Greg Broiles wrote:
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.
In this model the owner of the machine (who is not himself a remailer, only a seller of accounts) simply ignores all such issues of mailbombs, spams, request for address blocks. He has a form letter than says something like: "I am not the initiator of any mail bombs, spams, or illegal mail. I merely sell accounts, like private mail boxes. Some of the mail you are objecting to may have originated on my system, some may merely have passed through my system, just as mail passes through many systems from sender to receiver. If you have problems, talk to the sender, not to me. Under the ECPA I cannot even _look_ at the mail on my system, and even if it were legal, I would not."
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.
It likely buys a couple of years of protection, though. Currently the remailer sites = remailer accounts, so they have little or no protection. I don't think "disingenuous" as very apt description. For one thing, my proposal certainly doesn't make things any _worse_ for the true remailers. --Tim May -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. Cypherpunks list: majordomo@toad.com with body message of only: subscribe cypherpunks. FAQ available at ftp.netcom.com in pub/tc/tcmay