Remailer list

I know this page is somewhat out of date. I'm in the process of updating it now. Thanks to Andy Dustman's page at efga for the remailer information.

This is an automatically generated listing of remailers. The first part of the listing shows the remailers along with configuration options and special features for each of the remailers. The second part shows the 12-day history, and average latency and uptime for each remailer. You can also get this list by fingering [email protected].

This is a more or less comprehensive list of the type-1 remailers. Here are their pgpkeys. For information about the Mixmaster (also known as type-2) remailers, see the Mixmaster list.

$remailer{'cyber'} = '<[email protected]> alpha pgp';
$remailer{"mix"} = "<[email protected]> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut ek ksub reord ?";
$remailer{"replay"} = "<[email protected]> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut post ek";
$remailer{"jam"} = "<[email protected]> cpunk mix pgp hash middle latent cut ek";
$remailer{"winsock"} = "<[email protected]> cpunk pgp pgponly hash cut ksub reord ?";
$remailer{'nym'} = '<[email protected]> newnym pgp';
$remailer{"squirrel"} = "<[email protected]> cpunk mix pgp pgponly hash latent cut ek";
$remailer{'weasel'} = '<[email protected]> newnym pgp';
$remailer{"reno"} = "<[email protected]> cpunk mix pgp hash middle latent cut ek reord ?";
$remailer{"cracker"} = "<[email protected]> cpunk mix remix pgp hash ksub esub latent cut ek reord post";
$remailer{'redneck'} = '<[email protected]> newnym pgp';
$remailer{"bureau42"} = "<[email protected]> cpunk mix pgp ksub hash latent cut ek";
$remailer{"neva"} = "<[email protected]> cpunk pgp pgponly hash cut ksub ?";
$remailer{"lcs"} = "<[email protected]> mix";
$remailer{"medusa"} = "<[email protected]> mix middle"
$remailer{"McCain"} = "<[email protected]> mix middle";
$remailer{"valdeez"} = "<[email protected]> cpunk pgp pgponly hash ek";
$remailer{"arrid"} = "<[email protected]> cpunk pgp pgponly hash ek";
$remailer{"hera"} = "<[email protected]> cpunk pgp pgponly hash ek";
$remailer{"htuttle"} = "<[email protected]> cpunk pgp hash latent cut post ek";
[email protected] is _not_ a remailer.
[email protected] is _not_ a remailer.
[email protected] is _not_ a remailer.
[email protected] is _not_ a remailer.

There is no remailer at relay.com.

Groups of remailers sharing a machine or operator:
(cyber mix reno winsock)
(weasel squirrel medusa)
(cracker redneck)
(nym lcs)
(valdeez arrid hera)

This remailer list is somewhat phooey. Go check out
http://www.publius.net/rlist.html for a good one.

Last update: Thu 23 Oct 97 15:48:06 PDT
remailer  email address                        history  latency  uptime
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
hera     [email protected]             ------------  5:03:45  99.86%
nym      [email protected]             +*#**#**###       :34  95.82%
redneck  [email protected]             #*##*+#****      2:00  95.44%
mix      [email protected]     +++ ++++++*     19:18  95.27%
squirrel [email protected]              -- ---+---    2:34:19  95.16%
cyber    [email protected]        *++***+ ++      11:26  95.11%
replay   [email protected]              ****   ***      10:06  94.93%
arrid    [email protected]                   ----.------   8:50:34  94.41%
bureau42 [email protected]          ---------    3:38:29  93.53%
cracker  [email protected]           +  +*+*+*+      16:32  92.80%
jam      [email protected]          +  +*-++++      24:14  92.79%
winsock  [email protected]      -..-..----    9:59:18  92.22%
neva     [email protected]                ------****+   1:03:02  90.39%
valdeez  [email protected]                               4:58:22 -36.97%
reno     [email protected]                        1:01:28  -2.65%

• # response in less than 5 minutes.
• * response in less than 1 hour.
• + response in less than 4 hours.
• - response in less than 24 hours.
• . response in less than 2 days.
• _ response in more than 2 days.

