Re: The Remailer Crisis
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What are the cheapest "live connections" (24-hour a day connections) available? Where I am, about $100 a month, plus whatever the local phone company charges for a dedicated line. ISDN is an option, but it looks to cost $400-800 to get started, plus a monthly charge (which I don't recall, except that I "gulped" when I heard it).
I am currently using ISDN from my home in San Jose. You're right in that the startup costs are the barrier--even a cheap single B channel (56K) terminal adapter for use with a serial port will run $300-$400 dollars. The telco charges are minimal in my area; $25 monthly for the line itself (115 Kbps async bandwidth). Connect charges are free for non peak usage, and $0.60/hour for peak usage time (0800 to 1700) Mon-Fri. This is the Pacific Bell "Residential" ISDN plan. For business lines, it goes up to $50 monthly with $0.60/hour 24 hours a day. In addition to this would apply any standard long distance charges that would apply to a particular call. This is an excellent setup for fast, cheap, INTERMITTENT connection to the Internet. My particular ISP is in Santa Cruz, with POPS in SC, SJ, and soon Monterey. An unlimited connect time PPP account runs $75 monthly. This actually gets me a three bit subnet so that I can put five IP boxes and an ISDN router on my ethernet at home. A remailer in this scenario would need to have their MX record point to their ISP, and process mail via POP (incoming) and SMTP (outgoing). It would be straightforward to implement a timed or demand dial scenario (say, every fifteen minutes) to accomplish this. While not the ideal (continuous internet connection with pure SMTP based mail transport), it would suffice for a moderately loaded remailer, I'd imagine. Of course, this involves the mail subsystem of your ISP, partially defeating the purpose of having ubiquitous anonymous remailer "instances" whose operation is outside the control of an ISP. Still, it would be a good start. == Johnathan Corgan "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent." jcorgan@scruznet.com -Isaac Asimov -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBLx7Y2E1Diok8GKihAQExmwP8DmWuHMunZoaA4Y8qh7jx56hqgs4p3Bgo DgHf2J4FoPwzVzXwSH0ep+1tKkHWNnDTXB7UVtuZjLF4uE4HtY72d0ANEfZ0AgPw 9peOBzZoukxpl6nMmHszUBWXxfP4DJW9AvbPdzOWFE1OAMIQLi6mpEyGE3Vouv61 WX+4gzx+4M0= =iP7S -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
I am currently using ISDN from my home in San Jose. You're right in that the startup costs are the barrier--even a cheap single B channel (56K) terminal adapter for use with a serial port will run $300-$400 dollars. The telco charges are minimal in my area; $25 monthly for the line itself (115 Kbps async bandwidth). Connect charges are free for non peak usage, and $0.60/hour for peak usage time (0800 to 1700) Mon-Fri.
I am also using ISDN to get my network on through Southwestern Bell. The charges I had to deal with were: $135 deposit (refunded in 2 years) $73 per month line rate (2B+D) $350 per month for ISDN connection to another system on Internet and in Austin there is only one system that can do this for .com sites. This is a commen problem all over the country I understand. $1150 for Combinet 160 w/ NT-1 for ISDN-Ethernet bridge. $750 for account setup and for the folks at the other end to configure. This is a little expensive for home use but well within the means of even small businesses.
This is the Pacific Bell "Residential" ISDN plan. For business lines, it goes up to $50 monthly with $0.60/hour 24 hours a day.
I am lucky in that I am flat rate.
In addition to this would apply any standard long distance charges that would apply to a particular call.
We get charged only for the D channel traffic which is usually used for call progress control. In general we don't use the D channel at all.
This is an excellent setup for fast, cheap, INTERMITTENT connection to the Internet. My particular ISP is in Santa Cruz, with POPS in SC, SJ, and soon Monterey. An unlimited connect time PPP account runs $75 monthly. This actually gets me a three bit subnet so that I can put five IP boxes and an ISDN router on my ethernet at home.
It is a clean, fast (300kbs w/ compression), and economical for a full time feed as well.
Johnathan Corgan wrote:
I am currently using ISDN from my home in San Jose. You're right in that the startup costs are the barrier--even a cheap single B channel (56K) terminal adapter for use with a serial port will run $300-$400 dollars. The telco charges are minimal in my area; $25 monthly for the line itself (115 Kbps async bandwidth). Connect charges are free for non peak usage, and $0.60/hour for peak usage time (0800 to 1700) Mon-Fri.
Well, let's do the math. Since the remailer has to be connected at all times, of course, this implies $162 a month in connect charges, over and above the other charges. Or $187 a month including the line charge. Or $2244 a year. This makes a "cheap Linux box" almost a moot point. This is a lot more than I'm willing to pay to run a remailer. (I can imagine workarounds that involve connecting at regular intervals to pick up mail....assuming it "accumulates" somewhere (?), but the goal of a remailer "on the Net" is what I'm after.)
A remailer in this scenario would need to have their MX record point to their ISP, and process mail via POP (incoming) and SMTP (outgoing). It would be straightforward to implement a timed or demand dial scenario (say, every fifteen minutes) to accomplish this. While not the ideal (continuous internet connection with pure SMTP based mail transport), it would suffice for a moderately loaded remailer, I'd imagine.
Of course, this involves the mail subsystem of your ISP, partially defeating the purpose of having ubiquitous anonymous remailer "instances" whose operation is outside the control of an ISP. Still, it would be a good start.
I agree that it's something to look at. --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
On Thu, 19 Jan 1995, Timothy C. May wrote:
Well, let's do the math. Since the remailer has to be connected at all times, of course, this implies $162 a month in connect charges, over and above the other charges. Or $187 a month including the line charge. Or $2244 a year.
This makes a "cheap Linux box" almost a moot point. This is a lot more than I'm willing to pay to run a remailer.
Best.com offers a dedicated 28.8kB line connection to the internet with $450 setup charge and $60 a month connect charge. This is a permanent connection, not a dial up connection. This works out to $720 per year, plus setup charge. This is as cheap as it gets for a box on the internet. Now this is OK if one wishes to run linux, and have a remailer as one hobby in addition to the main use of the box, but it is still a bit much to pay for a dedicated remailer. Now I just do not like linux. Sure it is a great operating system but it will not run codewright (Vi causes mental degeneration. Even though I detest, loath, and hate vi, vi takes up so much brainspace that I find myself issueing vi commands in editors that I use much more, and vastly prefer to vi. Vi is evil.) Therefore there is no way in the world I am going to waste a full internet connection and a PC on linux. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves | http://www.catalog.com/jamesd/ and our property, because of the kind | of animals that we are. True law | James A. Donald derives from this right, not from the | arbitrary power of the omnipotent state. | jamesd@netcom.com
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