Damage Justice <frogfarm@yakko.cs.wmich.edu> forwards:
[article describing a spam-baiting case with an unsuspecting business man as victim. Some spammer sends spam purportedly from business man... business man gets lots of harrasing calls... business man calls for `accountability'... `government must do something']
I think this article lends credence to my recent arguments that control of spam will lead to control of remailers. Kent has been arguing against these suggestions on the grounds that I am being unrealistic or something. More recently Tim expressed optimism that attacks on remailers via this route be struck down by courts. Now the spammers aren't using remailers that much at the moment. Anti-spam laws will make them do so (or make them use off-shore accounts). When an incident like this happens via remailers, there will be similar calls for `accountability' on the net, and for `government to do something about the problem'. If you're paranoid, you'll consider it likely that the mega-spam bait through the remailer that is used as the show case will actually have originated from a Fed Stooge. (A la US Postal Inspector being originator of Kiddie Porn that got the Thomases locked up in the adult BBS case). I don't spell out what a call to arms by USG on `accountability on the net' is likely to spells for remailers, surely. (Remailer user escrow? Banned remailers? Illegality of using remailers even in other countries? Legislation calling for US ISPs to block non US remailers?) You should be worried, and you should be saying no to spam laws (or any laws about net content). Adam -- Have *you* exported RSA today? --> http://www.dcs.ex.ac.uk/~aba/rsa/ print pack"C*",split/\D+/,`echo "16iII*o\U@{$/=$z;[(pop,pop,unpack"H*",<> )]}\EsMsKsN0[lN*1lK[d2%Sa2/d0<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<J]dsJxp"|dc`