> I'd love to see PJ publish her public key and encourage people to learn how to use it.
That helps, but it doesn't mask the data groups like the NSA are really after (who is talking to who, and when).
That helps, but it doesn't mask the data groups like the NSA are really after (who is talking to who, and when).
The way in which it will work is having all users of the system constantly send encrypted streams to each other ( mostly gibberish ). When you want to send a real message you simply replace the encrypted gibberish with some real content.
It will implement "onion" style repeated encryption to prevent direct links from being statistically analyzed as well.
Look for it in 6 months or so. Details will be up at circleofdistrust.com in about a month or so.
Dear NSA: I can and will be designing a fully anonymous open source distributed messaging system that is entirely secure even if you tap every line in the world. At the very best, you will be able to accuse people just of running the software. If you don't like this, I'd advise you that your only option is to hire me and/or pay be enough money to become disinterested in finishing the creation of the software.
I am also a Libertarian, which means I don't believe in large government, due to the corruption that follows.
So long as my goals and beliefs are for freedom and privacy, the creation of secure anonymous messaging is of little interest to the NSA. Will they "like" if it is intentionally designed in a way that it could be used by criminals? No... But I should have no fear of that.
Just because guns can kill people doesn't mean you should use them for that. Just because atomic theory can be used to make large bombs doesn't mean nuclear energy is wrong. Just because pressure cookers contain heat well at pressure doesn't mean you should use them for anything besides cooking your food.
So, I think you just lost my trust. You're coming at this from the wrong angle, instead of coming from a princpled stance you're approaching this as a value proposition.
Too bad, up to there you had my attention.
What if I don't trust server X to really be doing that?
What if the government contacted owner of server X and altered the software not to do that?
The system I am designing keeps anonymity without any need to trust the server. Hence the name. Don't trust anyone.
Essentially, set up a new block-chain that allows transactions to contain 'large' messages (IE. large enough for long plaintext, but probably not enough to embed videos). Then, when you want to send a message, encrypt it using the intended recipients public key, then publish the cipher-text to the blockchain.
Unfortunately in such a system, you have to download all emails, or request what you want in order to actual get the email you want.
The system either does not scale, or will leak information in order to remove the requirement of getting everyone elses emails.
Also, the government can collect -all- of the encrypted messages easily, and potentially eventually correlate who an anonymous id is based on their knowledge of who received messages on which day.
Basically, it sucks.
So long as this is occurring, the way the scheme works, unless you download every message, it could be determined which id belongs to whom. Once you determine that it is easy to track originating packets to that destination since it is not an onion system.
Additionally, without side channel communication ( in person or posting that address somewhere publicly ) it is impossible to anonymously communicate to an intended recipient.
Edit: OTOH, this this does just mean they attack one or both nodes if they care when content is being sent.