Public Anonymity

[Dave Bird]

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In article <B7FA0F22.F094%peter.fairbrother@ntlworld.com>, Peter
Fairbrother <peter.fairbrother@ntlworld.com> writes
>> Dave Bird wrote:
>> 
>> Peter Fairbrother <peter.fairbrother@ntlworld.com> writes:
>> 
>>> That is one PA technique, but there are several more. Stego is one, as are
>>> public remailers (which remail secretly but not privately, ie it is
>>> impossible for them to tell what they remailed or who to/from, but they do 
>it
>>> in public),
>>> 
>> How do you mean secretly but not privately? How does it work??
>> 
>
>They move data openly, but it such a way that it can't be traced.

 As I understand it... there must be a step which severs tracability 
 of its passage from sender, or to addressee.  Logically this occurs
 if a nose on the network is prepared to forget routing information;
 the forgetting step occurs at  that node.  Or if each recipient
 takes all traffic and "tunes to" only what he can read in private;
 the forgetting step occurs from the noticeboard area to him, since
 he manages to obscure the difference between mail to him & not to him.

 Incidentally, these can be combined if mixmaster#1 has a pool 
 of stuff which is read either by mixmasters#2...#N.  If each of 
 those takes his entire pool and selects only what they can process,
 then he loses the information who gets it from him next, only the
 user knows how he has set that.  


 This is distinct from the content being camouflaged to look like 
 other innocent material.  If A sent B mail every time there was
 a demonstration, robbery, or whatever, then the knowledge of traffic
 correlating to events can alone be used as proof (or at least
 intelligence) by those attacking their activities.

 Is there any other way to do it?
 
>
>[snip] 
>> I'd be interested in learning more of the basic theory, if I am not
>> wasting other readers' time.
>
>I will post some theory as soon as I can but it will take a while to write
>it up - it's work in progress just now. Some hints - 1) using keyed
>sub-noise-threshold techniques on a network of virtual mixer/remailers, the
>"noise" being provided by other users of the system. 

  I'm not sure I know what this is.

>2) Techniques to move
>distributed and hidden data through a system a bit like a SFS without the
>movement being traceable.

 Or what an SFS is/ Am I too dim for this list?  I'm sure other people
 must have come from political campaigning to using encryption, without
 being crypto-system designers or having a comprehensive knowledge.
>
>Both use shared keys and so don't provide sender anonymity to the receiver.

 That's not really a problem for me.  

>I haven't gotten either to work in practice yet, but the theory for the
>first one is nearly done :) - I'm having problems with and may have to redo
>the second, because as-is users can disrupt it if they don't do their writes
>according to the algorithm, and this can't be detected (data movement is
>done as part of (other) user writes).
>
>I'm hoping those better than me will start thinking about PA and create
>better systems. The USA Act and the proposed Blunkett legislation make them
>more and more needed.
>
>-- Peter
>
>
>

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