Scientologists may subpoena anonymous remailer records
I thought that most or all of the cypherpunk anonymous remailers don't keep records. Not even on backup tapes. The whole idea is that there aren't logs. But maybe they have found some remailers that are non-cypherpunk. And I haven't verified the truth of what's in the msg below. If anyone hears anything, please let me (or eff@eff.org) know. John Gilmore Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 18:27:02 -0700 To: fight-censorship+@andrew.cmu.edu, eric@remailer.net, farber@cis.upenn.edu (Dave Farber) From: jwarren@well.com (Jim Warren) Subject: (fwd fyi - NOT verified!!) very urgent news Seems like it's just a tad overbroad, if true. Another example of, "all the 'justice' that one can buy"? --jim
Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 15:44:52 -0700 (PDT) From: shelley thomson <sthomson@netcom.com> Subject: very urgent news To: jwarren@well.com
Hello, Jim Warren:
The church of scientology plans to subpoena the records of every anonymous remailer in the USA.
I publish a news/black humor magazine on the net called **Biased Journalism**. As a journalist I have covered the collision between the church of scientology and the net. My last three issues have focused on legal action by the church against Grady Ward and Keith Henson.
Today I had a note from Grady Ward, whose deposition was finished today. He said that they asked him a lot of questions about me, and warned me that they may issue a subpoena for me and a demand for my email.
The church presumably intends to claim that I am not a real journalist because I only publish on the net. I need to prepare a legal defense, and needless to say, can't afford a lawyer. If you can direct me to any resources, I would appreciate it very much.
On the basis of events today, Ward believes the church will issue subpoenas for the records of every anonymous remailer in the USA.
If these records are delivered to the church, our First Amendment rights go with them.
Shelley Thomson
publisher, **Biased Journalism** 800-731-0717 voice message
I thought that most or all of the cypherpunk anonymous remailers don't keep records. Not even on backup tapes. The whole idea is that there aren't logs. But maybe they have found some remailers that are
When a person recieves a message from someone using an anonymous remailer, the return address will usually work, depending on the remailer. The return address is for an address on the remailer, and sending to that address, the remailer will forward the message back to the person who owns that anonymous address. The problem with that, of course, is that the remailer has to keep a record of who owns each anonymous account, so that it can direct the replies to the anonymous person. These records could be siezed. Also (not related to the records), if the remailer does not encrypt the replies that it forwards to the anonymous owner, it would be *very* vunlerable to traffic analysis... Just watch for your message leaving the remailer, and see the address of the anonymous person, or the address of the next remailer in the chain. I don't really know much about remailers, but I don't think there's much to know... If I'm mistaken about any of the above, I'm sure someone will correct me. BTW, has anyone out there created an anonymous web forwarder? I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who don't like the idea of having their email address in the log files of dozens of web servers... Creating a simple web forwarder wouldn't be hard.
On Wed, 10 Apr 1996, Steve Reid wrote:
I thought that most or all of the cypherpunk anonymous remailers don't keep records. Not even on backup tapes. The whole idea is that there aren't logs. But maybe they have found some remailers that are
When a person recieves a message from someone using an anonymous remailer, the return address will usually work, depending on the remailer. The return address is for an address on the remailer, and
The above is very confusing and stems, IMHO, from imprecise use of terms. It is important to distinguish between 4 types of remailers: * traceable pseudonymous * untraceable pseudonymous * traceable anonymous * untraceable anonymous The text quoted above is true if it describes a "traceable pseudonymous" remailer, e.g. anon.penet.fi. This is different from, say, a cypherpunks style remailer. For a full, perhaps tedious, explication of all this and other stuff too, see http://www.law.miami.edu/~froomkin/ocean1-7.htm an earlier, much shorter, and slightly dated, treatement of the anonymity issues only can be found at http://www.law.cornell.edu/jol/froomkin.htm [...] A. Michael Froomkin | +1 (305) 284-4285; +1 (305) 284-6506 (fax) Associate Professor of Law | U. Miami School of Law | froomkin@law.miami.edu P.O. Box 248087 | http://www.law.miami.edu/~froomkin Coral Gables, FL 33124 USA | It's warmish here.
I thought that most or all of the cypherpunk anonymous remailers don't keep records. Not even on backup tapes. The whole idea is that there aren't logs. But maybe they have found some remailers that are non-cypherpunk. And I haven't verified the truth of what's in the msg below. If anyone hears anything, please let me (or eff@eff.org) know.
Exactly. I'm not worried. I look forward to the publicity and added business this will bring. I might even be disappointed if it doesn't happen. -- Sameer Parekh Voice: 510-601-9777x3 Community ConneXion, Inc. FAX: 510-601-9734 The Internet Privacy Provider Dialin: 510-658-6376 http://www.c2.net/ (or login as "guest") sameer@c2.net
John Gilmore wrote: | I thought that most or all of the cypherpunk anonymous remailers don't | keep records. Not even on backup tapes. The whole idea is that there | aren't logs. But maybe they have found some remailers that are | non-cypherpunk. And I haven't verified the truth of what's in the msg | below. If anyone hears anything, please let me (or eff@eff.org) know. | | John Gilmore Does that prevent a subpeona as a form of harrassment? There are already reliability problems in the remailer network. (Witness the anon messages that get received twice, as insurance that it gets through.) Making the remailers less reliable is in the intrests of the bad guys. Adam -- "It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -Hume
participants (5)
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Adam Shostack -
John Gilmore -
Michael Froomkin -
sameer＠c2.org -
Steve Reid