[107530] in Cypherpunks
Re: token mailsystem
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Adam Back)
Fri Jan 15 19:57:36 1999
Date: Fri, 15 Jan 1999 23:28:49 GMT
From: Adam Back <aba@dcs.ex.ac.uk>
To: tv@wlwonline.de
CC: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
In-reply-to: <369F1515.AD76CF69@wlwonline.de> (message from Tom Vogt on Fri,
15 Jan 1999 11:14:45 +0100)
Reply-To: Adam Back <aba@dcs.ex.ac.uk>
Tom Vogt writes of time limited email addresses:
> you click a button and the server generates a bogus e-mail address
> that works as a redirect to that person FOR A LIMITED TIME. so, say
> you look me up and click "contact", then you'll get a page that
> says: "send a mail to 'kasf86q234o8f@tokensystem.com' during the
> next 30 minutes and it'll be relayed to Tom Vogt". it's then my
> decision whether or not and how (anonymous or not) I reply to your
> mail.
Where the idea seems to be to give the recipient more control over who
they receive their email from, and also combining anonymity with this
system.
This is related to the system that Lucent proposed. It is on the web,
only I can't remember it's URL, lwpa.com or something like that.
Their system includes the approach of per originator email addresses
to avoid unwanted email. The email addresses you hand our are related
to the originator you give it to. This allows you to a) track who it
was that sold your email address to some other s**mmer, and b) revoke
email addresses per originator. Their architecture is a proxy mail
(POP3/SMTP proxy), and a web proxy. The web proxy also manages
passwords for subscriber services generating and remembering them for
you.
Zero Knowledge Systems have some of this type of functionality in
their freedom privacy enhanced internet access application. Again
using proxies.
I proposed something similar in relation to hashcash, in the form of
proxies. http://www.dcs.ex.ac.uk/~aba/hashcash/
More general proxy stuff (less related to time or user limited email
addresses):
ByProxy by Quincy Cabell is a generalised java proxy
framework. (www.byproxy.com? or www.besiex.org)
Enigma is a java POP3/SMTP proxy by Ian Brown which does PGP
encryption.
Adam
