Remailer abuse

[eric at synopsys.com]

Nobody (well, actually Hal) writes:

>> What I could do, if more "problem" messages come through, is create a
>> list of people _not_ to forward mail to.
>>
>> Hal
>> 74076.1041 at compuserve.com

Another suggestion is to invert this:  create a list of addresses that
the remailer WILL send mail to.  But, that's STUPID, you say.  Well,
maybe, but I don't think so.  It is, however, sneaky.  If you run a
remailer, you should be registered with other remailers so they can
use you to forward stuff.  This places you on thier list of OK places
to remail stuff to.  Remailers should exchange these lists to keep
them up to date.  This, of course, encourages people to run remailers,
which is what we want.  It also silences any objections from people
concerning anonymous abuse, since you have to explicitly ask for
anonymous mail by running a remailer.

One problem this doesn't solve is how to send anonymous mail to
someone who hasn't registered, since that's exactly what we're trying
to avoid.  Someone could offer a human remailing service which
moderated the messages it sent through.  Using such a service, you
could request someone to run a remailer.  A cheaper service could just
send a standard message to an address that you send to it.  In all
these cases, the service provider is responsible for the content of
the messages sent out, and consequently would want to be very
conservative.

-eric messick

P.S.  Note the change in my address.  I've just changed jobs and am
now eric at synopsys.com.  All my old addresses (eric at parallax.com,
eric at toad.com) forward.