From: Ken McGlothlen <mcglk@cpac.washington.edu>
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 93 16:56:14 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: ANON: remail abuse
In-Reply-To: <199307211508.AA17766@Menudo.UH.EDU>
Message-ID: <9307212358.AA06651@yang.cpac.washington.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Just another lurker, speaking up for the first time. . . .

elee9sf@menudo.uh.edu (Karl Barrus) writes:

[...first, an example of how to harrass without a remailer, then:]

| I guess I'm one of those people who would get upset and blame the person
| responsible for the action instead of software and/or technological
| advancement for possible providing a means.

While I tend to agree with you on this point, the fact remains that most
people, by and large, are idiots.  And while I'm a closet libertarian at heart,
this one simple fact of life gives me pause on a number of issues where some
potentially useful and/or fun object can be put to extreme nastiness without
much (or any) knowledge or imagination:  firearms, poisons, neurotoxins,
gamma-ray sources, genetic-engineering kits . . . and anonymous remailers.

| As Peter mentioned, payphones are already perfect for harrassment.  So
| is junk mail... and the crucial thing here is these services cost money.
| I'm sure future remailers will incorporate digital cash and be a
| pay-for-each-remail service.

Oh, big deal.  Payphone = 25c.  Junk mail = 29c for *first-class* harrassment
mail.  :)  Anonymous E-mail remailers = something much less, or free at the
moment.

Money is *not* the issue.  Period.

The reason anonymous remailers are not the same as payphones or junk mail is
that the latter two leave tangible clues behind.  While I'm not entirely happy
with the US justice system, it seems to me that given society's current
limitations, a police force of some sort is generally a good thing (if strict
controls are kept on it).  (Sorry, I realize that this is a bit of a fringe
opinion in *this* group, but. . . .)  Both payphones and mail leave tangible
clues which can be investigated and traced by law enforcement authorities.
Anonymous mail doesn't---at least, not without actually running a process or a
logger on the machine itself.

So they're *not* equivalent.

| Chris also mentions concers about distributing porn and stuff like that
| through remailers.  I guess this could be done, but why give up the speed and
| convenience of ftp, fsp, irc (dcc), and usenet posting?  These services
| distribute files faster and further than remailing.

But not as anonymously, except in the case of Usenet postings.

				---Ken McGlothlen
				   mcglk@cpac.washington.edu
				   mcglk@cpac.bitnet