Remailers-in-a-box

17 Dec 2003

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Tim May wrote:
...
I am waiting for such services to be actually, formally, solidly
announced, not just casual remarks that it might be possible. And of
course the software should be "ready to wear," port-a-potty, so that
the remailer account owner does nothing more than pay for the account.
In this model, who deals with mailbombs/spams/requests for address blocks?
It is this sort of administrivia (plus the threat of liability) that
makes running a remailer troublesome, not a lack of someone's $20/month.

I think it's disingenuous to say that "X pays the bills for the network
link; X purchased the hardware and keeps it running; the box is in X's
house/office; X is the person who reads complaint mail and responds (or
fails to); but because Y sends X $20/month, the remailer (and attendant
liability for its mis/use) belongs to Y." I realize that there's a 
certain formal logic to it, but I don't think that anyone - not courts,
and not the world-in-general - is going to pay attention to that 
formalism when it's clear that a machine essentially under the control
of X is being used for 'antisocial' means.

I'm seriously considering offering this sort of remailer-in-a-box
thing, but there's a certain amount of hassle associated with running
a remailer. It can be shifted to different parties, but it must be
paid for one way or another.  

I guess it'd be possible to treat remailers as disposable - when one
had pissed off enough people, it could be abandoned - but this lack
of long-term reliability seems poor.

Remailers-in-a-box

Greg Broiles