! so list attention turns once again to a looming remailer "crisis"... PLEASE TURN YOUR ATTENTION TO THE CONTINUING CRYPTO EMERGENCY ! where are there so few remailers? the reasons are pretty obvious. ! these problems have been transparently apparent from the very ! beginning. ! ! 1. there is no economic incentive. ! ! as soon as there is a good economic incentive to run remailers, you ! will see them proliferate. but currently they have no virtually ! no value to the creator. it's like building a house for other people ! to live in out of humanitarianism. note that with web pages, you ! are buying free publicity for your company. but in fact you are ! typically buying yourself *negative* publicity by running a remailer. ! ! what is the current incentive to run remailers? answer: adulation ! by other cypherpunks. hmmm, not necessarily all that motivating ! to very many. WORKS FOR MEEEE ! 2. there is no good way to deal with spams or other so-called "abuse" NETNEWS SPAM IS CAUSED BY MODERATION GET RID OF MODERATION TO END SPAM ONCE AND FOR ALL ! I commend the remailer operators for starting a mailing list to ! deal with spam. but the solution remains essentially "stop ! spam by hand". spammers still have the ability to be a serious ! threat to the network. this has been a threat from the beginning ! and has never been resolved. note that "spam avoidance" is a ! very, very difficult problem that plagues far more than remailers, ! such as mailing lists and usenet. but it is particularly acute ! with remailers. USENET SPAM SAVES DISK SPACE ADMINS LOVE IT ! 3. liability ! ! there is a lot of liability to the operator of a remailer, and ! again, this risk is totally unsupportable from their current ! returns (nil). Hal Finney recently suggested restricting posts ! from remailers to avoid copyright liability. this will limit ! the liability and risk but does not totally remove it. THE BEST STUFF IS CUMMING FROM CRYPTO WANNA BEE ON INSIDE TRACK FOR CLEAR TEXT TEEN NUDES ! 4. no need for a network ! ! in fact there is not really a need for a remailer network on one ! level. there is only a need if the service is not available. why ! is there only one anon.penet.fi? well, because of the above reasons, ! and also by the fact that only one is sufficient to serve all of ! cyberspace, virtually. what I mean is that there is easily enough ! traffic to justify another anon.penet.fi type remailer, but it's ! not totally critical (i.e. to the point that someone puts their ! resources where their mouth is) as long as anon.penet.fi is running. THERE IS EXTREME UNDERCAPACITY FOR CRYPTO AND ANONYMINITY ! 5. etc. ETC ! == ! ! if people want to know why remailers haven't proliferated in ! the same way that other cyberspace infrastructure has in the ! past, such as news servers and web sites, you have to focus on ! the above issues. remailers are NOT like other cyberspace services. ! they are a tremendous burden to run, instead of being of high ! use to the maintainer (even though they don't generate cash) ! in the way a web page or usenet server is. INCORPORATE AND SELL ADVERTISING SPACE IN THE SIG THE COOLEST PEOPLE GET ANONYMOUS MAIL POSTS THERE IS A VAST UNTAPPED SOURCE OF REVENUE GUNS DRUGS CRYPTO PYRO PORN PERSONALS ETC INFORMATION WANTS TO BE PAID FOR ! the main problem, getting cash for the service, is slowly dissolving ! to the point that it will not be an obstacle. I predict that ! remailers (and many other unusual services) may begin to proliferate ! at that point-- but not as much as other areas of cyberspace such ! as the web. remailers are always going to be plagued by the other ! problems I mentioned above unless some really brilliant genius ! comes along to solve what seems to be the unsolvable. INCORPORATE AND SELL ADVERTISING SPACE IN THE SIG THE COOLEST PEOPLE GET ANONYMOUS MAIL POSTS THERE IS A VAST UNTAPPED SOURCE OF REVENUE GUNS DRUGS CRYPTO PYRO PORN PERSONALS ETC INFORMATION WANTS TO BE PAID FOR ! another tact the cypherpunks might take to get anonymity into ! the cyberspace infrastructure is to target forum architecture. ! instead of trying to create remailers that "feed into" other ! networks, why not build in remailers into those networks themselves? ! I am thinking of the way NNTP could be a massive anonymous ! remailer network, and that in fact it was once but that this ! was purposely designed against in the protocol (preventing people ! from anonymously submitting articles to NNTP hosts). BUT IN THE MEAN TIME WE WANT MORE SERVERS ! I propose that as long as there are serious elements involved ! in building up cyberspace that are hostile to anonymity, you ! are not going to see it flourish in the way other services have. ! it seems to me the major obstacles to widespread anonymity ! are perceptual, not technological. if people can find a way WE WANT OTHERS TO DO THE WORK FOR US ! to handle the above issues and still provide anonymity, it will ! spread. otherwise, I doubt it will ever become very "mainstream". ! perhaps the above problems are intrinsic to anonymity, which would ! be a pity in my view. ! ! BTW, TCM laments that he hasn't seen master's thesis on remailers. ! I consider Lance Cottrell's mixmaster work to be really on that ! level, and highly commendable. LC has really advanced remailer ! technology by tremendous leaps and bounds since putting his mind ! to it. also Levien's remailer page is another very outstanding ! service. it is possible that all the real research into remailers ! is being done at the NSA <g> ! ! seriously, though, I think cpunks have an opportunity to do some ! introspection here. it seems a pretty good rule in cyberspace that ! "cool and useful services flourish and grow". witness Usenet ! and the web. why haven't the cpunks been able to tap into that ! kind of exponential force with remailers? the problems are not ! merely technological. I would say the technological problems ! associated with the remailers are the most straightforward to ! solve. its the complex social issues that are seemingly insurmountable. ! ! I really believe that if anyone wants to get more anonymity in ! cyberspace, they must deal head on with the sociological ! "anonymity taboo" in society. why is there a taboo in society ! against anonymity? could it be there are some good reasons for it? ! is it possible to create a "socially acceptable" anonymity? of ! course this line of thinking is going to be utterly repulsive ! to some on this list, but I contend it is essential to remailer ! growth strategy. ! ! of course if people don't want remailers to ever go "mainstream" ! anyway, well then there is no problem. the remailer network still ! has an "underground" feeling to it and perhaps that will always ! be part of its draw, and its actual structure. ANYONE FUCK WITH MY REMAILER AND I SUMMON TEN SKINHEADS TO BREAK OFF THEIR DICK