The areas I would argue that Zero-Knowledge does provide more security that
Nym.Alias.Net are the following,
1) Multiple protocols (HTTP;IRC;SSH;Web;NNTP) allow for stronger privacy
infrastructure as opposed to privacy on a single protocol (Email/News).
2) By using the Freedom network for reply blocks, and outgoing pseudonymous
mail you have the benefit of avoiding traffic analysis which even
Mixmaster/Type I remailers with chaining suffer from. The traffic shaping
and network cloud allows for a much stronger resistance to traffic analysis
and passive attacks.
3) By delivering reply block mail through the AnonymousIP infrastructure you
remove certain legislative attacks, as described in the following example.
Nym.Alias.Net reply block
Server A <---------> Server B <----------> Server C <--------->
Final Destination POP box
(In this scenario, Server A knows the next hop Server B and Server B knows
both A & C; Server C knows both final POP box and B)
Zero-Knowledge reply block
Server A ---------> Server B -----------> Server C ----------> Final
Destination POP Box
(In this scenario, Server B receives the message through the Freedom
anonymous network cloud so it has no way of knowing the identity of Server
A. Server B only knows Server C's location and requests an anonymous
route to server C)
In this scenario and legislative attack that attempts to use warrants to
back track from Server C to Server A is impossible under the Zero-Knowledge
system and possible under the Nym.Alias.Net system.
The legislative attack of going from Nymserver to Server A to Server B to
Server C is possible under both scenarios, but forward secrecy and automatic
reply block reshuffling with Zero-Knowledge helps reduce the amount of time
that this would have to occur within. (Also in both having reply blocks
include nodes in multiple jurisdictions helps the security from this attack
in both scenarios). The back end PKI that supports key's for nodes, and
key lookups for nodes helps the frequency at which nodes can do key
rotations without effecting the usefulness of the network which helps us
implement forward secrecy.
Ultimately reply blocks will be ditched and replaced with anonymous
distributed database data storage which will further improve the security
model for the Zero-Knowledge system.
Just my 0.02
BTW - Just wait until Beta 3 :)
-Austin
_________________________________________________________________________
Austin Hill Zero-Knowledge Systems Inc.
President Montreal, Quebec
Phone: 514.286.2636 Ext. 226 Fax: 514.286.2755
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.zeroknowledge.com
Are you fast enough? Are you smart enough? We are hiring those who are!
http://www.zeroknowledge.com/jobs/
PGP Fingerprints
5.5.3i = 77 1E 62 21 B3 F0 EB C0 AA 6C 65 30 56 CA BA C4 94 26 EC 00
keys available at
http://www.nai.com/products/security/public_keys/pub_key_default.asp
_________________________________________________________________________
-----Original Message-----
From: Privacy Admin [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: July 22, 1999 12:13 PM
To: Anton Stiglic
Cc: Remailer Operators List
Subject: Re: hush mail
On Thu, 22 Jul 1999, Anton Stiglic wrote:
> Zero-Knowledge Systems Inc has something much better,
> but I'm biased because I work there!
Actually Anton, ZKS pseudonym based mail system isn't much different than
nym.alias.net. The best part about ZKS's is that is makes it transparent -
allowing us to use your existing SMTP/POP3 email client. This is a
huge improvement (UI-wise) over VB apps like PI or JBN, it doesn't provide
stronger security.
BTW Freedom Beta 2 is much better.
--
Admin of Privacy Anonymous Remailer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
PGP key 0x0F44E501 <http://www.privacy.nb.ca/~woz/woz.asc>
