From: “K. Ellis” <kelli@zeus.towson.edu>
To: “Vincent S. Gunville” <vingun@rgalex.com>
Message Hash: 83499e630d24e1f216b7cb2e8a7778fc4b62cba31978a637b752337bca35c46a
Message ID: <Pine.ULT.3.91.960328123538.21495B-100000@zeus.towson.edu>
Reply To: <315AB3E4.41B6@rgalex.com>
UTC Datetime: 1996-03-29 14:50:26 UTC
Raw Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 22:50:26 +0800
From: "K. Ellis" <kelli@zeus.towson.edu>
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 22:50:26 +0800
To: "Vincent S. Gunville" <vingun@rgalex.com>
Subject: Re: Councilman/Usenet porn case...
In-Reply-To: <315AB3E4.41B6@rgalex.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.ULT.3.91.960328123538.21495B-100000@zeus.towson.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain
On Thu, 28 Mar 1996, Vincent S. Gunville wrote:
> Here is an example of what anonymous remailers can
> do.......
I'm re-forwarding you the second half of this article, because it seems
clear that you didn't read the whole thing the first time.
> > Suponcic, being a public official, knew his way around the local
> > police department, and soon a detective started pounding the Net. By
> > tracing the header information on the Usenet postings, the detective
> > determined--O.K., this part is murky, we admit--that the messages had
> > originated in Ohio, passed through Florida Online, an Internet
> > provider in the Sunshine State, and then through anon.penet.fi, a free
> > E-mail remailer service based in Finland that allows Internet users to
> > post messages anonymously.
> >
> > The identity of the poster was, and is, unknown, though Suponcic has
> > his suspicions. "It's my personal belief that the root of this is
> > political," says the councilman, who had to get an unlisted telephone
> > number and whose wife now wants to move.
> >
> > On Feb. 6, at Suponcic's urging, the Willowick city council passed a
> > resolution asking the state and federal governments to close the
> > "loopholes" that allowed anonymous remailers to operate outside the
> > authority of U.S. law-enforcement officials. "Once you've achieved one
> > of these anonymous identities, you're dangerous, and there's no way
> > law enforcement can track it," Suponcic says. "The animal's out of
> > control."
> >
I know you read at least this far, but keep reading...
> > Still not content, Suponcic contacted Steven LaTourette, the U.S.
> > Congressman who represents his district. LaTourette's staff suspects
> > that the problem lies with Julf Helsingius, the Finn who runs the
> > anonymous remailer. They wrote a letter to the Finnish ambassador and
> > sent copies to the Secretary of State and the chairman of the House
> > Committee on International Relations. The State Department agreed last
> > week to look into the complaint.
> >
> > But here's a reality check. The Finnish remailer could not have been
> > used, since anon.penet.fi no longer transmits binary image files.
> > Jerry Russell, who runs Florida Online and who looked into the case,
> > says he figures the whole thing was a relatively simple prank called a
> > sendmail spoof, in which the prankster posts a message with a phony
> > return address. He says the Willowick police never produced a copy of
> > the posting for him so that he could unravel the tangle for them.
> > Indeed, when the policeman called, "he didn't really understand what
> > he was trying to tell me," says Russell. "The average Joe Blow police
> > detective doesn't know flip about the Internet."
> >
> > Neither does the average public official. And that, friends, is why
> > stuff like the Communications Decency Act--the Christian Coalition's
> > attempt to remove pornography from the Internet--sails through
> > Congress.
Allow me to adjust your point to "Here's an example of what sendmail
exploits can do".
Kathleen M. Ellis http://zeus.towson.edu/~kelli/ kelli@zeus.towson.edu
Diverse Sexual Orientation Coll. Towson State University DSOC@zeus.towson.edu
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