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Cyphernomicon 8.13

Anonymity, Digital Mixes, and Remailers:
Loose Ends


   8.13.1. Digital espionage
           + spy networks can be run safely, untraceably, undetectably
             - anonymous contacts, pseudonyms
             - digital dead drops, all done electronically...no chance
                of being picked up, revealed as an "illegal" (a spy with
                no diplomatic cover to save him) and shot
           + so many degrees of freedom in communications that
              controlling all of them is essentially impossible
             - Teledesic/Iridium/etc. satellites will increase this
                capability further
           + unless crypto is blocked--and relatively quickly and
              ruthlessly--the situation described here is unstoppable
             - what some call "espionage" others would just call free
                communication
             - (Some important lessons for keeping corporate or business
                secrets...basically, you can't.)
   8.13.2. Remailers needs some "fuzziness," probably
           + for example, if a remailer has a strict policy of
              accumulating N messages, then reordering and remailing
              them, an attacker can send N - 1 messages in and know which
              of the N messages leaving is the message they want to
              follow; some uncertainly helps here
             - the mathematics of how this small amount of uncertainty,
                or scatter, could help is something that needs a detailed
                analysis
           - it may be that leaving some uncertainty, as with the
              keylength issue, can help
   8.13.3. Trying to confuse the eavesdroppers, by adding keywords they
            will probably pick up on
           + the "remailer@csua.berkeley.edu" remailer now adds actual
              paragraphs, such as this recent example:
             - "I fixed the SKS.  It came with a scope and a Russian
                night scope.  It's killer.  My friend knows about a
                really good gunsmith who has a machineshop and knows how
                to convert stuff to automatic."
                
           - How effective this ploy is is debatable
   8.13.4. Restrictions on anonymous systems
           - Anonymous AIDS testing. Kits for self-testing have been
              under FDA review for 5 years, but counseling advocates have
              delayed release on the grounds that some people will react
              badly and perhaps kill themselves upon getting a positive
              test result...they want the existing system to prevail. (I
              mention this to show that anonymous systems are somtimes
              opposed for ideological reasons.)


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