[Remops] Data on remailer traffic

[Charles Teller]

> Do we want attackers to have access to the content vs. cover traffic
> ratio?

Completely valid question, and I'm open to discussion on it. I have two
thoughts on it at this point.

First, I think the ratio is already known by certain parties. It has
always seemed reasonable to assume that plaintext traffic out of remailers
is tracked. I am not proposing examining anything else other than messages
that have already gone through the entire remailer chain.

Second, I think research into this could prove useful. If not useful, at
least interesting. Examining plaintext messages coming out to get an idea
of how much real traffic is being sent could prove enlightening. And of
course anything encrypted (via PGP or a Type-II hop) would not reveal
anything and so would not (could not) be examined.

"Examined" is the wrong word there, I think.

Those are my thoughts. I could be wrong, and as I said in my first email,
I am open to discussion on this. I do not run a remailer, so it is up to
others to decide if this is useful and worth any possible risk.