Mixminion: A Type III Anonymous Remailer

Mixminion is the reference implementation of the Type III Anonymous Remailer protocol.

Note: Mixminion is not under active development, and probably will not work if you try to use it. I'd love for somebody to resurrect mixnet remailer R&D, and have some thoughts on the topic which I'd be more than happy to share. Mixminion might serve as a good basis for such an effort. But for practical use, it is not currently recommended. It may not build on your system of choice; if it builds, it may not work. It is not currently supported. Probably only developers, researchers, and anonymity enthusiasts should be trying it out. Good luck! —Nick Mathewson, August 2013.

Documentation

The Design Document gives our justifications and security analysis for the Mixminion design:

The Specification aims to give developers enough information to build a compatible version of Mixminion:

The Manual Pages describe how to use the Mixminion command-line interface to run and configure Mixminion. They're included with the standard Unix distribution, and you can also view them here:

mixminion(1)Command-line client Text pdf Gzipped postscript Ugly HTML
mixminiond(8)Mixminion server Text pdf Gzipped postscript Ugly HTML
mixminionrc(5)Client configuration Text pdf Gzipped postscript Ugly HTML
mixminiond.conf(5)Server configuration Text pdf Gzipped postscript Ugly HTML

Read these papers (especially the ones in boxes) to get up to speed on remailer design and anonymous communication in general.

Resources

The mixminion-dev mailing list is where a lot of the discussion happens. Please look at its archives and consider subscribing. There's also a list for cvs commits.

I've migrated the code to github recently, since CVS is moribund. Have a look at the mixminion organization page. Development is still pretty stalled.

You can see current network reliability/uptime stats here and here. We've got quite a few nodes already!

News

2 Sep 2011, 16:18 EST

Some folks seem interested in hacking on mixminion again. I've migrated the source to Git, and stuck it on github. You can get it here. The documentation repository is also on github.

15 Sep 2007, 15:17 EST

Mixminion 0.0.8alpha3 is now available; a few server-crashing bugs are fixed. You can download the code , read the announcement, or read the release notes. {Signature}. (No windows binaries yet; let me know if you want to build them. See announcement fore more info.)

Mixminion 0.0.8alpha2 is now available; numerous bugs are fixed, and new features are added. This is alpha code, so please report any bugs you find. You can download the code , read the announcement, or read the release notes. {Signature}. (No windows binaries yet; let me know if you want to build them. See announcement fore more info.)

May 10, 13:50 EST

Mixminion 0.0.7.1 is now available; A few minor bugs are fixed. Everybody running a server should upgrade at your convenience, to prevent crashing. Clients may want to upgrade too. You can download the code or read the release notes. {Signature}. If you want to try it on win32, read the release notes, then download the version for users with Python 2.3 installed {Signature}, or the standalone version {Signature}.

April 4, 13:50 EST

The final Mixminion 0.0.7 release is now available. (No changes have been made since 0.0.7rc2.) If you are running any version earlier than 0.0.7rc2, you should upgrade. You can download the code or read the release notes. {Signature}. If you want to try it on win32, read the release notes, then download the version for users with Python 2.3 installed {Signature}, or the standalone version {Signature}.

April 1, 11:20 EST

The second release candidate for Mixminion 0.0.7 is now available. There numerous bugfixes and improvements over the previous release candidate. If no significant bugs are found, I'll release 0.0.7final very soon. You can download the code or read the release notes. {Signature}

If you want to try it on win32, read the release notes, then download the version for users with Python 2.3 installed {Signature}, or the standalone version {Signature}.

March 8, 01:10 EST

The first release candidate for Mixminion 0.0.7 is now available. There are significant changes to the network layer, numerous bugfixes, and several new features, including configurable bandwidth caps, client-side large-message reassembly, and configurable server blocking. You can download the code or read the release notes. {Signature}

If you want to try it on win32, read the release notes, then download the version for users with Python 2.3 installed {Signature}, or the standalone version {Signature}.

December 23, 18:18 EST

Mixminion 0.0.6.2 is now available. Two significant client-side bugs in 0.0.6.1 are fixed. Everybody running a client should upgrade. You can download the code or read the release notes. {Signature}

If you want to try it on win32, read the release notes, then download the version for users with Python 2.3 installed {Signature}, or the standalone version {Signature}.

December 19, 00:46 EST

Mixminion 0.0.6.1 is now available. A few minor bugs in 0.0.6 are fixed. Everybody running a client or server should upgrade. You can download the code or read the release notes. {Signature}

If you want to try it on win32, read the release notes, then download the version for users with Python 2.3 installed {Signature}, or the standalone version {Signature}.

December 14, 00:03 EST

The final Mixminion 0.0.6 is now available. A few minor bugs in 0.0.6rc2 are fixed. Everybody running a client or server should upgrade. You can download the code or read the release notes. {Signature}

If you want to try it on win32, read the release notes, then download the version for users with Python 2.3 installed {Signature}, or the standalone version {Signature}.

