2.9.1. "What are remailers?"
2.9.2. "How do remailers work?" (a vast number of postings have
dealt with this)
- The best way to understand them is to "just do it," that
is, send a few remailed message to yourself, to see how the
syntax works. Instructions are widely available--some are
cited here, and up to date instructions will appear in the
usual Usenet groups.
- The simple view: Text messages are placed in envelopes and
sent to a site that has agreed to remail them based on the
instructions it finds. Encryption is not necessary--though
it is of course recommended. These "messages in bottles"
are passed from site to site and ultimately to the intended
final recipient.
- The message is pure text, with instructions contained _in
the text_ itself (this was a fortuitous choice of standard
by Eric Hughes, in 1992, as it allowed chaining,
independence from particular mail systems, etc.).
- A message will be something like this:
::
Request-Remailing-To: remailer@bar.baz
Body of text, etc., etc. (Which could be more remailing
instructions, digital postage, etc.)
- These nested messages make no assumptions about the type of
mailer being used, so long as it can handle straight ASCII
text, which all mailers can of course. Each mail message
then acts as a kind of "agent," carrying instructions on
where it should be mailed next, and perhaps other things
(like delays, padding, postage, etc.)
- It's very important to note that any given remailer cannot
see the contents of the envelopes he is remailing, provided
encryption is used. (The orginal sender picks a desired
trajectory through the labyrinth of remailers, encrypts in
the appropriate sequence (last is innermost, then next to
last, etc.), and then the remailers sequentially decrypt
the outer envelopes as they get them. Envelopes within
envelopes.)
2.9.3. "Can't remailers be used to harass people?"
- Sure, so can free speech, anonymous physical mail ("poison
pen letters"), etc.
- With e-mail, people can screen their mail, use filters,
ignore words they don't like, etc. Lots of options. "Sticks
and stones" and all that stuff we learned in Kindergarten
(well, I'm never sure what the the Gen Xers learned....).
- Extortion is made somewhat easier by anonymous mailers, but
extortion threats can be made in other ways, such as via
physical mail, or from payphones, etc.
- Physical actions, threats, etc. are another matter. Not the
domain of crypto, per se.
By Tim May, see README
HTML by Jonathan Rochkind