From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May)
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 94 10:12:38 PST
To: dwomack@runner.jpl.utsa.edu (David L Womack)
Subject: Anonymous Pools
In-Reply-To: <9401271740.AA04663@runner.utsa.edu>
Message-ID: <199401271809.KAA22366@mail.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


David Womack writes:

> Nice as remailers are, I wonder if it might be
> better to simply create a "message drop".
> Various anon ID's would be created, with
> suitable passwords. 
> 
> If Sam wishes to mail to Joe, he sends
> to the account.  It sits for up to a week
> before auto-deletion;  prior to that time
> Joe can check his account for messages,
> retrieve as appropriate, leave other 
> messages, and leave.

The "message drop" is essentially what a "pool" is, and such pools
have been run before, and may still be running. (That few use them is
an ongoing issue.)

Mailing a message anonymously to a bulletin board, a newsgroup, or
some other publically accessible area is the idea. A newsgroup (Eric
Hughes and I proposed the facetious newsgroup "alt.w.a.s.t.e" for such
messages, after Pynchon's mail service in "The Crying of Lot 49") has
the advantage of worldwide distribution and essentially no ability to
trace who reads the group. I used the groups "alt.extropians" and
"alt.fan.david-sternlight" for the anonymous posting pools to be used
with my example of "BlackNet."

Of course, world-readable newsgroups will not continue to work
forever, as volume of messages increases. (On the other hand, net
bandwidth may increase faster than pool use, so....)

Hope this helps.

--Tim May


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