Mr. May's rant was very inspiring I must say. Got me thinking on a few ideas here. Myself bieng a rather unorganized person, I'll just present these ideas in a spontaneous order. The idea of cheap, anarchist, free, toasternets, which are under the control of those supporting anonimity, encryptian services etc. is something that interests me a great bit. A system that can provide truly secure anon-remailers, because even the sysop deletes records and doesnt read them, is promising. I myself am trying to start such a system with some of my freinds throughout the net. Here are some ideas we are kicking around. First, we would need a IP connection, preferably one that is from a rather free, or non-questioning source. We may have one set up in the future from a fellow ex-hacker(as if you can ever be a ex-hacker) turned businessman. A connection that would bewilling to stand up to some pressure from authorities is desirable, otherwise as soon as you cause a stir, you may just find that your feed is costing a bit too much, or that you just cant seem to get the feed working properly etc...use your paranoia here. So really a symp[athetic source is really desirable in this case, since we most likely will be playing in the realm of the grey-legal areas. My personal opinion is to operate such a crypto-net with a double-blind, so that we running it cannot know the true addres of the users, only enuff to bill them if so desired. This way no records could be seized, and noone can be forced to reveal user names etc.. It would protect both the usrs, and suppliers. If billing is needed, then someone would need to help set up a accounting system that relies simply on anon-numbers, and such. Also, perhaps providing very secure, well-encrypted, and veryvery private space on a system would be helpful. maybe charging for a ten meg box that is fully encrypted with the users key, that only he can acces. Not even the system operators could read the contents. Once agin this protects both parties. And if somehow the telephony bill goes thru, lets pray it doesnt, than tap-proof storage would be a hot commodity for many people, but it would raise some serious legal questions for the suppliers. Now after a few of these nets are established, we could provide various other services. I think perhaps encrypted telnets between them, or automated chaining of remailers, etc.. Perhaps a large group of such crypto-nets could have a greater impact on the surveilance, s they could provide support for one another, as well as spreading the noise around a bit more. I also think that once they are spr4ead we could work together to allow more and more people acces to local dial-ups that allow anonimity. Meaning perhaps with much work we could coat the globe with the ability for people to have a completely anon account, still billed if desired, from any site. This would be a great feat IMO, as I myself find it difficult at times to find dial-ups in places I visit, and a anon dial-up would be a greeat boon. My personal philosophy that guides my actions is that as a service provider I do not need to know the name etc.. of the user, as long as I can bill him if needed. There is no need for me to know wht he is doing, o where he is telnetting to etc. With this in mind, I hope to be able to set-up a crypto-net, or as us romantic Sci-Fi fans call them, Data-haven 8) You're eqipped with a hundred billion nueron brain, that's wired and fired, and it's a reality generating device, but you've got too do it. Free youself ----Tim Leary----