CIA and NSA Running Anonymous Remailers?
by Viktor Mayer-Schoenberger
CIA & NSA run anonymous remailers
I attended last weeks "Information, National Policies, and
International Infrastructure" Symposium at Harvard Law School,
organized by the Global Information Infrastructure Commission,
the Kennedy School and the Institute for Information Technology
Law & Policy of Harvard Law School.
During the presentation by Paul Strassmann, National Defense
University and William Marlow, Science Applications International
Corporation, entitled "Anonymous Remailers as Risk-Free
International Infoterrorists" the questions was raised from audience
(Professor Chaarles Nesson, Harvard Law School) - in a rather
extended debate - whether the CIA and similar government agencies
are involved in running anonymous remailers as this would be a
perfect target to scan possibly illegal messages.
Both presenters explicitly acknowledged that a number of
anonymous remnailers in the US are run by government agencies
scanning traffic. Marlow said that the government runs at least a
dozen remailers and that the most popular remailers in France and
Germany are run by the respective government agencies in these
countries. In addition they mentioned that the NSA has
successfully developed systems to break encrypted messages below
1000 bit of key length and strongly suggested to use at least 1024
bit keys. They said that they semselves use 1024 bit keys.
I ask Marlos afterwards if these comments were off or on record, he
paused then said that he can be quoted.
So I thought I pass that on. It seems interesting enough, don't you
think?
Best
Viktor Mayer-Schoenberger
Information Law Project
Austrian Institute for Legal Policy
[email protected]
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