From: lce@wwa.com (Larry E)
Date: Thu, 12 Jan 95 19:49:37 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: How do I know if its encrypted?
In-Reply-To: <9501130137.AA03281@eri.erinet.com>
Message-ID: <N3V5lG9s1WC8075yn@wwa.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


In article <9501130137.AA03281@eri.erinet.com>,
pstemari@erinet.com (Paul J. Ste. Marie) wrote:
> At 10:08 PM 1/11/95 -0800, Eric Hughes wrote:
> > ... Seems to me that a quite reasonable condition of use of a remailer is
> >that what is passed isn't human readable.
> 
> Perhaps I missed this, but why?  If someone is going to plant kiddie porn or 
> whatever on you, does it really matter if they encrypt it first or not?
> 

The goal is to convince the two groups of concerned parties that the
remailer operators don't know the contents of what's passing through
their remailers:

         (1) the people who use the remailer, who get a measure of 
             comfort from knowing their communication is secure

         (2) legal groups etc. who may try to hold the remailer 
             liable in some way for what passes through their remailer.

A large percentage of material that passes through remailers might
be offensive to SOMEONE---if even just because an unpopular opinion
is expressed.  

The remailers are operated by people who want to promote information
flow, not restrict it.  They provide an important service that is of
critical importance to some people and groups who use the net.  They
shouldn't be held accountable for the few who abuse the remailers,
and encryption helps prevent that from happening.