From: Toto <toto@sk.sympatico.ca>
Date: Wed, 20 Aug 1997 12:41:07 +0800
To: "Robert A. Costner" <pooh@efga.org>
Subject: Re: Anonymous Remailers
In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.32.19970818234422.038013f4@mail.atl.bellsouth.net>
Message-ID: <33FA7114.5ED1@sk.sympatico.ca>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Robert A. Costner wrote:
> If anyone has any comments on how they have used the Georgia Cracker remailer, I'd appreciate the comments being emailed to me.  Anonymously or not.
> 
>   -- Robert, pooh@efga.org

Robert,
  I regularly teach members of health and mental-health mailing lists
and support groups how to use anonymous remailers, as well as how to
forge their headers to prevent remailer operators from discovering
their identity.
  A number of these people are from southern states, including 
Georgia, and have indicated that they find the ability to post
anonymously to health groups very valuable in allaying fears of
their sharing of personal health information coming back to 
haunt them.

  In particular, I advise people who are afflicted with such medical
conditions as Tourette Syndrome and OCD to use anonymous remailers
if they find (or fear) that their impulsivity in screaming "Bullshit!"
when they smell bullshit will cause them trouble in the future.
  Personally, when I email politicians and the like, I usually use
anonymous remailers, including the Georgia Cracker, so that I don't
have to worry about being discriminated against and/or investigated
and/or imprisoned for being afflicted with a physical and mental
condition which causes me great discomfort when I am forced to tell
polite lies under the guise of free speech.
  In short, a ratfucker is a ratfucker is a ratfucker, and if anyone
objects to being called one, then they should make an effort not to
be one, rather than calling for my head on a platter because I call
a spade a spade (or a "fucking shovel").

  Two nights ago I began to teach my niece and her high-school girl
friend how to use remailers for anonymity to communicate with others
in a manner that will not leave them vulnerable to tracking/stalking
by strangers.
  Law Enforcement Agencies fully recognize the need for anonymous
communications, setting up hotlines that they advertise as being
free from call-tracing, etc. Is this capacity to be denied to 
private citizens and groups who wish to communicate with those 
who need their help?

  If someone wants to spam me, or threaten me, or whatever, through
the use of anonymous remailers, fine--I have a delete key and I have
mail filters.
  If someone else is too fucking lazy or unconcerned with using the
available technology and tools to do the same, then where the fuck
do they find the time and energy to call for myself and others to
be held prisoner behind an ElectroMagnetic Curtain in order to 
"protect" them from "real life?"
  Every time some Nazi piece of shit announces his or her intention
to "protect" somebody, my freedom, privacy and human rights seem to
get thrown in the trash. 

  My lawyer in Austin, Larry Joe, once told me about a client who
phoned him from prison and said, "I have a TV and radio, I get
three meals a day and cigarettes, and there's even a weight room
here. It's not really like being in prison."
  Larry Joe asked him, "Do you have a key for the door?" The youth
replied, "No." Larry Joe told him, "Trust me...you're in prison."

  I'm growing tired of those who want to lock all of the doors on
the InterNet and control the keys so that the citizens will be
imprisoned behind an ElectroMagnetic Curtain where they are only
allowed to travel at the discretion of a higher authority.
  The only people who suffer from being imprisoned behind walls
of censorship and fascism are the poor and the powerless. The
Nazi rocket scientists, the Spamfords and the adult web site
operators will always emerge from the wars with a seat at a
Congressional fundraiser, it is the average citizen who always
is on the inside (of the Prison, Wall, or ElectroMagnetic Curtain)
looking out.

  My advice to well-meaning fascist censors is to stay the fuck out
of the InterNet regulation business, because there are too many 
people on the InterNet who have experienced its freedom and who will
no go easily into the dark night.
  I was in Poland shortly after the fall of The Wall, and was talking
to a lady who was describing how hard life had become in the resulting
"chaos of the new." I asked her if she thought that the citizens would
return to the former political system if conditions got bad enough.
  She said, "Over my dead body."

  Someone wants to shut down your remailer? Fine. I'll start one up.
They want to shut down my remailer? Fine, but what about the Eternity
Servers?
  Don't know about the Eternity Servers? They are waiting to route
around the damage caused by shutting down remailers, and there is
another technology waiting to replace the Eternity Servers if they
get shut down.

  I, for one, am not going to stand by listlessly while fascists
attempt to build an ElectroMagnetic Curtain around me.
  I have a byte, and I'm not afraid to use it.

Toto
"The Xenix Chainsaw Massacre"
http://bureau42.base.org/public/xenix
"WebWorld & the Mythical Circle of Eunuchs"
http://bureau42.base.org/public/webworld