Re: [perpass] (Possibly Dumb) EMail Security Idea

["Russ White" <[e-mail]>]

> I recall some incident where people had bought triple-redundant links from
> different long-haul providers -- who all used the same underlying fiber.
One
> backhoe did them all in.  Similarly, if the client can easily identify
which pieces
> go together, so can a snooper.

Shared common fate --but that's a different thing, I think. If you
specifically use a shared secret or something along those lines to break the
chunks up, then I think it might be pretty hard to put the pieces back
together. In this case, you might be able to use something like a "side
channel" to send a one time pad that's used as a hash to break the messiage
up, send each piece along a separate channel, and then put it all back
together on the other end... 

Of course, this all assumes a completely new email transport system, and it
assumes the server where the pieces are put back together is secure, or you
use a more POP-like system, where there is no storage of the complete
message on anything other than a local system...

I think this is all possible/doable. The question is --is the world ready
for a new email transport? Do we try and build it, to see if they will come?

Russ