From: Karl Lui Barrus <klbarrus@owlnet.rice.edu>
Date: Sun, 14 Nov 93 23:20:19 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: ANON: pseudospoofing confusion
Message-ID: <9311150716.AA22551@flammulated.owlnet.rice.edu>
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>Does the ECPA (the law regulating communications privacy) or the
>copyright laws apply to material that was written under a
>*pseudonymous* identity? I would consider this a grey area. A court

Well, there may be some legal precedent to look up: some of the
greatest works of literature were published under "pseudonymous"
identities.  Lewis Carroll, George Orwell, Mark Twain, George Eliot:
none of these people ever existed.  In fact, Mary Ann Evans published
under "George Eliot" in order to pretend to be male; I guess you could
call her master pseudospoofer, since she specifically created a fake
identity in order to fool others.

I suppose "Publius" doesn't qualify as a pseudospoofer since the three
gentlemen who were responsible for the _Federalist Papers_ were
probably just trying to hide their identity (at first) and not go
about creating new ones.

I'm sort of fuzzy on the distinction between pseudonymous and
pseudoanonymous; is it that a pseudonym is obviously so?  For example,
an id on anon.penet.fi is obviously a pseudonym, so if I were to use
it, I would be pseudonymous.  In a sense, every mail address you see
here is a pseudonym.

Now, pseudoanonymous is when a fake identity is created, without it
being obviously so.  (Right?)  So if I were to obtain another account
with a different user name, etc. and use that account, I would be
pseudospoofing. (?)

But the difference between these two seems so slight, a semantic one
rather than practical.

For example, suppose several people were in communication with someone
they had never met.  One person (of the several) is curious as to the
identity of the mystery person, and tries to find out information
about this person.  Very little is turned up.  So little, it could be
that the mystery person is "pseudoanonymous", a fake identity.  Are
the several people being pseudospoofed?  How can they tell one way or
the other without actually meeting the mystery person?  If they can't
tell, then what difference does it make?

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