Earlier, Chris Odner brought up some concerns about abusing anonymous remailers. (I deleted the message before saving it, so I can't quote from it). He mentioned his friend is getting abusive mail, probably from telnet to the smtp port, and then mentions the "remailers are perfect for those who would harrass and abuse others." Wait a second... here is an example of harrassment right now, without anything to do with the remailers! I mean, if you want to really hassle somebody, you could just wait patiently until someone leaves their machine for a few seconds and type sh (or ksh) while true do uuencode /vmunix irritate | mail somebody@somewhere done followed with a clear and then leave quickly. I guess I'm one of those people who would get upset and blame the person responsible for the action instead of software and/or technological advancement for possible providing a means. As Peter mentioned, payphones are already perfect for harrassment. So is junk mail... and the crucial thing here is these services cost money. I'm sure future remailers will incorporate digital cash and be a pay-for-each-remail service. Chris also mentions concers about distributing porn and stuff like that through remailers. I guess this could be done, but why give up the speed and convenience of ftp, fsp, irc (dcc), and usenet posting? These services distribute files faster and further than remailing. /-----------------------------------\ | Karl L. Barrus | | elee9sf@menudo.uh.edu | <- preferred address | barrus@tree.egr.uh.edu (NeXTMail) | \-----------------------------------/