From: internaut@aol.com
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 93 11:08:57 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: FWEE!: the importance of being patient
Message-ID: <9304191408.tn35454@aol.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Yo,

Apropos of my earlier posting calling for a delay in the establishment of the
WB remailer, I herein repost portions of Marc Ringuette's excellent comments
from March 26th on Remailer strategies:

>>We must address a strategy question before it jumps on us.
>>Do we want to be yet another "this remailer exists, let's
>>stomp on it" whipping boy, or will another tactic be more
>>effective?
>>
>>I have the following suggestion.  Do not announce our
>>cypherpunks remailers right away.  This is not the right time.
>>Instead, announce that we intend, at a later date, to install
>>remailers which are "friendly" in the sense that they use a
>>special header line, but which will be not be able to be shut
>>down.

Essentially, Marc and I agree on this issue (if I read him correctly). Marc's
point seems to be that prematurely establishing anon remailers such as the WB
system before the World is really ready for them will make us vulnerable to
attack on a policy level and will significantly dimish the viability of such
systems in general, by opening debate on whether or not this is a good idea
before most potential users even understand WHAT it is we're trying to do.

>>[ My suggestion for how to do this:  encourage thousands of
>>users who support anonymity to run the software, and make it
>>easy for them to do so.  Then, thousands of users must be
>>kicked out in order to prevent remailers being available! ]

This gets back to what I was saying about educating WB users, providing them
with friendly software and getting lots of support before going public.

>>But, here's the important part, DELAY RELEASE until after a
>>waiting period. The delayed release is intended to allow
>>concerned network sites and individuals to install filters for
>>these messages, and to allow users the time to discuss this
>>(and, for instance, to voice their objections to catch-all
>>anonymity filters at the news-relay level).  It also prevents
>>our opponents from achieving a sense of "something must be
>>done" urgency.  [...]

I couldn't have put it better. Opponents are looking for a chink in the
theoretical anon armor, and at this point there are many.

Calling all remailer specialists...

  dave

-----
ASIDE: I'm not sure how many of you saw the posting about Port Watson in the
Bahamas "An Island in the Net...", but it got me to thinking about how many
Cypherpunks, Extropians and Libertarians would actually be interested in
collaborating on setting up a physical location for the preservation of a
secure, encrypted, anon remailing site on an island not legally bound by any
nation (ie. no more problems like Julf has). I suppose it's a bit fantastic
to consider, but I'm looking into the viability of selling/renting my SF
house and moving down there. Anyone want to join me for a meeting on this
subject? Would it be appropriate for discussion at the next physical meeting?