From: Karl L. Barrus <barrus@tree.egr.uh.edu>
Date: Thu, 14 Jan 93 06:36:40 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: anonymous service shutdown (pax)
Message-ID: <9301141435.AA07332@tree.egr.uh.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



This was posted to alt.security.pgp: (I trimmed the header)
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The anonymous and encrypted mail service at PAX has been shutdown.

The site that connects PAX has been told by someone from AARNet (the
Australian Academic Research Network) that the service is unsuitable
for AARNet, and that if it is not stopped then the feeding site will
be disconnected from the net.

There has been no communication from AARNet to me or anyone else at
PAX, but I cannot allow the feeding site to put itself at risk hence
the service is closed until further notice.

I am lead to believe that this is not so much AARNet's policy, but the
NSF Net's policy and the NSF have brought pressure to bear on AARNet,
as they believe that all mail that crosses their network must be traceable
to its origin, ipso facto no anonymous mailers. I have not been approached
by either organization personally so I cannot confoirm this.

I am extremely disappointed but c'est la vie.

It was an interesting experiment, and proof that the concept of anonymous
encrypted mail is feasible with simple tools. Hopefully someone somewhere
outside the jurisdiction of these authorities will be able to continue the
good work.

david clunie (dclunie@pax.tpa.com.au)

ex-anon.admin@pax.tpa.com.au :(
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Uh oh, looks like anon.penet.fi is the only one left (besides the one
at twwells, but it is more limited than pax or penet).

I think this raises some important and scary issues for we
cypherpunks.  Does anybody have a printout of NSF guidelines about
tracing mail back to its origin?  This may affect our remailers (if
word gets out!) in that logs might have to be kept...or worse :-(

I run an anonymous remailer, and I depend upon people to not abuse the
service.  If somebody wants to use it to request the source code for
the internet worm, fine.  Or distribute virus source code, okay (but
encrypt the code for heaven's sake :-)  But don't threaten, libel, or
insult somebody via anonymous mail (never mind that you can do all
these things anonymously with the postal service, but the difference
is everybody uses the post office).  

Like it says in the pgp docs, if everybody encrypted their mail, then
it would be a right taken for granted, and people would scream bloody
murder if it were taken away.  If "everybody" routes their mail, then
it too would become acceptable. So we need MORE remailers than the
four I know of - alumni, rebma, rosebud, extropia (there was one at
soda but it was shut down, right??)  (subliminal hint: it's real easy
to run one of the cypherpunk remailers, you just need unix, pgp, and
perl)

Comments?

/-----------------------------------\
| Karl L. Barrus                    |
| barrus@tree.egr.uh.edu (NeXTMail) |
| elee9sf@menudo.uh.edu             |
\-----------------------------------/