From: "L. Detweiler" <ld231782@longs.lance.colostate.edu>
Date: Tue, 17 Aug 93 17:20:28 PDT
To: "T. William Wells" <bill@twwells.com>
Subject: encrypted anonymous traffic
Message-ID: <9308180018.AA08773@longs.lance.colostate.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Mr. Wells:

I strongly am against your policy of prohibiting encrypted traffic
through your server, and your apparent monitoring of existing plaintext
information. I believe you should make this severe & oppressive
restriction (the former) and breach of privacy, confidentiality, and
trust (the latter) clear in your introductory statements to your
server. While providing this service of anonymity is commendable, it is
worthless without minimum levels of functionality and assurance, and
IMHO outlawing encrypted traffic is bordering on that line.

You `defuse' J. Helsingius's suggestion of comparing your service with
the post office by comparing it with the exchange of bombs in parcels,
saying that `analogies are slippery'. Indeed, you have slipped out of
this one and away from the crucial point. No one can send any `bomb'
through mere text, and to compare harassing mail (which is definitely
not to be condoned) to it is to expose your naive and self-serving view
of the matter.

I have a theory that one major motivation toward running such a server
is a somewhat paternalistic desire to `monitor' traffic through one's
server to one's `family'. Far better to do this with your own family
than through a public service, where it is inappropriate, deplorable,
and voyeristic.  That you arbitrarily restrict traffic to that which
you can read is a rather embarrassing indictment of your intentions,
despite your lame protestations that just the `capability' is relevant.
Anonymity and encryption are as interlinked as two sides of a hand. Who
are you to shear one half away?

Sincerely,
L. Detweiler