-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Several remailers have shut down recently. This may be in part a byproduct of the ongoing struggle between dissidents and adherents of the Church of Scientology. Also, levels of abuse seem to be increasing in general as more people come on the net and learn to use the remailers. Since by their very nature remailers prevent accountability, there is nothing to stop one or more persons from sending illegal material which will cause the remailers to be threatened by legal actions. I was contacted by the FBI on Friday due to some threatening mail which was apparently sent through my remailer. According to 18 USC 875(c), "Whoever transmits in interstate commerce any communication containing any threat to kidnap any person or any threat to injure the person of another, shall be fined not more than $1,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both." I may not be able to continue operating either of my remailers (alumni.caltech.edu and shell.portal.com) for much longer due to this kind of abuse. Shutting down remailers not only reduces the number available for general use, it also causes problems for people who are using the remailers to manage pseudonyms. If their reply chains used a remailer which shuts down they have to reconstruct the chains, which is at least a nuisance. There was also a posting recently to comp.org.eff.talk by Jonathon Cline, jcline@trumpet.aix.calpoly.edu, about efforts to set up fully anonymous nym based mailing lists. He mentioned that the decrease in the number of remailers is causing problems with their plans. An alternative I am considering would reduce the utility of the remailer while still allowing these "consensual" uses to continue. Presently the remailers deal with abuse via "block lists", sets of addresses that mail can't be sent to. Generally these are created when someone complains about some mail they have received. By setting up blocking, at least they will not get harrassing anonymous mail once they have complained. But in some cases, as in the case that is causing me headaches now, even one message is too much. My thought is to turn the block list concept on its head, and make it a "permit list". Simply, the remailer will only send mail to people who have voluntarily indicated their willingness to receive it. Someone who has not sent in a message granting this permission will not be sent mail. For larger forums such as newsgroups and mailing lists, permission may be granted by some consensus mechanism. Most would be blocked, but a few like alt.anonymous.messages and the cypherpunks list would be permitted, and others could be added if they wished. This should hopefully essentially eliminate complaints about abuse, much more effectively than the current method of block lists. People who want to test the remailer by sending mail to themselves, as most people do when they are learning, can simply register themselves on the permit list. People who want to receive anonymous mail, or participate in anonymous mailing lists, can register themselves. People who want to use nyms can register themselves. People who run other remailers can register. It's all voluntary, and if someone does get some objectionable message at least they will know that they granted permission. They can always ask to be taken off the list. Feedback welcome - Hal Finney -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6 iQBVAwUBMaDr2BnMLJtOy9MBAQHWBAIAlh2uIanxTnI+GBqZ1zWcBE/AgF2TtQA/ TztTYczW7FI8ktAa3WVtsUkJeIOYxUDfC2jLvhHuGMXhEPs+jVijJg== =QajL -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----