Today, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> In a couple weeks I'm going to release Tcl/Tk code that can
> a) download all articles from a newsgroup,
> b) download selected (by any header line) files from a
> newsgroup.

Of course, remail clients, e.g., Jack B. Nymble v2, have this
capability.  Is the intent here to produce another remail client,
one that has a Web interface (see below)?

> I also need to add a file splitter and builtin remailer
> capabilities.

JBN2 also has a "Split message if larger than n bytes" option.

> How does one find the active remailers?

Remailer statistics are posted daily to alt.privacy.anon-server.  
Some of those who post statistics reference Web pages containing
that information as well.

> because the remailers have a let-through-once capability for
> some window, like a week.

Typically, the remailer keeps a log of the MD5 hash for each
incoming message for some length of time; one week is common.  The
remailer will then delete messages that hash to a value already in
the log. This reduces the effectiveness of replay attacks.

These replay caches also permit remailer users to send messages
through redundant chains with the same final remailer.  Redundant
chains increase reliability, while the message log prevents
duplicates.  (Remailers are notoriously unreliable; the test
statistics that tell users which remailers are reliable usually show
at least half of the active remailers to be losing messages.)

> How does one find all the mail-to-news gateways?

Some of them are in posts to a.p.a-s.

> Can a generic WWW-based distribution be created?

Someone concerned enough about privacy to use an anonymous remailer
might want the client on the local machine, perhaps compiled locally
from inspected source code.  Or are you certain that major music
companies won't put up their own Web page to "help" others
distribute pirated material?

> Tcl code can directly interface to a mailer without a browser.

So you *are* writing a remailer client?

> Is there a standard way for one remailer to get another's
> encryption key?

Almost all, if not all, remailers respond to a message that has
"remailer-key" (without the quotes, of course) as its subject.  
They reply with a message containing the PGP and Mixmaster keys.
(Remailers also respond to "remailer-help", "remailer-conf", and
"remailer-stats".)  Some remailer operators automate the process of
retrieving keys.


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