On Tue, 3 Oct 2000, Steve Furlong wrote:
Quite a reasonable answer in today's America. But how much of your answer is supposition based on the general climate and how much is actual cases? If a remailer accepts all comers, with no filtering of content, can he claim common carrier exemption from liability, or has that been taken away <bleat>for the chiiiildren</bleat>?
Actual cases of what? Remialers win very few cases. Ask the remailer operators how many complaints they handle per day and how much money and time comes out of their pocket with little hope of recovery. You can't 'claim' commen carrier, that must be earned by going through a long difficult process of vetting through the government. Besides, commen carrier status brings with it lots of other aspects such as covert regulation by your 'public utility commission' or whatever they call it that reduce your freedom. You should talk to a real lawyer about the various aspects of remailer operation. I did several years ago when the Austin Cypherpunks was running kourier.ssz.com. It was clear that to do it right was going to be very expensive.
In my case, I already have the hardware and DSL line, so the physical cost might be a little extra electricity. No funding is necessary unless the usage is so high that my ISP bitches at me. Personal time involved in maintaining the system will, I hope, be low; if it's more than negligible I won't be able to do it. I can see the sense of running the plan past a lawyer, but why would there be a continuing expense in this area?
It isn't a technical issue that makes remailers hard, it's the people side of thing. You really should have a lawyer look this over, especialy your ISP contract. ____________________________________________________________________ He is able who thinks he is able. Buddha The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------