Mixminion is the standard implementation of the Type III
anonymous remailer
An anonymous remailer is a server that receives messages with embedded instructions on where to send them next, and that forwards them without revealing where they originally came from. There are cypherpunk anonymous remailers, mixmaster anonymous ...
protocol. Mixminion can send and receive anonymous
e-mail
Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...
.
Mixminion uses a mix network architecture to provide strong
anonymity
Anonymity describes situations where the acting person's identity is unknown. Some writers have argued that namelessness, though technically correct, does not capture what is more centrally at stake in contexts of anonymity. The important idea he ...
, and prevent eavesdroppers and other attackers from linking senders and recipients. Volunteers run servers (called "mixes") that receive messages, decrypt them, re-order them, and re-transmit them toward their eventual destination. Every e-mail passes through several mixes so that no single mix can link message senders with recipients.
To send an anonymous message, mixminion breaks it into uniform-sized chunks (also called "packets"), pads the packets to a uniform size, and chooses a path through the mix network for each packet. The software encrypts every packet with the
public keys for each server in its path, one by one. When it is time to transmit a packet, mixminion sends it to the first mix in the path. The first mix decrypts the packet, learns which mix will receive the packet, and relays it. Eventually, the packet arrives at a final (or "exit") mix, which sends it to the chosen recipient. Because no mix sees any more of the path besides the immediately adjacent mixes, they cannot link senders to recipients.
Mixminion supports Single-Use Reply Blocks (or SURBs) to allow anonymous recipients. A SURB encodes a half-path to a recipient, so that each mix in the sequence can unwrap a single layer of the path, and encrypt the message for the recipient. When the message reaches the recipient, the recipient can decode the message and learn which SURB was used to send it; the sender does not know which recipient has received the anonymous message.
The most current version of Mixminion Message Sender is 1.2.7 and was released on 11 February 2009.
On 2 September 2011, a news announcement was made that stated the source was uploaded to
GitHub
GitHub, Inc. () is an Internet hosting service for software development and version control using Git. It provides the distributed version control of Git plus access control, bug tracking, software feature requests, task management, continuous ...
See also
*
Anonymity
Anonymity describes situations where the acting person's identity is unknown. Some writers have argued that namelessness, though technically correct, does not capture what is more centrally at stake in contexts of anonymity. The important idea he ...
**
Anonymous P2P
An anonymous P2P communication system is a peer-to-peer distributed application in which the nodes, which are used to share resources, or participants are anonymous or pseudonymous. Anonymity of participants is usually achieved by special routi ...
**
Anonymous remailer
An anonymous remailer is a server that receives messages with embedded instructions on where to send them next, and that forwards them without revealing where they originally came from. There are cypherpunk anonymous remailers, mixmaster anonymous ...
***
Cypherpunk anonymous remailer A cypherpunk anonymous remailer is a Type I anonymous remailer that takes messages encrypted with PGP or GPG, or in some cases in plain text, and forwards them removing any identifying information from the header.
Sending a Cypherpunk Message
S ...
(Type I)
***
Mixmaster anonymous remailer
Mixmaster is a Type II anonymous remailer which sends messages in fixed-size packets and reorders them, preventing anyone watching the messages go in and out of remailers from tracing them. It is an implementation of a Chaumian Mix network.
Hist ...
(Type II)
**
Onion routing
Onion routing is a technique for anonymous communication over a computer network. In an onion network, messages are encapsulated in layers of encryption, analogous to layers of an onion. The encrypted data is transmitted through a series of net ...
***
Tor (anonymity network)
Tor, short for The Onion Router, is free and open-source software for enabling anonymous communication. It directs Internet traffic through a free, worldwide, volunteer overlay network, consisting of more than seven thousand relays, to conc ...
**
Pseudonymous remailer
A pseudonymous remailer or nym server, as opposed to an anonymous remailer, is an Internet software program designed to allow people to write pseudonymous messages on Usenet newsgroups and send pseudonymous email. Unlike purely anonymous remailers ...
(a.k.a. nym servers)
***
Penet remailer
The Penet remailer () was a pseudonymous remailer operated by Johan "Julf" Helsingius of Finland from 1993 to 1996. Its initial creation stemmed from an argument in a Finnish newsgroup over whether people should be required to tie their real name ...
*
Data privacy
Information privacy is the relationship between the collection and dissemination of data, technology, the public expectation of privacy, contextual information norms, and the legal and political issues surrounding them. It is also known as data pr ...
*
Traffic analysis
Traffic analysis is the process of intercepting and examining messages in order to deduce information from patterns in communication, it can be performed even when the messages are encrypted. In general, the greater the number of messages observed ...
References
External links
*{{Official website, http://mixminion.net/
Windows GUI Frontend for MixminionApple OSX, Macport File for Mixminion
Network stats
Noreply number of mixminion nodes
Internet Protocol based network software
Anonymity networks
Routing
Network architecture
Mix networks