the.com/mix networks
the internet equivalent of laundering your mail through a dozen shady post offices.
means a system where messages get relayed through multiple servers, each shuffling and re-encrypting them so nobody can trace who sent what to whom.
from proposed by david chaum in 1981, decades before anyone cared about metadata; he wanted untraceable email before email was even a thing.
inventordavid chaum, also father of digital cash
tor differencetor hides content, mix nets hide timing too
tradeoffstrong anonymity costs you real-time speed
batching trickmessages held and shuffled to defeat timing analysis