From: Jeremiah A Blatz <jer+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 20:16:28 -0800 (PST)
To: cypherpunks@EINSTEIN.ssz.com
Subject: Re: remailer spam throttle
In-Reply-To: <199703250150.BAA01138@server.test.net>
Message-ID: <0nC_=a200YUh07u_00@andrew.cmu.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


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Greg Broiles <gbroiles@netbox.com> writes:
> I think there are two broad models of complaints/problems with remailers:
> 
> 1. The recipient is angry because they received a message they didn't like.
> (because it's an advertisement, or it's rude, or it's an image that their
> parents didn't like ..) 
> 
> 2. A third party is angry because the sender sent some information to the
> recipient which the third party thinks should not have been sent. (copyright,
> trademark, defamation, tortious interference with [prospective] contract,
> etc.) 
> 
> Your "contract" model (which looks like you really mean it to be a waiver of
> warranty/damages and/or an indemnification agreement) addresses (1) to the
> point of overkill, but it doesn't reach (2), because there's no contract with
> the third party, who is the party who's likely to be filing suit.
> (Indemnification by the sender might work, if you worded the contract
> correctly - but then you've got to abandon anonymity, and the value of
> indemnification from person you don't know whose assets/finances are unknown
> is pretty low.)
<snip>

Does anyone here actually know the requirements for common carrier
status? (A web search proved mostly uniformative, except that now I
know that Ohio University offers a course in CC Regualtions.) While my
intuitive notion of what a CC is does mean that ISP's are not good
CC's (ISP's want to not carry every newsgroup, want to not let people
have accounts for any old reason, etc), remailers seem like a perfect
candidate. For example, you could have a remailer that has one simple
rule: they only allow 10 messages a day from people who aren't other
anon. remailers. That way, the system isn't rejecting any traffic
"unreasonably," and gains some legal protection. If someone form, say,
a praticularly profitable religous institution calls up and says "We
belive that certain copywritten internal documets were sent through
your remailer." You say "Sorry, dude, I just pass the messages along."


I imagine that there would be problems keeping messages anonymous ir
regards to the feds, as I imagine that there would be some analogy to
phone taps, but legal protection from civilians is a step in the right
direction, and a few remailers in civilized jurisdictions would make
the feds' lives difficult.

Jer

"standing on top of the world/ never knew how you never could/ never knew
 why you never could live/ innocent life that everyone did" -Wormhole

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