From: IN%"bruce@aracnet.com" "Bruce Baugh" 19-MAY-1996 04:10:44.56

a point here. I don't think most cypherpunks realize how anonymity is perceived out in the net at large.

Take news.groups, a fairly important group I happen to read regularly. With the exception of Rich Graves' presence, _all_ the uses I see there are for cowardly abuse in a way that lets the poster escape having to answer for his views. I'm not talking about presenting important information where wrong-headed authorities could engage in reprisals, either, but baseless accusations of theft, child abuse, and just plain torrents of obscenity.

Would you suspect that having more warning labels (before & after, not just in the headers) would help with any negative reputation thus generated?

That's _all_ it's used for (again, with the exception of Rich).

There's a problem here. It's one thing to say that the benefits of anonymity outweigh the problems. I'm inclined to that view myself. But it's much harder to defend that view in a forum where anonymity is used so commonly for problematic ends, and to offer anything in the way of constructive solutions. It would be pleasing to see more cypherpunks actively dealing with these problems out there in net.land.

You might try pointing out that the only remailing that people see is for allegedly illegitimate reasons. Psychiatrists who are beginning to interact with patients over the net certainly have a good cause to use such remailers... including to prevent governmental tapping, given A. authoritarian governments such as China (blackmail for espionage purposes, for instance); and B. insane U.S. legal decisions like the one I heard about on NPR on 5-21, in which a judge ruled that there was no confidentiality protection prohibiting turning over psychiatric notes. One wonders what that judge's reaction (and the lawyer who asked for the notes) would be to having their confidential documents put into public view... I see no reason to give lawyers more of a privilege than religious/psychiatric individuals. -Alle