From: TruthMonger <tm@dev.null>Jeffrey Gold <0002595870@MCIMAIL.COM>
Date: Thu, 6 Nov 1997 06:19:50 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: [Fwd: Horsemen]Horsemen
Message-ID: <3460EBD9.7527@dev.null>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: message/rfc822



In his posting "WILL 'HATE SPEECH' BECOME 5th HORSEMAN OF THE APOCALYPSE?"
Paul Kneisel <tallpaul@nyct.net> says some interesting things about 
anonymous remailers.  Here are some excerpts, the whole post is about
47K, and may be found at http://venus.soci.niu.edu/~cudigest/CUDS9/cud980
within the next few days, but not right now.
_________________________________________________________________________

(snip)
You haven't heard much from the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse recently.
The dreaded "hackers, terrorists, drug dealers and kiddie pornographers" 
of cyberspace who once caused Presidents and Prime Ministers to tremble 
and mothers to herd their children into their beds at sundown have been
strangely quiet, if only measured by the absence of significant media
reports to the contrary. Perhaps in these modern times the wages of sin 
are no longer death but just a really tired feeling, as comedienne Paula
Poundstone comments.

Yet the Four Horsemen once caused millions people off-the-net to call for
all manner of controls on the Global Information Superhighway.
(snip)

The issue of quality encryption and anonymous remailers has also 
run into difficulties as a mass motivator for additional government 
control of cyberspace.

When export controls on PGP were in place, the labyrinthine procedures
necessary to get a copy were likely beyond the capability of most new
users. Learning to use it was even more daunting, although considerably
assisted by new books like those from O'Reilly and Associates.[10]

Anonymous remailer systems introduce yet another level of complexity. By
the end of the process, Steve Harris, the author of the "John Doe"
front-end software for PGP and remailers, once estimated that only 500
people in the world were sophisticated enough to use the whole system.[11]
This represents quite a comedown for a society reared on the dreaded "Red
Menace" from the former Soviet Union or the hysteria of a millennia-old
Satanic conspiracy sacrificing 50,000 children a year just in the U.S.

The mere existence of highly secure encryption systems that potential
criminals *might* use does not in itself create a global problem. Andy
Oram, an editor at O'Reilly & Associates and the moderator of the
discussion list for Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility,
points out that commercial needs can severely limit the use of technology
of anonymity. "Repressive forces have constantly argued that they need to
control encryption and anonymous remailers in order to attack pornography.
But the vast majority of distributors of pornography can't hide themselves,
because they want payment. They have to advertise their presence! They're
the last people to hide behind encryption and anonymity."

Nor are the remailer systems all that secure against actions using 
existing laws and technologies (whether overt or covert.)

<penit.fi> in Finland, the oldest of the systems, shut down after the 
owner received a subpoena to deliver the name of a user. The others, 
as standard computer systems, are as vulnerable to individual attack 
as any other individual system.

We saw a federal armored combat vehicle gradually demolish the 
fortified headquarters of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, 
Texas. Is the notion of a cyber-siege so outlandish then, where 
government computer systems would launch simultaneous SYNC attacks 
against a rogue remailer system if the same government deemed it 
was actively being used by terrorists? The recent attack by forces 
supporting the anti-Basque policies of the Spanish government on 
the Institute For Global Communications (IGC) site indicates "no."

Of course the anonymous remailers themselves are not anonymous. The 
owners and administrators are subject to the same system of social 
defense (or political attack) as all other individuals in society. 
A simple court injunction would likely shut them down or result in 
the arrest on contempt charges of any administrator who disobeyed.
(snip)

A more Orwellian view was recently expressed by Alan McDonald, "a senior
executive with the FBI," who said "that 'extremist' positions on electronic
encryption are a threat to normal law enforcement and are elitist and
nondemocratic. Insisting that the United States had remained true to the
Constitution and to a system of ordered liberties, McDonald says: 'When
people don't know much about electronic surveillance, they are fearful of
it. But when they know Congress passed laws and the Supreme Court reviewed
them and that there are numerous constraints and procedures, then it makes
sense to them. It seems rational and balanced'."[14]
(snip)