From: anonymous-remailer@shell.portal.com
Date: Sun, 18 Feb 1996 08:11:27 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: CyberManicheans (was Re: CyberAngels)
Message-ID: <199602172335.PAA06490@jobe.shell.portal.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


"declan+@CMU.EDU" or someone using that identity has written:

  I fear the so-called "CyberAngels" more than I do the Feds.
  At least with their brand of jackboots, there can be
  accountability.

  The CyberAngels are more like CyberCads, CyberFrauds, or   CyberCriminals.

Cyber-vigilantes?

Odd that their home page has a blue-ribbon.  They don't seem to
understand what the hell they are doing... it's not a requirement
that ISPs require online presence to be verifiable anyway.

Even if you're ISP operator knows who you are, it doesn't follow
that it's definitely YOUR presence in a usenet post or on IRC.
There's plenty of semi-anonymity on the net without using things
like remailers or "decense" protocols or DC-Nets.

Under their logic, we should all have little bar codes implanted
in our skulls and checked at every street crossing and doorway.

There's also a difference between rudeness and criminal activity.

Anonymity isn't a cause of crime.  It's icing on the cake, and
criminals will find a variety of other ways around validated
User-ID at the ISP level anyway.... which lulls one to a false
sense of security, since once you're got a legitimate-appearing
ID for your ISP, you can do quickie hit-and-run "cybercrimes"
and fall off the face of the earth anyway.

There's just so much an ISP or even a clerk at a department store
can do to verify your identity.  One store I know doesn't accept
checks from Post Boxes, believing that they are all-too-often
used for fraud... but a street address from a fly-by-night mail
box rental is undetectable by them.

The Cyber Angels are just as clueless as the authors of the
CDA.

Cheers,
[***CENSORED***]