From: Greg Broiles <greg@ideath.goldenbear.com> In this model, who deals with mailbombs/spams/requests for address blocks? It is this sort of administrivia (plus the threat of liability) that makes running a remailer troublesome, not a lack of someone's $20/month. This point is right on. I think it's disingenuous to say that "X pays the bills for the network link; X purchased the hardware and keeps it running; the box is in X's house/office; X is the person who reads complaint mail and responds (or fails to); but because Y sends X $20/month, the remailer (and attendant liability for its mis/use) belongs to Y." The whole point of separation of operations and ownership is to actually separate them. If the computer/network service owner (X above) is participating in any _semantically meaningful_ way in the operation of the remailer service, then they too are part of the remailer service. If the computer/network service is responding to complaint mail, or even getting properly directed complaint mail, they are exposing themselves to participation in the remailing service. As with liability for content, the important issue here is the state of mind of the computer/network operator. If they know sufficiently many details about the nature of the remailer operation, the boundary of separation is breached. Unfortunately, the standard mechanism of complaint on the internet is the postmaster address. Complainants do not always follow the nice complaint instructions in the headers of email. A remailer run out of a shell account will have postmaster complaints addressed to the computer/network operator rather than the remailer operator. Therefore, a second postmaster address is required. A second postmaster address means another domain name. This new domain name can be either a subdomain or a brand new one. I don't think it will matter much, although a domain not related to the computer/network operator would further the separation. Now setting up new domain names, while pretty easy, requires the cooperation of DNS operators. Typically these connections have been informal and a low barrier to entry but only if you know somebody who does domain names. DNS operation is not yet a separate service to buy, but I suspect it will become so. In the meanwhile the offers of DNS provision by John and Strick are welcome. [...] I don't think that anyone - not courts, and not the world-in-general - is going to pay attention to that formalism when it's clear that a machine essentially under the control of X is being used for 'antisocial' means. As important as legal protections are, direct action against spammers attacks the machine infrastructure directly. A word to the wise computer/network provider. Eric

Greg Broiles wrote:

Tim May wrote:

...

I am waiting for such services to be actually, formally, solidly announced, not just casual remarks that it might be possible. And of course the software should be "ready to wear," port-a-potty, so that the remailer account owner does nothing more than pay for the account.

In this model, who deals with mailbombs/spams/requests for address blocks? It is this sort of administrivia (plus the threat of liability) that makes running a remailer troublesome, not a lack of someone's $20/month.

In this model the owner of the machine (who is not himself a remailer, only a seller of accounts) simply ignores all such issues of mailbombs, spams, request for address blocks. He has a form letter than says something like: "I am not the initiator of any mail bombs, spams, or illegal mail. I merely sell accounts, like private mail boxes. Some of the mail you are objecting to may have originated on my system, some may merely have passed through my system, just as mail passes through many systems from sender to receiver. If you have problems, talk to the sender, not to me. Under the ECPA I cannot even _look_ at the mail on my system, and even if it were legal, I would not."

I think it's disingenuous to say that "X pays the bills for the network link; X purchased the hardware and keeps it running; the box is in X's house/office; X is the person who reads complaint mail and responds (or fails to); but because Y sends X $20/month, the remailer (and attendant liability for its mis/use) belongs to Y." I realize that there's a certain formal logic to it, but I don't think that anyone - not courts, and not the world-in-general - is going to pay attention to that formalism when it's clear that a machine essentially under the control of X is being used for 'antisocial' means.

It likely buys a couple of years of protection, though. Currently the remailer sites = remailer accounts, so they have little or no protection. I don't think "disingenuous" as very apt description. For one thing, my proposal certainly doesn't make things any _worse_ for the true remailers. --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