From: nobody@wazoo.com (Anonymous)
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 1997 10:26:54 -0800 (PST)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Pending Attack on Mailmasher and Pseudonymous Posting
Message-ID: <199702111824.LAA20739@earth.wazoo.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


One of the denizens from alt.flame (wotan@databasix.com / wotan@netcom.com) 
is on a personal crusade to get the Mailmasher pseudonym server shut down, 
claiming that it was "abused" by accepting "forgeries".  As you'll recall, 
the pretext of "abuse" was conveniently used my the CoS to get several 
remailers shut down.

Let's not let the enemies of privacy win this one!  Here's how William
McClatchey, aka "Wotan", concluded his post:

> Well, I was nice and polite when the forgeries began.  I sent toxic a 
> nice message asking that he disable the abitlity to forge wotan@databasix 
> and wotan@netcom.  That appears to be too hard for him.  He gets his 
> access from mci.
>
> I encourage anyone who is being forged due to the deliberate negligence 
> on toxic's part to write hotwired and MCI asking that mailmasher be shut 
> down until it can longer be used to commit forgeries.

Mr. McClatchey (Wotan) is certainly well aware that you can't detect 
"forgeries" without positive proof of a person's identity, which would defeat 
the entire purpose of posting anonymously/pseudonymously.  And to "disable the 
ability to forge" e-mail addresses is well beyond the scope of Mailmasher, 
since it's as easy to do as changing the settings in Netscape, Eudora, etc.  
His demands are like asking the USPS to make sure that the return address you 
put on each envelope you mail is your own!