From: ghio@temp0124.myriad.ml.org (Matthew Ghio)
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 1997 11:07:45 +0800
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Subject: Re: Remailers and ecash (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <199710020003.TAA22891@einstein.ssz.com>
Message-ID: <199710020250.WAA02067@myriad>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Jim Choate wrote:

>What would motivate an average consumer to use an anonymous remailer?
>
>Clearly simple anonymity or writing nasty letters to Grandma anonymously are
>not going to motivate most folks irrespective of cost - they simply have no
>interest in such activities.

I gave several examples.

>Irrelevant because people won't pay for this.

I never said they would.  You asked what motivates people to use an
anonymous remailer irrespective of cost.

>What besides raising hell anonymously, laundering money, and defeating
>merchant purchase traffic analysis are commercial anonymous remailers good
>for?

I think you answered your own question:

>Free remailers are useful for all sorts of mental masturbation, for actual
>business there doesn't seem to be a lot of uses.

The money laundering issue has very little to do with the remailers, and
more to do with the structure of the economic/banking system, how easily
one can convert wealth from one form to another, and whether there is
incentive to do so.

You seem to feel that people are unlikely to pay for any of the most
common uses of remailers - you're probably right - which brings us back
full circle.