From: jdd@aiki.demon.co.uk (Jim Dixon)
Date: Sat, 6 Aug 94 11:13:31 PDT
To: cmullen@cs.oberlin.edu
Subject: Re: Remailer ideas (Was: Re: Latency vs. Reordering)
Message-ID: <4089@aiki.demon.co.uk>
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In message <199408061404.KAA02300@cs.oberlin.edu> Spencer Mullen writes:
> Jim Dixon writes:
> 
> >Commercial remailers would probably be very concerned with legal
> >issues, both criminal (pornography, etc) and non-criminal (copyright
> >violations).
> 
> It would seem that remailers shouldn't be anymore accountable for
> passing on illicit pornography than the postal services are today.

I really do not want to try to argue the legal issues here; I am not
a lawyer and claim no expertise.

At a practical level, if you were running, let us say, an Internet
Service Provider (ISP) and offered remailer services, you would in
time attract the business of people who used your services for
various unlawful purposes.  You could not stop this without going
through everyone's private mail.  This would itself probably be
illegal and certainly would lose you business.

I understand that Playboy magazine spends lots of money pursuing
people for copyright violations, and that criminal charges have been
filed by the authorities in Tennessee or Arkansas against someone
in California who sent them pornographic materials over a telephone
line.

The Post Office has what is called in the UK "crown immunity"
against such prosecutions.  So do "common carriers" in the USA.
They are given special legal status.  I do not know, but I believe that
the telephone companies are legally common carriers.  As a
remailer gateway operator, you would probably have to argue things
out in court, which could be very expensive.  In the case of
criminal charges, you would have to expect to lose your equipment
for some time, and perhaps your freedom.

I suspect that legally the key step would be to never store messages
for any period of time.  It would be prudent to erase them as soon
as their receipt was verified.	This would also save disk space, and
it would be in line with the 'trust in silence' ethic.

I would do this and then publicize the fact that I did so widely.
This would discourage public prosecutors, who really don't like to
do futile things.  And I would incorporate the gateway and make
sure it wasn't worth a great deal.  This would discourage civil
suits; clients get very irritated when they win the lawsuit and
find that after all their legal expenses the target has filed for
bankruptcy.
--
Jim Dixon