Cypherpunk anonymous remailer

A Cypherpunk anonymous remailer, also known as a Type I remailer, is a type of anonymous remailer that receives messages encrypted with PGP or GPG, follows predetermined instructions to strip any identifying information, and forwards the messages to the desired recipient.[1]

Cypherpunk anonymous remailers are vulnerable to traffic analysis attacks, which take advantage of the predictable order in which messages are sent to recipients. This predictability can potentially reveal the identity of the sender. To address this weakness, Type II and Type III remailers were developed.[2] Prior to the introduction of Mixmaster (Type II) remailers, users attempted to mitigate this issue by sending messages in batches[3] or by using multiple remailers in sequence to further obscure the sender's identity.[4]

Mixmaster remailers were built upon the technology of Cypherpunk remailers, rendering the latter obsolescent.[5] However, there are still websites and systems which rely on the general ideas of layered encryption and identity obfuscation behind Type I remailers.[6]

  1. ^ "Anonymous Remailers". mason.gmu.edu. Retrieved 2023-12-11.
  2. ^ Van Oorschot, Paul C. (2 March 2023). "Anonymous remailers + secure email" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2023-12-31.
  3. ^ Anonymous Remailers. (n.d.). Retrieved August 10, 2023, from [1]Archived 2021-09-24 at the Wayback Machine
  4. ^ Remailers: Send Emails without Registration. (n.d.). Retrieved August 10, 2023, from [2]Archived 2023-06-09 at the Wayback Machine
  5. ^ Winkler, S., & Zeadally, S. (2015). An analysis of tools for online anonymity. International Journal of Pervasive Computing and Communications, 11(4), 436–453. [3]Archived 2023-08-13 at the Wayback Machine
  6. ^ Lutkevich, Ben (April 2021). "What is Obfuscation?".