From: Geoffrey KEATING <geoffk@discus.anu.edu.au>
Newsgroups: alt.humor.best-of-usenet
Subject: [alt.privacy.anon-server] Re: usenet vs email
Date: 5 Feb 1998 10:46:00 +0100

Subject: Re: usenet vs email 
From: nobody@REPLAY.COM (Anonymous)
Newsgroups: alt.privacy.anon-server

On 1998/01/18, Anonymous wrote: 

> What is the advantage of posting messages to usenet as opposed to
> email if you're using a nym and chaining through remailers?  Traffic
> analysis?

Depends on what you mean by "traffic analysis".

Suppose there's a stalker posted outside the door of your teepee,
monitoring every brave coming in and out.

Now, suppose that one brave is completely cloaked from head to foot in
buffalo skin, so that the stalker can't tell who's entering your teepee
or what scouting message he's carrying.

Now, suppose that for every brave that enters your teepee, a wolf leaves
your teepee.  The stalker can't tell what the relationship is between
one brave entering and one wolf leaving.

The brave cloaked in buffalo skin corresponds to your encrypted message
sent to the remailer.  The wolf leaving corresponds to a translated
message leaving the remailer.

Now, to post the message on a ng rather than using email means that the
source of the message has no destination.  The recipient of your message,
who is the only one with the decryption key, is simply browsing a ng, not
opening his own mail.  If one million surfers are reading your ng message,
the stalker outside your teepee doesn't know whether you're the intended
recipient, or some brave in Casablanca.

Of course, your teepee is lined with lead, and you destroy the decryption
key after reading the message.  ;)