Concerning the discussions of privacy, and anonymity on various USENET groups, attacks on Johan Helsingus, etc. I'd like to add my two cents... If we are going to convince the USENET community as a whole of the value of anonymity it seems to me we must also recognize the propriety and value of what seems to be the dominant sentiment on the USENET now, that being that accountability and responsibility (for what you say) reflected in a real identification is also valuable, and under most ordinary circumstances is more desirable then not. Putting it another way, I think most of the USENET community would accept the argument that access to anonymity is something that we should all have. It is a desirable thing, but it becomes desirable only under certain circumstances (e.g. active persecution, or a real threat of same, by a government or corporation, etc). Most of the time, it is better that people "stand for what they say" and accept the accountability that goes with non-anonymized postings. If we approach it this way I think we could achieve consensus at least to the degree that the existence of alias servers are generally supported. matthew rapaport Philosopher/Programmer At Large KD6KVH mjr@netcom.com 70371.255@compuserve.com