[SGVLUG] PRIVACY???

[Chris Smith]

On 9/26/05, Dustin <laurence at alice.caltech.edu> wrote:
> On Mon, 26 Sep 2005, John E. Kreznar wrote:
> > Anonymizing remailers deliberately introduce random latency --
> > typically between 10 minutes and 3 hours -- between message receipt
> > and retransmission, and deliberately randomize the order in which
> > messages are sent, and use other techniques as well, all these things
> > precisely to thwart the tracing of a message through the remailer
> > cloud.
>
> Um, I think that's good advice, but I think you're confusing applications
> and problem domains.  Minutes or hours are suitable for a non-interactive
> system like email.  Tor is good for interactive TCP things like web
> browsing--I'm not sure even those of us who remember owning 1200 baud
> modems (I think there's a Commodore 64 modem out in the garage :-) would
> accept an extra 10min-3hr latency for web browsing. :-)  Tor is actually
> fast enough for web browsing, and I use the combination for all my
> ordinary browsing and rarely shut off the proxy.  The delay is noticable,
> but tolerable.

Zero Knowledge Systems had a system (Freedom) that seemed more
sophisticated than Tor. It actually went to the trouble of enforcing a
consistent packet size and adding random delays (as well as working at
the IP layer, to prevent leakage of information through UDP, ICMP,
etc.). Sadly, people gripe about the performce loss caused by the
relatively minor delays that are introduced.

--
Chris