tskirvin@uiuc.edu (Tim Skirvin) wrote:

Followup-To: comp.org.cauce

[...]

[note followups]

Unable to comply, for obvious reasons.

ichudov@algebra.com (Igor Chudov @ home) writes:

...

What I _do_ see is that the un-elected "representatives" of CAUCE outlawed anonymous postings in their newsgroup.

To repeat for everyone else - they have done no such thing. Anonymous postings are still okay in comp.org.cauce - however, the address must point back to a real address.

If an address points back to a real address, then it's not *ANONYMOUS*, though.

If anything, COC's moderation procedure has shown that they're in favor of anon.penet.fi-style anonymous remailers - which, in my mind, is a good idea.

Anon.penet.fi was *NOT* an anonymous remailer, though. It was a "pseudonym server". The fact that it maintained a database by which posts could be "traced back to a real address" is the main reason why it's no longer in operation. Maintaining that sort of information is an open invitation for abuse by censorious elements, such as the "Church" of $cientology. The chilling effect of knowing that identifying information is available for abusive individuals and organizations to demand amounts to a form of censorship through intimidation. Ultimately, IMO, you harm the anti-UCE cause when you bundle it with an anti-privacy agenda which requires broadcasting one's identity as the price of free expression.

Anonymity by forgery, of course, isn't allowed in COC. I don't see this as an overly bad thing. Anonymity by munging isn't allowed there either, but I don't consider that to be anonymity in the first place.

This message, for example, uses neither method to attain anonymity, yet it would be banned from comp.org.cauce. --