Instead, announce that we intend, at a later date, to install remailers which are "friendly" in the sense that they use a special header line, but which will be not be able to be shut down.
An excellent tactic, I think.
[ My suggestion for how to do this: encourage thousands of users who support anonymity to run the software, and make it easy for them to do so. Then, thousands of users must be kicked out in order to prevent remailers being available! ]
Automatic installation is key. (Just as it is for anonymity filtering!) I have some comments on automatic installation. In all cases, make sure the shell can execute the filter before changing the .forward file in any way. Case 1. The .forward file doesn't exist. Easy. Just write a new forward file pointing to the software, "| remailer". The remailer must know how to deliver mail in this case. Case 2. The .forward file already points to a filter. The implementations of .forward that I have seen accept multiple pipe commands. Therefore if the .forward previously said "| <filter>", rewrite to "| remailer | <filter>". When the remailer handles a message, it won't pass any output along the pipe. Thus for remailed messages, the filter is never invoked. Thus the remailer looks transparent. Case 3. The .forward file points to a name. Rewrite the .forward as "| remailer | mail <old_name>". Someone who knows more about writing portable shell scripts between Sys V and BSD should tackle this one. If we can get auto-installation to work, we'd lower one of the larger hurdles there is right now.
But, here's the important part, DELAY RELEASE until after a waiting period.
Not to mention, it gives us time to design and write the code. This looks like a good use of vaporware as a political tool. :-) Eric