[Cryptography] Email is securable within a coterie

James A. Donald jamesd at echeque.com
Sat Dec 7 01:54:35 EST 2013


On 2013-12-07 15:24, StealthMonger wrote:
> "Bob Simmons" <bsimmons at compassnet.com> writes:
>
>> Actually, I may have finally solved this for myself.  By using the
>> anonymous remailer at dizum.com to send a message to its own
>> mail-to-news gateway, carefully following its syntax requirements, I
>> have been able to post an anonymous message on alt.anonymous.messages
>> that looks much like all the others there.  Way to go, Granny!
>
> Hooray!  Nice to see things come up roses once in a while.
>
> You are uniquely qualified right now to set forth instructions
> comprehensible to other "Grannies" explaining how you solved this.
>
>> Of course, if I were to use this for real, I would have to be sure
>> dizum.com isn't a honeypot.
>
> Hence the virtue of using CHAINS of remailers, so that if even just one
> of them is good, your anonymity is secure.  (And the step after that is
> to operate a remailer yourself so you KNOW one of them is good.)

The anonymity of bitcoin comes from the fact that everyone is, or 
recently used to be, his own remailer.

However, the cost of operating a client that is a full and equal 
participant in tracking and propagating bitcoin transactions has become 
greater and greater, and so fewer and fewer people are full and equal 
participants.

As a result, bitcoin is becoming less and less anonymous.

This is one of the effects of the scaling problem I complained about at 
the beginning.

Nonetheless, bitcoin is a huge success, and having an imperfect bitcoin 
is a lot better than having no bitcoin at all.  My criticisms were 
valid, but Satoshi Nakamoto was correct to not allow the best to be the 
enemy of the good.





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