This is true of any network architecture that guarantees delivery of a message between terminii.

The legal conflation you're actually homing in on is we conflate technical terminals with their human users. We've been doing it for years, and it shows no sign of slowing down.

That's true but aren't the feds already able to request that as metadata?

I meant the other party that you are talking too. For example I initiate a conversation with you and now I know your IP address. This was a problem with Yahoo! Messenger which was P2P.

Probably, but a random stalker can't, and your local ISP / network snooper can't tell who you talking to either.

OTOH, many email providers do include the sender's IP, so it doesn't seem like a deal-breaker.

p2p but route it over tor?

yes, let's route billions of people through Tor when we are already scraping by on bandwidth because exit nodes get shut down left and right. and no, the companies themselves shouldn't set up exit nodes to expand the network because then they would still know everyone's IP address and could give that info to the police. either the Tor network gets reinforced on a completely independent basis or nothing

>yes, let's route billions of people through Tor when we are already scraping by on bandwidth because exit nodes get shut down left and right

You realize that hidden services don't require exit nodes?