tREADME - mixmaster - mixmaster 3.0 patched for libressl
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tREADME (8417B)
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1 Mixmaster 3.0 -- anonymous remailer software -- (C) 1999 - 2000 Anonymizer Inc.
2 (C) 2000-2008 The Mixmaster Development Team
3 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4
5 This program consists of
6
7 * a remailer client:
8
9 The remailer client supports sending anonymous mail using Cypherpunk and
10 Mixmaster remailers. It supports OpenPGP encryption (compatible with PGP 2,
11 PGP 5 and up, and GnuPG).
12
13 The client can be used with a menu-based user interface and with command line
14 options.
15
16 * a remailer:
17
18 The remailer supports the Cypherpunk and Mixmaster message formats. It can
19 be integrated with the mail delivery system of Unix-based computers or use
20 the POP3 and SMTP protocols for mail transfer. Mixmaster includes an
21 automated abuse-handling system.
22
23 Please report any problems via the bug and patch trackers at
24 http://sourceforge.net/projects/mixmaster/
25
26
27 Installation:
28 ------------
29
30 Libraries:
31
32 Mixmaster requires the libraries OpenSSL, zlib, and pcre.
33
34 If you want to use the menu-based user interface, you also need the ncurses
35 library. If these libraries are not installed on your system, you will need
36 to obtain the latest versions from the sources below and extract them in the
37 the Src/ directory first.
38
39 OpenSSL is available from http://www.openssl.org/source/
40
41 Ncurses can be obtained from http://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/ncurses/
42
43 The Perl Compatable Regular Expressions library can be obtained from
44 ftp://ftp.csx.cam.ac.uk/pub/software/programming/pcre/
45
46 The zlib compression libraries can be obtained from
47 http://www.gzip.org/zlib/
48
49 To install or upgrade Mixmaster, type `./Install'.
50
51 Mixmaster clients rely on pingers to compile statistics and keyrings for
52 currently operating remailers. A list of public pingers can be obtained from
53 http://www.noreply.org/allpingers/.
54
55 Alternatively clients can operate their own pingers to generate statistics.
56 Pinger software can be obtained from http://www.palfrader.org/echolot/. If you
57 choose this option, please publish the pinger results for the benefit of other
58 Mixmaster users and notify the metastats maintainer at admin@mixmin.net.
59
60 The required files published by pingers are:-
61 pubring.asc Type 1 remailer keys
62 pubring.mix Type 2 remailer keys
63 rlist.txt List of reliable type 1 remailers
64 mlist.txt List of reliable type 2 remailers
65 type2.list List of known type 2 remailers (optional)
66
67 Using the remailer client:
68 -------------------------
69
70 To use the menu-based user interface, simply run `mixmaster'. To send an
71 anonymous or pseudonymous reply to a message from within your mail or news
72 reader, you can pipe it to `mixmaster'.
73
74 The interactive mode supports sending mail and contains a simple mail reading
75 function. OpenPGP messages are encrypted and decrypted automatically.
76
77 In the non-interactive mode, Mixmaster reads a message from a file or from its
78 standard input. The command line options are described in the manual page
79 (mixmaster.1).
80
81
82 Mixmaster as a remailer:
83 -----------------------
84
85 The Mixmaster remailer can be installed on any account that can receive mail.
86 Non-remailer messages will be delivered as usual. If you have root access, you
87 may want to create a new user (e.g., `remailer') and install Mixmaster under
88 that user id.
89
90 The Install script provides a simple way to set up the remailer. More
91 information about configuring Mixmaster can be found in the manual page.
92 Typically, incoming mail is piped to "mixmaster -RM". In a UUCP setting, it may
93 be useful to use just "mixmaster -R", and run "mixmaster -S" once all messages
94 have arrived.
