Ian & Stuart's Australian Mac: Not for Sale/Another.not.for.sale (Australia).iso/fade into you/being there/Issues & Ideas/Anonymous remailers/Remailers/hh-soda-remailer-instructions

Text File | 1994-06-05 | 13KB | 352 lines

How to use the hh(tm) Usenet Posters and Anonymous Remailers
by Eric Hollander
Last modified April 25, 1994

This document describes some of the special features of the
hh remailer.  Because this remailer is essentially just a
modification of the standard Cypherpunk's Remailer, I recomend that you also
read soda.berkeley.edu:/pub/cypherpunks/remailer/hal's.remailer.gz.


Introduction:

= Where is this remailer running?

The following sites run this remailer package, and will work according to
the instructions below:

    [e-mail]

I will describe the operations of this remailer using
[e-mail] as the example, but all of the instructions below
apply to all of the remailers on the above list.  Just replace
[e-mail] with one of the other account names.  They are
listed in order of inception, and probably also in order of stability.
Increase your security by spreading your usage among them!

= What does this remailer do?

This remailer allows anyone who can send mail to post to Usenet newsgroups,
and also to send mail to anyone else on the Internet.  Both of these
functions can be anonymous (the identity of the sender is hidden from the
recipient) or non-anonymous (the identity of the sender is known to the
recipient).

= Why is this remailer different from the standard Cypherpunks remailers?

The main difference between this remailer and the other Cypherpunk remailers
is that this remailer allows posting to all Usenet newsgroups, either
anonymously, or non-anonymously.  It also has the regular remailer functions
of forwarding mail, either anonymously or non-anonymously (nonymously?).
The other minor difference is that this remailer adds a random time delay
for anonymous mail and posting.


How to use this remailer for anonymous posting and mailing:

= A note about header fields

This remailer/poster looks at the header of the mail you send it to decide
what to do.  Some mail programs don't allow easy editting of the header.  If
your program doesn't allow editting of the header, you can still use the
remailer.  To do this, send mail in the normal way, but start your message
like this:

    ::
    Anon-Post-To: rec.fish

leaving no blank lines before the :: and a blank line after the header field
to be inserted.  The remailer will consider the line after the :: to be a
part of the header.  All of the instructions bellow can be used with actual
header fields or the :: format.

= How do I use this remailer to anonymously post to Usenet?

Send mail to [e-mail] (or one of the other remailers running
this package) with a header like this:

    To: [e-mail]
    Anon-Post-To: rec.fish
    Subject: I flushed a fish on Friday

    On Friday, I did a terrible thing, so I'm posting
    this anonymously...

This message will be posted to rec.fish, with nothing to indicate who was
the original sender.  Only the Subject field will be retained; everything
else in the header will be discarded.

= How do I post non-anonymously?

Send mail like this:

    To: [e-mail]
    Post-To: rec.fish
    Subject: flushing fish

    How despicable of you to flush a fish!

This will be posted to rec.fish non-anonymously; the From and Subject fields
will be retained in the post.

= Crossposting

To crosspost, simply list the newsgroups, separated by commas, with no
spaces, like this:

    Anon-Post-To: rec.fish,alt.ketchup

Note that excessive crossposting is an abuse of the net.  Some people have
to pay for their news, and they don't want to read "how to make money fast"
in rec.fish.

= Testing

I recomend that you post test messages to make sure you are using the
remailer properly.  Please post these messages to the appropriate test
groups (alt.test, rec.test, etc).  Also, if you post non-anonymously to a
test group, many sites will send you mail confirming that they have received
the post.  To avoid this, put the word "ignore" in the subject line.

= Anonymous mail

This remailer is capable of sending anonymous mail.  To send mail to
[e-mail], send a message like this:

    To: [e-mail]
    Anon-Send-To: [e-mail]
    Subject: Ronald Sukenick

    I think you should read something by Ronald Sukenick.

and [e-mail] will recieve the message, without knowing who sent it.

