?).

Some people don't like utterly free speech.

-- 
http://www.vni.net/
cnordin@vni.net                Fly VNI:  Send E-Mail to  info@vni.net


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From: "Prof. L. P. Levine" <levine@blatz.cs.uwm.edu>
Date: 15 Feb 1996 16:22:41 -0600 (CST)
Subject: Re: Anonymous Remailers are a Virus Spreading Online
Organization: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

My most serious question about anonymous remailers is this:  How can we
be sure that the operator of such a remailer is not a federal or other
governmental agent?  That person is trusted with our privacy and has
all the data needed to identify a user.

If I were the Feds I would already have set up such a "sting"
operation, the temptation is just too great.

--
Leonard P. Levine               e-mail levine@cs.uwm.edu
Professor, Computer Science        Office 1-414-229-5170
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee  Fax    1-414-229-6958
Box 784, Milwaukee, WI 53201     
         PGP Public Key: finger llevine@blatz.cs.uwm.edu


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 ---------------------------------+-----------------------------------------
Leonard P. Levine                 | Moderator of:     Computer Privacy Digest
Professor of Computer Science     |                  and comp.society.privacy
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee | Post:                comp-privacy@uwm.edu
Box 784, Milwaukee WI 53201       | Information: comp-privacy-request@uwm.edu
                                  | Gopher:                 gopher.cs.uwm.edu 
levine@cs.uwm.edu                 | Web:           gopher://gopher.cs.uwm.edu
 ---------------------------------+-----------------------------------------


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End of Computer Privacy Digest V8 #015
******************************

Leonard P. Levine wrote somewhere:
> My most serious question about anonymous remailers is this:  How can we
> be sure that the operator of such a remailer is not a federal or other
> governmental agent?  That person is trusted with our privacy and has
> all the data needed to identify a user.
> 
> If I were the Feds I would already have set up such a "sting"
> operation, the temptation is just too great.

You will be pleased to hear that this problem was anticipated at least 15
years ago (in David Chaum's paper on "digital mixes"). Briefly, the solution
is to use multiple layers of encryption to distribute trust among several
remailer operators. Before it is remailed, a message is encrypted with public
keys belonging to each of a sequence of remailers. As each remailer receives
a message, it removes the outer layer of encryption using its private key,
revealing another encrypted message and the next address to which it should
be sent. Cooperation of all the remailers in the chain is needed to link the
originating address to the message that is eventually delivered to a 
recipient. 

For a longer exposition on the current state of the art in deployed
mail anonymizers, see http://www.obscura.com/~loki/remailer/remailer-essay.html

Note that the availability of strong anonymity critically depends upon the
availability of strong cryptography. If the Department of the Treasury 
Automated Systems Division holds all the remailers' private keys, then it can
easily determine the originators of all anonymously remailed messages.

-Lewis	"You're always disappointed, nothing seems to keep you high -- drive 
	your bargains, push your papers, win your medals, fuck your strangers;
	don't it leave you on the empty side ?"  (Joni Mitchell, 1972)