From: Mixmaster <mixmaster@remail.obscura.com>
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 1997 06:25:55 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: RESULT: comp.org.cauce passes 548:122
In-Reply-To: <slrn66v7m2.gk.ichudov@manifold.algebra.com>
Message-ID: <199711192132.NAA14828@sirius.infonex.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



tskirvin@uiuc.edu (Tim Skirvin) wrote:
    
> Followup-To: comp.org.cauce 

[...]

> [note followups] 

Unable to comply, for obvious reasons.

> ichudov@algebra.com (Igor Chudov @ home) writes:
>    
> >What I _do_ see is that the un-elected "representatives" of CAUCE  
> >outlawed anonymous postings in their newsgroup.
>  
>         To repeat for everyone else - they have done no such thing.
> Anonymous postings are still okay in comp.org.cauce - however, the address
> must point back to a real address.  

If an address points back to a real address, then it's not *ANONYMOUS*, 
though.

> If anything, COC's moderation procedure has shown that they're in favor of 
> anon.penet.fi-style anonymous remailers - which, in my mind, is a good idea. 

Anon.penet.fi was *NOT* an anonymous remailer, though.  It was a "pseudonym
server".  The fact that it maintained a database by which posts could be
"traced back to a real address" is the main reason why it's no longer in
operation.  Maintaining that sort of information is an open invitation for
abuse by censorious elements, such as the "Church" of $cientology.

The chilling effect of knowing that identifying information is available for
abusive individuals and organizations to demand amounts to a form of
censorship through intimidation.

Ultimately, IMO, you harm the anti-UCE cause when you bundle it with an
anti-privacy agenda which requires broadcasting one's identity as the price
of free expression.

>         Anonymity by forgery, of course, isn't allowed in COC.  I don't
> see this as an overly bad thing.  Anonymity by munging isn't allowed there
> either, but I don't consider that to be anonymity in the first place.

This message, for example, uses neither method to attain anonymity, yet it
would be banned from comp.org.cauce.

--