= Non-anonymous mail forwarding

This remailer supports non-anonymous mail forwarding.  To use this feature,
send mail like this:

    To: [e-mail]
    Send-To: [e-mail]
    Subject: you know who I am

    This mail is from me!


Responding to posts or mail:

= Response blocks

This is a very new feature, and this documentation is lagging behind the
changes to the remailer.  The remailer inserts a block at the end of
anonymous posts and mail.  This block is essentially just the sender's
address, encrypted.  This allows the recipient to respond to anonymous
mail.  All the recipient has to do is including the indicated block at the
very beginning of his mail, send it to [e-mail], and the
anonymous sender will receive it.  Note that the person replying to the
block is not replying anonymously.  This does not use a database.  This
feature is experimental; keep checking for changes to it.

= Vulnerability of response blocks

This feature now uses IDEA encryption, which is thought to be more secure
than DES.  However, this does not mean it's unbreakable.  Also, if the
machine that runs the remailer is compromised, the IDEA key is also
compromised, and all return addresses encrypted with that key are
compromised.  I am currently trying to find solutions to this problem, such
as expiring keys after a certain amount of time, but I am still looking for
a saticefactory system.  From the point of view of machine compromise, this
is only slightly better than a remailer such as anon.penet.fi, which uses a
database, and soda is not a secure machine.  In other words, it would not be
a good idea to post the plans to the stealth bomber through my remailer, but
it's probably a good idea to post personals ads through it.  For security
needs in between those two, use your judgement.


Miscelaneous usage issues:

= Testing mail

Please test the anonymous remailer functions before you use it "for real" by
sending mail to yourself or a friend.

= Chaining, encryption, and other issues

These features are discussed in detail in
soda.berkeley.edu:/pub/cypherpunks/remailer/hal's.remailer.gz.  While you're
looking at that file, you might also want to check out PGP in
/pub/cypherpunks/pgp.  If you haven't installed PGP on your machine yet, you
should try it out.


Advanced features:

These features won't make any sense unless you are familiar with the basic
operation of the remailer.  Also, these features require the use of PGP.
PGP is available by anon ftp from soda.berkeley.edu in pub/cypherpunks/pgp.
NOTE THAT PGP IS EXPORT CONTROLLED.  USERS OUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES OR
CANADA, OR USERS WHO ARE NOT US OR CANADIAN CITIZENS, ARE PROHIBITTED FROM
GETTING PGP FROM SODA.  Once you have PGP on your system, test it out, read
the documentation, make sure you understand the basic concepts of how it
works, and then try it out on this remailer.  Also, Hal's instructions
provide a clearer description of encrypted remail requests.  I highly
recomend reading them.

= Encrypted remail requests

Like most of the traditional cypherpunks remailers, this remailer allows
encrypted remail requests.  To use this feature, create a file that looks
like this:

    ::
    Anon-Post-To: rec.fish
    Subject: fillet of fish

    I like trout fillet...

Then encrypt this file with the remailer's public key.
[e-mail]'s key is:

-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
Version: 2.3a

mQBNAi27mNAAAAECAONCUi/9jdl0SXGhOhT4Vvgl9uOYLgbOjU5kMXEkpFQriCYC
hWfNuhH8zESs9DFTMHCXUsXYrkkm/bHdhGheaHUABRO0LlRvbW15IHRoZSBUb3Vy
aXN0IDxyZW1haWxlckBzb2RhLmJlcmtlbGV5LmVkdT4=
=aoJM
-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

Then, send your message to remailer@soda, like this:

    To: remailer@soda
    Subject: this line is ignored

    ::
    Encrypted: PGP
    [your encrypted file here]

The remailer will decrypt it and post it to the appropriate group.  This
feature also works with Anon-Send-To:.

