From: db@Tadpole.COM (Doug Barnes)
Date: Wed, 4 Jan 95 20:52:46 PST
To: nelson@crynwr.com (Russell Nelson)
Subject: Re: Remailer Abuse
In-Reply-To: <m0rPh5t-0008ZFC@crynwr.crynwr.com>
Message-ID: <9501050453.AA10198@tadpole.tadpole.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


>    The problem with a _free_ remailer is obvious -- like many
>    other Internet resources, it can suffer from the tragedy of
>    the commons. 
> 
>    Even a negligible fee would do much to prevent gross remailer
>    abuse. It may not be feasible to make remailers in to an
>    industry, but this isn't the point -- it will keep the utterly
>    lame from using it for pranks and their ilk.
> 
> Use First Virtual.  The "information" that you sell is a one-time
> email alias that points to your remailer.  After an hour, that email
> alias gets disabled.  This dynamic setup is easy to do with smail,
> just a matter of dropping a file into a directory.

Heh. An anonymous remailer paid for by credit card... there'd
have to be an additional level of indirection for it to work,
which would make the methods for tracking those who don't pay
quite problematic.

Also, most remailer abuse tends to be of the hit-and-run variety,
which is still nicely enabled by FV.

Anonymous remailers pretty much require anonymous digital cash,
although this could be built on top of some other electronic
payment system with somewhat less payment lag and reversability 
than FV.

Doug