Responsibilities of Mix Operators
Due to the inherent insecurity of the Internet, all sent and received messages
in the AN.ON/JonDonym system are signed cryptographically.
Mix certificates
In the process of configuring your Mix with the MixConfig tool, you will create
a cryptographic certificate that identifies your Mix and enables it to sign
messages. This certificate must be sent to the operators of your neighbouring
Mixes, and you must receive their certificates to get the Mixes connected. In a
static
configuration, you will have to exchange the certificates by e-mail or
other means with the neighbouring Operators (an automatic exchange and
verification is in preparation, however).
Operator certificates
The Operators in the AN.ON / JonDonym system may run more than one Mix. For
the purpose of identifying which Mix belongs to which Operator, each Operators
has to create a so-called Operator certificate. This certificate
identifies the Operator as private individual or as organisation.
Trust
Certificates and keys itself don't provide communication security, as anyone
who has a computer is able to create them. Therefore, so-called certificate
infrastructures exist: trusted authorities sign the certificates and keys
of people or organisations that have proven their identity and the ownership of
the certificate/key. The AN.ON / JonDonym service supports more than one of
these certification authorities. For example, you may get Operator certificates
signed by the TU Dresden, the JonDos GmbH and the German Privacy Foundation. Please
not that your Mixes will neither ve visible nor usable for clients if you do
not have a valid certificate.
Certificates and keys are uniquely identified by their hash values, too. If
you get a certificate from someone that is not signed by an authority you trust
in, you can still verify if it is really his/her certificate by comparing the
SHA1/MD5 fingerprint with the fingerprint he/she will tell you. This is, for
example, the SHA1 fingerprint of the JAP-Team certificate:
4D CF 81 F5 92 4B 11 19 6B 44 2A CD 53 E2 46 E1 0D 9A 16 F6
Secure communication with the JAP-Team
The best way to contact us is by e-mail There is no need to encrypt
messages for us, since we will not exchange any secret information. Signing
your e-mails is no bad idea, though, as this will provide some transparency and
reassurance in case of doubt. Here is the source of our PGP key and it's
fingerprint (this key is optional and only for e-mail communication and has
nothing to do with the Mix network):
If you do not know how to sign or how to check the signature of digital
documents with PGP/GPG, you will find a short manual here.
If you don't trust this document itself you should confirm the key's
fingerprint by some other means, e.g. calling us by phone. If you simply send
us your public PGP or GPG key in an unsecured way (e.g. e-mail), we will also
not trust it until it has been confirmed by some other means, like a phone
call, or a signature by an authority we trust in.