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.)
By Tim May, see README
HTML by Jonathan Rochkind