1. there is no economic incentive. [snip] typically buying yourself *negative* publicity by running a remailer.
As you said, ecash postage could turn that around. The negative publicity part is probably the result of the general public's negative perceptions about anonymity. People seem to forget that anyone can drop a letter into the mailbox with no return address. Did the Unabomber bring negative publicity to the postal service, causing people to demand that return addresses become a requirement? :-/
2. there is no good way to deal with spams or other so-called "abuse"
Unfortunately, abuse is also a factor in people's negative perceptions about anonymity. I wonder, would the average spammer be less likely to spam if he had to PGP-encrypt messages to the remailer? I know we want to make remailers easy to use and not limit them to the technologically elite, but requring encryption would have the added benefit of improving security. I believe some remailers already require encryption; have any Spam Statistics been gathered? Ecash postage might discourage the average spammer, unless that spammer has deep pockets. With postage, the only spam I can think of that would gain money or break even is a commercial advertisment, and there's no point to using remailers for commercial ads anyways, since people need to know how to contact the business.
3. liability
Liability depends on the jurisdiction, doesn't it? It would be ideal if all remailers were in countries where there are no laws that would affect remailers. Reducing liability also has the added benefit of protecting anonymity, since if the mailer can't be siezed, that does prevent log files (if any) from being siezed. Do any such countries exist??? Also, if a remailer could be set up to _only_ remail to other remailers, that would greatly reduce liability. Obviously we'd still need _some_ remailers that can deliver to the intended destination... I think a lot of people would be more willing to run remailers if it didn't mean that mailing list/usenet spam would have their name attached. Remailers can already be set up _not_ to send to certain addresses, so I think there's no reason that they couldn't be set to deliver _only_ to other remailers. [kersnip]
are perceptual, not technological. if people can find a way to handle the above issues and still provide anonymity, it will spread. otherwise, I doubt it will ever become very "mainstream". perhaps the above problems are intrinsic to anonymity, which would be a pity in my view. [butchered for brevity] of course if people don't want remailers to ever go "mainstream" anyway, well then there is no problem. the remailer network still has an "underground" feeling to it and perhaps that will always be part of its draw, and its actual structure.
Right now, I think, remailers don't need to be mainstream, they just need to be there when people need them. And I think they can become mainstream, if you consider that anon.penet.fi is quite popular. Just my two bits. ===================================================================== | Steve Reid - SysAdmin & Pres, EDM Web (http://www.edmweb.com/) | | Email: steve@edmweb.com Home Page: http://www.edmweb.com/steve/ | | PGP (2048/9F317269) Fingerprint: 11C89D1CD67287E68C09EC52443F8830 | | -- Disclaimer: JMHO, YMMV, TANSTAAFL, IANAL. -- | ===================================================================:)