At 6:06 PM -0700 9/27/99, John Gilmore wrote:
>I wonder if the source of remailer unreliability could be further
>tracked down by providing a "publish" bit under the encryption at each
>layer. If the bit is set, the remailer publishes, on its own web site
>the incoming message, the decrypted message, and the outgoing message.
>If the bit is not set, the message is relayed privately as usual. The
>publishing could be delayed for a period of time if desired.
This seems to me to be an excellent suggestion for running test messages
thru the remailer system at the same time as real messages. The test
messages will also act as cover traffic.
>Note that merely flipping any data bit in a packet containing an email
>message in transit will suffice to cause it to be discarded, since PGP
>will report that it has been corrupted. (This would require hacking
>the TCP checksum to avoid TCP error correction.)
Since the TCP checksum algorithm is notoriously poor, a small number of
errors may creep thru the TCP check. Since the underlying transmission
media used in the Internet today are quite reliable, errors due to this
cause should be rare, but don't be surprised to find an occasionally one.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill Frantz | The availability and use of secure encryption may |
Periwinkle | offer an opportunity to reclaim some portion of |
Consulting | the privacy we have lost. - B. FLETCHER, Circuit Judge |
