General introduction to Mix Servers
The AN.ON/JonDonym anonymity service is based on so called Mix cascades: A
cascade consists of several consecutive single Mix servers (a first Mix, zero
or more middle Mixes and a last Mix) and one terminating web-proxy. For a
working Mix cascade at least two Mixes and the web-proxy are needed. Each Mix
opens a port where users (in case of the first Mix) or the previous Mix (in
case of a middle or last Mix) may connect to. The users send their web requests
to the first Mix that passes them on to the next one and so on until they have
reached the last mix and the web proxy, respective. The web response takes the
same way back. Many users use the cascade to send messages at the same time,
and all message packets are encrypted for each mix. Therbeby no one, even the
Mixes and their operators themselves, knows which user requests which
information. Only if the operators of all Mixes work together, the conenctions
of a user may be uncovered. This provides a high level of anonymity.
The AN.ON/JonDonym network provides information about presently working Mix
cascades, the number of connected users on a cascade and the amount of data
they send. This is useful, as it gives the users the possibility to find active
cacades to connect to and information about their relative anonymity. This
information is distributed to the user clients by distributed server components
called InfoService. They collect the data
from the Mixes and act as a distributed and redundant information database.
What is this document about?
What you're reading right now is about how to run an AN.ON/JonDonym Mix as an
anonymity provider, in the following called Operator .
What this document is not about
It's explicitly not an introduction or documentation about how to use the
AN.ON/JonDonym service or the JAP/JonDo program for anonymisation. If you're
seeking just for how to use the client you're wrong here. For information about
the client program called JAP or JonDo, respective, please refer to the
information on the sites of its maintainers (TU Dresden, JonDos GmbH).
If you want to participate in the further development you're also wrong
here. You find detailed information about all development topics on the sites
of the code maintainers (TU
Dresden, JonDos GmbH).