This was posted to alt.security.pgp: (I trimmed the header) -------------------------------------------------------------- The anonymous and encrypted mail service at PAX has been shutdown. The site that connects PAX has been told by someone from AARNet (the Australian Academic Research Network) that the service is unsuitable for AARNet, and that if it is not stopped then the feeding site will be disconnected from the net. There has been no communication from AARNet to me or anyone else at PAX, but I cannot allow the feeding site to put itself at risk hence the service is closed until further notice. I am lead to believe that this is not so much AARNet's policy, but the NSF Net's policy and the NSF have brought pressure to bear on AARNet, as they believe that all mail that crosses their network must be traceable to its origin, ipso facto no anonymous mailers. I have not been approached by either organization personally so I cannot confoirm this. I am extremely disappointed but c'est la vie. It was an interesting experiment, and proof that the concept of anonymous encrypted mail is feasible with simple tools. Hopefully someone somewhere outside the jurisdiction of these authorities will be able to continue the good work. david clunie (dclunie@pax.tpa.com.au) ex-anon.admin@pax.tpa.com.au :( ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Uh oh, looks like anon.penet.fi is the only one left (besides the one at twwells, but it is more limited than pax or penet). I think this raises some important and scary issues for we cypherpunks. Does anybody have a printout of NSF guidelines about tracing mail back to its origin? This may affect our remailers (if word gets out!) in that logs might have to be kept...or worse :-( I run an anonymous remailer, and I depend upon people to not abuse the service. If somebody wants to use it to request the source code for the internet worm, fine. Or distribute virus source code, okay (but encrypt the code for heaven's sake :-) But don't threaten, libel, or insult somebody via anonymous mail (never mind that you can do all these things anonymously with the postal service, but the difference is everybody uses the post office). Like it says in the pgp docs, if everybody encrypted their mail, then it would be a right taken for granted, and people would scream bloody murder if it were taken away. If "everybody" routes their mail, then it too would become acceptable. So we need MORE remailers than the four I know of - alumni, rebma, rosebud, extropia (there was one at soda but it was shut down, right??) (subliminal hint: it's real easy to run one of the cypherpunk remailers, you just need unix, pgp, and perl) Comments? /-----------------------------------\ | Karl L. Barrus | | barrus@tree.egr.uh.edu (NeXTMail) | | elee9sf@menudo.uh.edu | \-----------------------------------/