Options and features

cpunk

A major class of remailers. Supports Request-Remailing-To: field.

eric

A variant of the cpunk style. Uses Anon-Send-To: instead.

penet

The third class of remailers (at least for right now). Uses X-Anon-To: in the header.

pgp

Remailer supports encryption with PGP. A period after the keyword means that the short name, rather than the full email address, should be used as the encryption key ID.

hash

Supports ## pasting, so anything can be put into the headers of outgoing messages.

ksub

Remailer always kills subject header, even in non-pgp mode.

nsub

Remailer always preserves subject header, even in pgp mode.

latent

Supports Matt Ghio's Latent-Time: option.

cut

Supports Matt Ghio's Cutmarks: option.

post

Post to Usenet using Post-To: or Anon-Post-To: header.

ek

Encrypt responses in reply blocks using Encrypt-Key: header.

pgponly

Accepts only pgp encrypted messages.

special

Accepts only pgp encrypted messages, and has slightly different formatting.

mix

Can accept messages in Mixmaster format.

reord

Attempts to foil traffic analysis by reordering messages. Note: I'm relying on the word of the remailer operator here, and haven't verified the reord info myself.

mon

Remailer has been known to monitor contents of private email.

filter

Remailer has been known to filter messages based on content. If not listed in conjunction with mon, then only messages destined for public forums are subject to filtering.

alpha

Supports the alpha.c2.org format of nym service.

middle

Is a "middleman" style remailer - creates its own chain of other remailers.

newnym

Supports the nym.alias.net format of nym service. Note: nym.alias.net will be listed soon.

• Nymserver.com is perhaps the anonymizing service that comes closest to matching anon.penet.fi's features and ease of use. For more information, check the Web page or send mail to [email protected].
• Hotmail is a mail-to-Web gateway. When you sign up, you get an e-mail address of <your-choice>@hotmail.com. Then, to read your mail, you go to the Hotmail Web page. You do have to register, but it's free (advertiser supported). Check it out!
• Mailmasher is another mail-to-Web gateway, similar to HotMail. It's run by an employee of HotWired, and is billed as "an experiment in Web-Based email delivery." Judging by the statement on privacy, it looks very privacy-friendly.
• At least one new commercial remailer is attempting to fill the void left by the demise of anon.penet.fi. The integrity remailer offers basically the same features (easy to use, two way communications) as anon.penet.fi for a modest fee. It's currently in testing phase.
• A similar, penet-like commercial service is being offered by edtec. The fee is $5 per month.
• There is a new, free remailer at interlink-bbs.com. For more information, write to [email protected]. It's only one way, and offers weak security, but it is free.
• AOL has been called "the largest anonymous remailer in the world," and for good reason. It allows up to five screen names, each of which is a pseudonym traceable only by AOL and law enforcement. Plus, disks offering 10 free hours are quite easy to come by.

• The AAAS Anonymous Communications on the Internet project looks interesting. If you have a few minutes, fill out their online survey.
• Ian Goldberg, David Wagner, and Eric Brewer have written a paper on "Privacy-enhancing technologies for the Internet". It's available in both HTML and PostScript versions.
• The penet remailer has been closed down. For more info, see Julf's web page describing the shutdown.
• The spooks review the remailer net. The link is to a paper entitled "Risk-Free Access Into The Global Information Infrastructure Via Anonymous Re-Mailers," which is by Paul A. Strassmann and William Marlow, both of SAIC, a company with ties to the intelligence community. They have particularly nice things to say about this remailer list: "There is an agile and very active global community that keeps track of the average latency time, uptime of frequently used re-mailers. They post their findings, which in many cases is superior to what a commercial customer is likely to find out about their own data center performance, or about the service quality offered by Compuserve, America-On-Line of Prodigy." Thanks, guys!
• André Bacard's anonymous remailer FAQ is an excellent nontechnical introduction.
• Remailers are starting to show up in the popular press, including these two articles in Wired, and anti-anonymity editorials in the Wall Street Journal (a rebuttal was written by Avi Baumstein) and San Francisco Chronicle (by Martha Siegel herself, no less!). I wrote a response to the latter, but it didn't get printed. Peter Lewis wrote a front page article for the New York Times that had most of its facts wrong. A better attempt was made by Reid Kanaley in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Thanks to Avi Baumstein for putting these documents and others related to anonymity on the Web.
• Another recent news item is the compromise of anon.penet.fi as a result of a Scientology complaint. Only one name was obtained (originally they wanted the entire database), but the legal situation remains unclear. Here's a post describing what happened and press release from Johan Helsingius. There was a story in Time Magazine by Joshua Quittner. Daniel Akst of the LA Times wrote a column about the incident, as well.
• For a somewhat, ah, er, different take on Net anonymity, hop over to L.Detweiler's home page. By the way, he tells me that I am an "outsider" relative to the cypherpunks. This may come as a surprise to the many who have been following my involvement with the remailer network and PGP. However, Mr. Detweiler knows (better than I) that I don't really subscribe to the hidden "black" cypherpunk agenda.

