"Asynchronous, non-real-time schemes that look like vanilla web traffic are the best."
It's a shame that high-latency mix networks died out with Mixminion [1] a few years ago. There's a lot of interesting research that never got implemented, that would, in my opinion, bring us a lot closer to truly anonymous email.
If this is a topic you find interesting, take a look at the Pynchon Gate [2]. It's a private information retrieval system, proposed by Sassaman (Mixmaster), Cohen (Bittorrent), and Nick Mathewson (Tor), that had a lot of interesting ideas about how to facilitate the anonymous retrieval of email.
It was never implemented, but it's a very approachable paper that serves as an excellent introduction to the incredible world of anonymity networks.
Oh yeah, good ole Mixminion. Yeah, the mix networks were the most promising. Thanks for the paper. That sure is a near-dream team of writers. I'll read it later.
No problem! I could talk for hours about mix networks. If you enjoy that paper, there's a few follow-up papers they wrote that examine some possible threat vectors and possible solutions. All in all, it's a very interesting system.
If you're ever looking for more reading on the subject, I'd recommend all of the starred papers on Free Haven [1]
Oh I love that site. Periodically skim it for interesting reads. Btw, is there a way to contact you or a place you usually frequent if I do get involved in a mix project? My limited resources and memory troubles make it unlikely. However, if I or someone I meet is into it then it would help to have someone that can bring people up to speed on the subject.
It's a shame that high-latency mix networks died out with Mixminion [1] a few years ago. There's a lot of interesting research that never got implemented, that would, in my opinion, bring us a lot closer to truly anonymous email.
If this is a topic you find interesting, take a look at the Pynchon Gate [2]. It's a private information retrieval system, proposed by Sassaman (Mixmaster), Cohen (Bittorrent), and Nick Mathewson (Tor), that had a lot of interesting ideas about how to facilitate the anonymous retrieval of email.
It was never implemented, but it's a very approachable paper that serves as an excellent introduction to the incredible world of anonymity networks.
[1] https://github.com/mixminion/mixminion/
[2] http://freehaven.net/anonbib/cache/sassaman:wpes2005.pdf (PDF Warning)