A few observations on Paul Strassman's response to John R. Levine; I've rearranged it a bit for clarity, edited out a handful of lines, and whittled down the CCs. At 4:01 PM 2/28/96, Paul A. Strassmann wrote: John R. Levine:

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It's been possible for at least a century to mail letters with no return address. It's equally possible to use post office boxes and mail drops, or even a chain of mail drops, to have two-way exchanges of messages between people who don't know each other's identities.

As far as I can tell, the existence of anonymous postal mail hasn't caused any great trouble over the past century. Can you explain why the appearance of similar facilities for on-line mail presents a greater problem?

Paul Strassmann:

Since the idea that Internet remailers are not much different than anonymous letters sent by mail is an often repeated theme, it warrants a comment:

1. Your statement that anonymous post mail hasn't caused any "great trouble" over the past century does not stand up well. I have not done a statistical sampling of incidents, but I wish to note that all my exposures (personal and otherwise) to anonymous post have been associated with extortion, spreading of unwarranted rumors and unsubstantiated accusations. Most ransom notes in kidnapping cases have been conveyed by this means.

Obviously, kidnapping and extortion demands sent anonymously through the post would attract far more attention than innocuous uses would--as did the recent incident in which someone donated (by anonymous mail) a million-dollar McDonald's sweepstakes ticket to a children's hospital. I daresay that for every such criminal instance you could cite, there are hundreds or even thousands of instances of completely benign "secret santas" and anonymous valentines from teenage "secret admirers," for example--which would hardly bear out your claim that

In civilized society the receipt of anonymous post has been always associated with unacceptable social behavior. That reputation persists.

Valentines and gifts sent anonymously will no doubt strike some people as trivial in the face of "information warfare" and other such gothic notions, and perhaps they are; but I can only wonder what exactly these valiant strategists think they're protecting and from whom they're protecting it.

2. Your assertion that one can be equally anonymous by post as with e-mail does not stand up.

First, anonymous mail is likely to carry stamp cancellation marks, which provides an important clue as to the origin of the message.

Second, criminal forensic techniques have been used very successfully in tracing identifying marks, such as typewriter characteristics, Xerox copy drum defects and other tricks such as genetic identifications of saliva remnants left from licking a stamp or sealing the envelope. There are many others. Anonymous e-mail does not convey such clues.

Third, anonymous mail operates on a totally different scale and with a different technology than post. The fact that automobiles were originally called "horseless carriages" does not make them possess the attributes of horse-carriages. When technology scales up from thousands to hundred millions, the potential consequences are not subject to simple extrapolation.

By the same token, the fact that law enforcement agencies have, over the last two centuries, developed the forms of forensic analysis you mention doesn't mean that these techniques are a god-given right whose shortcomings in the face of new technologies need to be compensated for. These techniques are, as you point out, contingent on the traits peculiar to the objects being examined. Postal mail consists of integral physical objects which can bear these kinds of traces; email does not. Nor does shouting--yet I've never heard anyone suggest that fans at a football game should preface what they yell with their name and their address, or that their failure to do so constitutes a threat to national security.

3. Anonymous remailers have been conduits for misconduct ranging from "spamming" - e.g. launching thousands of messages to saturate server capacity - to massive distribution of "sniffers" that make a number of software-based fire-walls inoperative.

This objection remailers is a red herring: giveaway ten-hour accounts on AOL and other services, hacked accounts, accounts obtained under false names, and accounts obtained under a True Name are much more notorious sources of spam than are remailers. If spam is your objection, you're barking up the wrong tree. As for the "massive deployment of 'sniffers'," anyone capable of doing this or of using information gained by this means hardly needs remailers.

4. The most likely scenarios of an information assault on the information infrastructure that performs essential social functions such as message switching, transportation dispatching, public security communications, etc. always commences with a saturation dispatch of a wide variety of intelligent agent via anonymous remailers.

"Most likely scenarios" are speculative: something that hasn't happened yet doesn't "always commence with" anything.

There is a long list of anti-social and criminal behavior that is greatly facilitated by a guarantee of untraceability. The repertoire of such malfeasances is sufficiently long that it does not warrant further elaboration.

This chicken-or-egg formulation suggests that a milieu in which total traceability is possible would greatly diminish criminal behaviors and activity. Perhaps, but as you yourself have pointed out, such a milieu is utterly antithetical to anything remotely resembling a free democracy. Since the alternative to untraceability isn't viable, there's no point in bringing it up.

Now, I would like to repeat that I believe that anonymous remailers are here to stay - at least in democratic societies. However, that does not mean that one should continue insisting that anonymous remailes are not a different phenomenon than an envelope containing a message that does not have a return address.

If you were the final arbiter on the question, your repeated claim that "remailers are here to stay" would be much more comforting. Unfortunately, the force of almost all your arguments is, in a nutshell, that remailers are associated with and facilitate criminal and/or terrorist activities--and that suggests to me that if you had your druthers, they would be illegalized. I'm curious: Do you or do you not support the continued existence of nonregulated, nonlicensed, and publicly accessible remailers? (Please note that this is a different question than "Are remailers here to stay?") regards Ted Byfield