• Version 0.45 of premail is now out! It requires a Unix system and Perl 5. After setup, it manages all of the details of using the anonymous remailers, including Mixmaster remailers. It also automatically encrypts and signs outgoing email, and decodes incoming email with a single command. Perhaps most useful is its ability to create and manage alpha.c2.org and nym.alias.net style nyms with good security (each remailer in the chain re-encrypts the message) and easy commands.
• Version 3.4 of mailcrypt is out, and it directly supports remailers and PGP encryption. It implements many of the same features as premail, but in Emacs. Anyone who uses Emacs for their news and mail should definitely check this one out. It can automatically load the information from this remailer list.
• Now at version 2.7: Private Idaho is an anonymous remailer utility for Windows, supporting PGP, the cypherpunks remailers, and Mixmaster, and the alpha.c2.org alias server. It too automatically configures itself based on this remailer list.
• Wil Ussery has written a collection of Anonymous FAQs, including setting up anonymous accounts, posting anonymously to Usenet, and sending anonymous mail with Private Idaho. These FAQs will be primarily useful for Windows users.
• ChainMail is a remailer chaining utility for Mac users, by Jonathan Rochkind. To use it, you need Eudora, MacPGP, and applescript, in addition to a number of applescript scripting additions.
• Privtool is a PGP-aware mailer that also supports Mixmaster.
• While it is possible to post to Usenet directly through the remailers, many feel that it is better to use a mail to news gateway. For those of you using premail 0.44, it is indeed your only option. Thanks to Don Kitchen for maintaining this information.

• New: Geoff Keating's Java remailer applet. This one is cooooool.
• The Community ConneXion has put the Web-premail gateway on its SSL server. That means that you can send anonymous email from the Web without exposing your message in the clear on the connection between your Web browser and the gateway. Good stuff.
• Sameer Parekh's NEXUS Berkeley / Community ConneXion has a web page set up for sending anonymous mail from your Web client.
• Michael Hobbs has set up Web gateway to premail. Now you can send anonymous email directly from your Web browser. Don't use this for extremely sensitive stuff, though, because it isn't quite as secure as running premail yourself (in particular, the connection between your Web browser and the gateway is not encrypted).
• Noah's Place has another Web to remailer gateway set up.

• A good source for remailer information is the Anonymity, remailers, and your privacy page compiled by "Galactus". This is also the best place to look for information about anon.penet.fi.
• Bob Swanson has put together some tutorials on PGP and the remaliers.
• Matt Ghio's remailer list is available by fingering [email protected]. This file also has all the public keys for PGP-friendly remailers. Matt also has a pinging service similar to this one, available by fingering [email protected]. Update: Chaos is having problems getting recognized on the Net. Try [email protected] and see if that works any better. Last I checked, the information here was more than a month out of date. Newer information can be gotten by sending mail to [email protected].
• Replay remailer help.
• Penet remailer help.
• Help for Matt Ghio's alias system for creating anonymous addresses. I'm not sure if this service is still supported.
• Help for the Alpha alias server (also available in a plain email version). In my opinion, this is the best way to create an alias for anonymous replies to mail. Not only is it the most cryptographically secure, but you get to pick the alias nickname of your choice. The email addresses are of the form [email protected]. Highly recommended.

• The exon remailer now has its own home page, including stats, instructions, and the remailer's public key.
• New: The nym.alias.net nymserver has many more features than the first-generation alpha.c2.org style. Now that the latest releases of Private Idaho and premail support it directly, it's just as easy to use.
• Usura's home page has a bunch of remailer related stuff on it, including a help page on chaining remailers.
• Ecafe remailer has its own Web page, including quick info about how to use the remailer without encryption or any other extras.
• Shinobi remailer has its own Web page.
• Tjava remailer has a couple of Web pages from the main Tjava web page linked here, including a nice, easy-to-use Web gateway.
• Pamphlet remailer's Web page includes full sources and some other helpful information.

• You want to send secure mail to someone, but don't know their key. Where are you going to get it? Try the keyserver at MIT.
• The cypherpunks ftp site has some remailer related stuff in it.
• Vince Cate's Cryptorebel and Cypherpunk page has pointers to lots of cypherpunk resources.
• Dave Merriman's CypherSite is a new site that looks promising.
• John Perry's jpunix page has cool links for Mixmaster, remailer statistics, and other stuff.
• Lance Cottrell's home page, which has his Chain script, the Mixmaster remailer client (including Sun binaries!) as well as other cypherpunk related topics.
• Vince Gambino's remailer page has a good collection of remailer help files.
• Now you can get MIT PGP 2.6.2 directly off the Web.