December 12, 23:59 EST

Mixminion 0.0.6rc2 is now available for testing. A few minor bugs in 0.0.6rc1 are fixed. The final 0.0.6 release will follow within a couple of days if no critical bugs are found. You can download the code or read the release notes. {Signature}

If you want to try it on win32, read the release notes, then download the version for users with Python 2.3 installed {Signature}, or the standalone version {Signature}.

December 8, 07:21 EST

Mixminion 0.0.6rc1 is now available for testing. Servers are located by hostname, and Windows 98 and after are supported. You can download the code or read the release notes. {Signature}

If you want to try it on win32, read the release notes, then download the version for users with Python 2.3 installed {Signature}, or the standalone version {Signature}.

Note: Due to a bug in this release candidate, it doesn't work with Python versions earlier than Python 2.2. If you are running 2.0 or 2.1, you should either try the code in CVS, or wait for 0.0.6rc2.

October 30, 2003 20:50 EST

The bugfixed version 0.0.5.3 is now available. Everyone running a server sound upgrade: there is a showstopper in 0.0.5.2 that prevents it from relaying messages to older servers. For more information on changes, check out the release notes. You can download the code or read the release notes. {Signature}

October 27, 2003 08:27 EST

The bugfixed version 0.0.5.2 is now available. If you are running a server, you will probably want to upgrade: this release should be a major stability improvement. For more information on changes, check out the release notes. You can download the code or read the release notes. {Signature}

September 16, 2003 11:06 EST

The bugfixed version 0.0.5.1 is now available. If you are running an exit node, you will probably want to upgrade; otherwise, nothing has changed. You can download the code or read the release notes. {Signature}

September 6, 2003 17:29 EST

The final Mixminion 0.0.5 release is now complete. You can download the code or read the release notes. {Signature}

September 3, 2003 12:50 EST

Mixminion 0.0.5rc2 is now available for testing. This release corrects a bug when upgrading servers that support exit messages. You can download the code or read the release notes. {Signature}

September 2, 2003 16:25 EST

Mixminion 0.0.5rc1 is now available for testing. Long messages and email headers are supported, and everything is more stable. You can download the code or read the release notes. {Signature}

July 23, 2003 23:12 EST

Back in February, Nick gave a presentation on Mixminion at Codecon 2003. The audio is now back online; you can again download an MP3 of Nick's presentation.

June 12, 2003 00:43 EST

Mixminion 0.0.4 is, at last, available. You can download the code or read the release notes. {Signature}

June 10, 2003 10:41 EST

Mixminion 0.0.4rc4 is available for testing! In this release are numerous critical bugfixes and cosmetic improvements identified over the last week of testing. There are no more pending items for the 0.0.4 release. Unless somebody finds a showstopper bug by Thursday, I'll just update the version number and call this release 0.0.4. As ever, you can download the code or read the release notes. {Signature}

June 6, 2003 04:48 EST

Mixminion 0.0.4rc3 is available for testing! In this release are numerous critical bugfixes and cosmetic improvements identified over the last week of testing. There are no more pending items for the 0.0.4 release. Unless somebody finds a showstopper bug by Monday, I'll just update the version number and call this release 0.0.4. As ever, you can download the code or read the release notes. {Signature}

May 30, 2003 03:37 EST

Mixminion 0.0.4rc2 is available for testing! Thanks to three hours experience of testing Mixminion 0.0.4rc1, we finally tracked down a critical bug that's been crashing people's servers since 0.0.3. It's better now. You can download the code or read the release notes. {Signature}

May 30, 2003 00:04 EST

Mixminion 0.0.4rc1 is avaialable for testing! Directories are more automated, servers are more stable, key rotation is in, keys are longer, MMTP is better, key generation is automatic, server statistics are started, and the code is generally cleaner. This release breaks backward compatibility; everyone should upgrade and look for bugs before the real release is out. You can download the code or read the release notes. {Signature}

February 20, 2003 13:32 EST

Mixminion 0.0.3 is finally out! You can download the code or read the release notes. {Signature}

February 17, 2003 11:31 EST

The second release candidate for Mixminion 0.0.3 is available. Everyone should upgrade and look for bugs before the real release is out. You can download the code or read the release notes. {Signature}

February 13, 2003 06:47 EST

The first release candidate for Mixminion 0.0.3 is available. Reply blocks and client side pooling are implemented. This release breaks backward compatibility; everyone should upgrade and look for bugs before the real release is out. You can download the code or read the release notes. {Signature}

January 10, 2003 17:02 EST

There's another bugfix release in the 0.0.2 series: Mixminion 0.0.2.2. If you are running a server, you'll want to upgrade. If not, this version changes nothing for you. You can download the code or read the release notes. {Signature}

January 7, 2003 23:18 EST

Released a bugfix patch as mixminion version 0.0.2.1. If you are running a server, you will want to upgrade. You can download the code or read the release notes. {Signature}

January 7, 2003 00:43 EST

Mixminion version 0.0.2 is available for bigger fun and tougher testing! You can download the code or read the release notes. {Signature}

December 16, 2002

Mixminion version 0.0.1 is available for fun and testing! You can download the code , or read the release notes.