In recent years, new encryption programs like Tor, RedPhone, TextSecure, Cryptocat, and others have taken the spotlight - but the old guard of remailers and shared inboxes are still around. Alt.Anonymous.Messages is a stream of thousands of anonymous, encrypted messages, seemingly opaque to investigators. For the truly paranoid, there is no communication system that has better anonymity - providing features and resisting traffic analysis in ways that Tor does not. Or so is believed. After collecting as many back messages as possible and archiving new postings daily for four years, several types of analysis on the contents of alt.anonymous.messages will be presented and several ways to break sender and receiver anonymity explained. Messages will be directly and statistically correlated, communication graphs drawn, and we'll talk about what challenges the next generation of remailers and nymservs face, and how they should be designed.
Tom Ritter is interested in nearly all aspects of cryptography, privacy, anonymity, and pseudonymity. He contributes to http://crypto.is and tries to explain the difference between Onion Routing and Mixing to as many people as he can. He is located corporeally in New York City, virtually at http://ritter.vg, and meta-physically has been lost for quite some time.