wild and crazy ideas for the remailers: o some fabulous code writer needs to hack up a copy of PGP so that it will allow/force a batch-mode operation and not stop and wait for input from the "user" if the message fed into it uses an unknown key or something else happens that causes PGP to pause/stop/halt/quit/die. " :: " the " PGP-ENCRYPTED " line could be done away with all together. if the message fed through the PGP.batch.version returns a plaintext, use the plaintext; if not, try to process the original message. o i looked at the code for hal-the-remailer for about 5 seconds and can't remember even a line of what it looked like, but how difficult would it be to rig up the remailers to delay untill midnight and then process each message stacked in the remailer que _randomly_? 1 out of 3 it is sent out 1 out of 3 it is skipped entirely (until the next remailing-event/time) 1 out of 3 it is forwarded automagicly through a "friendly" remailer. you set the remailer to NOT skip a message that is in the first "n" messages on the stack to be remailed. (to prevent a message from getting "stuck" inside the remailer for an extended period of time...) obviously whomever is running the remailer can tinker with the ratios and the number of times per day messages are processed ... o the more remailers the message goes through, the harder it is to track down the original sender. why force the sender to manually send messages through multiple remailers when some clever script can do it from inside the "remailer network" automaticly? messages go into one remailer, and are forwarded in a random order once/twice/? a day through a second remailer. encryption, compression, padding, etc would add to the effect as well. o how about checking for " :: " " Respond " and bouncing back: " Message received. " " ReMailer active. " or perhaps the remailer's public key, or even a description of the location of the system the remailer is running on, how to get a copy of the software, what the author's favorite color is, etc ... anyone that wants the remailer to bounce back a response can stick "::RESPONDDAMNIT!" in their messages, and the people who don't want the remailers to respond at all, won't hafta worry about it. o i suggest adding an "ignore list" of sites. this would provide a simple somewhat effective way to cut down on abuse with a minimum effort. if a problem-abuser pops up, just lock that site out for a while and maybe the problem will go away. the amount of annoyance/difficulty the abuser is caused is much greater than the effort needed to add the site's name to the ignore list. sure the abuser will just find another site to send from or another remailer to abuse, but mr abuser will wear himself out while the remailers won't even break a sweat. o an overiding "OK-to-respond" list would be nice too. (to allow remailers to accept messages from certain systems, users, and remailers regardless of any locked out sites.)