Behind the Remailers: Operators and Developers of Anonymity Services

Architecture and Background

Len Sassaman & Panel - Behind the Remailers: The Operators and Developers of Anonymity Services Behind the Remailers: The Operators and Developers of Anonymity Services Anonymity and privacy are cherished rights of Internet users. This panel brings together some of the key figures behind the Type II remailer network in operation today. Intended to be an audience-directed presentation, these panelists are prepared to answer all of your remailer related questions, from topics concerning remailer software development, usage, legal implications, social aspects, and personal experiences. Panel Lead: Len Sassaman is a communication security consultant specializing in Internet privacy and anonymity technologies. Len is an anonymous remailer operator, and is currently the maintainer of Mixmaster, the most advanced remailer software available. Len is currently working on finding ways to make anonymity and privacy software more reliable and user-friendly.

Vulnerability Analysis

Panel members: Peter Palfrader is a student of computer science and has been a remailer operator for over 3 years. He is a lead developer on the Mixmaster project. Peter is also the author of Echolot, the most widely used monitoring software for anonymous remailers. As a Debian Developer he maintains a package of Mixmaster which makes it easier for users to facilitate the remailer client. noise is a remop and an attorney. She primarily represents clients with anonymity and privacy concerns.

Exploitation and Demonstrations

Michael Shinn has been using remailers since the anon.penet.fi days and has been running them since the mid 90's. He also runs the joint ACLU/EPIC web remailer, the GMS node of the Remailer Operators list and a heavily used public mail2news gateway. In addition to his privacy enhancing activities, Mr. Shinn sits on the Industry Advisory Board for the Open Policy Group and is a member of the Ops Team for the California Community Co-location Project. He is also founder and President of the George Mason Society. Mr.

Remediation and Defensive Strategies

Shinn is also an accomplished technologist and entrepreneur. He sits on the board of directors of several technology companies and is a semi-regular writer for several technology periodicals. Michael has built several successful technology firms and is currently Managing Partner for the Prometheus Group and co-founder of a new stealth mode company, Infracentric. Before his entrepreneur days, Michael worked at Cisco Systems, Wheel Group, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the White House, amongst other interesting places. Michael is currently writing Linux Firewalls Diagnostics, along with co-author Scott Shinn, for publisher Prentice Hall. Ryan Lackey has operated the havenco (defunct) and metacolo (current) remailers, and has been involved in the cypherpunks and free software movements. Additionally, he founded HavenCo, a datahaven in the North Sea, and has worked in the Caribbean and elsewhere on electronic cash and other cryptographic projects.