The pynchon gate: a secure method of pseudonymous mail retrieval

Abstract

We describe the Pynchon Gate, a practical pseudonymous message retrieval system. Our design uses a simple distributed-trust private information retrieval protocol to prevent adversaries from linking recipients to their pseudonyms, even when some of the infrastructure has been compromised. This approach resists global traffic analysis significantly better than existing deployed pseudonymous email solutions, at the cost of additional bandwidth. We examine security concerns raised by our model, and propose solutions.