= Encrypted response

This feature provides a level of security beyond that of almost any other
remailer which is capable of response to anonymous messages.  To use this
feature, first choose a passphrase.  This phrase will be used to encrypt
messages sent back to you.  The encryption will be single-key (IDEA)
encryption, not PGP's normal public-private key encryption.  The reason for
this is that public key encryption is actually uneccessary in this use, and
single-key encryption with this protocol does not require a database (such
as anon.penet.fi's database mapping aliases onto addresses) increasing the
security of anonymous users.

To use this feature, create a file like this, where your-pass-phrase is the
phrase you have selected:

    ::
    Anon-Post-To: rec.fish
    Subject: fillet of sole
    User-Key: your-pass-phrase

    I like it when they cook fish like this...

Then, encrypt this file with the remailer's public key, and send it in as
above.

When a user responds to your post (or mail), his response will be encrypted
with your-pass-phrase.  You can read his response by saving it to a file and
using PGP on it.  PGP will ask you for a passphrase; enter yours, and you
will see his response to your post (or mail).

This feature allows both your posts, and the responses to your posts, to be
securely encrypted, protecting your privacy in both directions.

= Traffic Analysis

This remailer is designed to ensure that mail does not go out in the order
it is received in, to make it more difficult to link a sender to a recipient
by looking at mail logs.  This means that there will be some random delay in
your mail and your postings.


Legal and administrative issues:

= Remailer abuse

This remailer has been abused in the past, mostly by users hiding behind
anonymity to harass other users.  I will take steps to squish users who do
this.  Lets keep the net a friendly and productive place.

= Make Money Fast, the Green Card Lottery, etc

If you use my remailer or poster to transmit Make Money Fast or any similar
chain letter that we have all seen far too many times, I will release your
true identity to the Net and to your system administrators.  You have been
warned.

= A note about keywords

This remailer inserts keywords into the headers and tailers of all posts and
remails.  These headers contain phrases which would probably trigger
automated net monitoring programs, rendering them less effective.  This
insertion is completely automatic and certainly does not constitute a
statement of intent by anyone (especially the remailer operator) to do
anything.

= Future plans

[e-mail] will soon be moving, probably to
[e-mail] (I'd rather have a beer than a soda), and then
possibly to [e-mail].  From there, the next step of
offering an alias-based service should be pretty obvious.  Keep reading
these instructions.

This remailer will soon be going through some big changes.  I am currently
working on an alias service, so users will be able to send mail and receive
replies, anonymously, much like anon.penet.fi and the acs.  This alias
system will require the use of pgp encryption, for my security and the
security of the users.  I believe it will be the only alias system that uses
encryption, making it suitable for users who need two-way communication but
have security concerns.  At some point I may actually prohibit non-encrypted
mail from going through the remailer, but don't hold your breath.

= If you have other questions or problems

Send mail to [e-mail].

= How to get the current version of this file

Send mail to [e-mail] with the string "remailer-info" in
the Subject: line.  This would look like this:

    To: [e-mail]
    Subject: remailer-info

The body of the message is ignored.  Note that the string must be
"remailer-info", exactly, not "remailer.info" or "remailer info" or "help".

= Copyright

This file is copyright 1994 Eric Hollander, all rights reserved.  You are
free to distribute this information in electronic format provided that the
contents are unchanged and this copyright notice remains attached.

= Disclaimer

This remailer is not endorsed in any way by the University of California.
I, Eric Hollander, take no responsibility for the content of posts or
messages, and I take no responsibility for the consequences of using my
remailer.  For example, if you post anonymously, and someone manages to
trace it back to you, I am not responsible.  Also, I have no way of
screening mail that goes through this remailer, so I am in no way
responsible for the content of posts or mail going through.  Also, note that
this remailer is experimental.  Its mode of operation is subject to change
without notice.  Users are advised to check these instructions and to do
test messages often.

= Problem resolution

If someone is doing something inapropriate with this remailer, please send
mail to the remailer operator, as soon as possible.  The problem can only be
solved if the operator is aware of it.