95
96 Announcing a new remailer to the public is most commonly done by posting the
97 remailer keys and capabilities to alt.privacy.anon-server as well as the
98 "remops" mailing list. Information about the remops list can be found here:
99 http://lists.mixmin.net/mailman/listinfo/remops
100
101
102 Installation problems:
103 ---------------------
104
105 In case one of the libraries Mixmaster uses is installed incorrectly on your
106 system, place the library source code (available from the locations listed
107 above) in the Src directory, remove the old Makefile, run the Install script
108 again and answer `y' when asked whether to use the source code.
109
110 The ncurses library can use termcap and terminfo databases. The Mixmaster
111 Install script tries to find out whether terminfo is available. If you get a
112 "Can't open display" error when starting the Mixmaster menu, run "./configure
113 --enable-termcap; make lib/libncurses.a" in the ncurses directory.
114
115
116 Security notes:
117 --------------
118
119 The ciphers and the anonymizing mix-net protocol used in Mixmaster correspond
120 to the state of the art (see the Security Considerations section of the
121 Mixmaster Protocol specification for details). However, no security proofs
122 exist for any practical cryptosystem. It is unlikely that their security will
123 be broken, but there is no "perfect security". Software can also contain
124 implementation errors. The complete Mixmaster source code is available for
125 public review, so that everyone can verify what the program does, and it is
126 unlikely that security related errors or secret back doors in the software
127 would go unnoticed.
128
129 No software is secure if run in an insecure environment. For that reason you
130 must make sure that there is no malicious software (such as viruses) running on
131 your computer. Deleted files and even passphrases can in many cases be read
132 from the hard disk if an adversary has access to the computer. The use of disk
133 encryption programs is recommended to avoid this risk.
134
135 Anonymous messages are secure as long as at least one of the remailers you use
136 in a chain is honest. You can use up to 20 remailers in a chain, but
137 reliability and speed decrease with longer chains. Four is a reasonable number
138 of remailers to use. Many remailer operators sign their keys. You should verify
139 those signatures with OpenPGP to make sure that you have the actual remailer
140 keys.
141
142 Anonymous keys usually cannot be introduced to the OpenPGP web of trust without
143 giving up anonymity. For that reason, this client will use any OpenPGP key
144 found on the key ring, whether it is certified or not. Your key ring must not
145 contain any invalid keys when used with this program.
146
147 If you want to use a pseudonym, the client will ask you for a passphrase to
148 protect the nym database. Your passphrase should be long, and hard to guess.
149 Anyone who gets hold of your nym database and private keys and can determine
150 the passphrase will be able to compromise your pseudonymous identities. Note
151 that some operating systems may store your passphrase on your hard disk in
152 clear.
153
154 While a good client passphrase can protect your keys if someone gets hold of
155 your files, the remailer passphrase offers only casual protection for the
156 remailer keys. If you install a remailer, the remailer passphrase must be
157 different from your private passphrases.
158
159 Note that nym.alias.net style nym-servers are trivially breakable by an
160 adversary performing a long-term intersection attack. Discussion of
161 these attacks can be found in section 4.2 of The Pynchon Gate, by
162 Sassaman, Cohen, and Mathewson, 2005. Use of Type I remailers for any
163 purpose is discouraged.
164
165
166 Copyright:
167 ---------
168
169 Mixmaster may be redistributed and modified under certain conditions. This
170 software is distributed on an "AS IS" basis, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
171 either express or implied. See the file COPYRIGHT for details.
172
173 A license is required to use the IDEA(TM) algorithm for commercial purposes;
174 see the file idea.txt for details.
175
176 Mixmaster uses the compression library zlib by Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler,
177 the free ncurses library and the regex library by Philip Hazel. This product
178 includes cryptographic software written by Eric Young (eay@cryptsoft.com). This
179 product includes software developed by the OpenSSL Project for use in the
180 OpenSSL Toolkit (http://www.OpenSSL.org/). For some platforms: This product
181 includes software developed by the University of California, Berkeley and its
182 contributors.
183
184 Additionally, this software uses code provided by the members of the
185 Mixmaster development team. The members respectively hold the copyright
186 to the code in question, having elected to make it available under the
187 Mixmaster license.
188
189 All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
190
191 $Id: README 974 2008-03-03 17:40:11Z rabbi $