The Remailer Crisis

[wcs at anchor.ho.att.com]

Tim writes:
> One thing I should've noted is that a Linux-based cheap remailer is
> mostly useless without a "live connection" to the Net. 

I disagree - live connections  are great for fast-response systems,
but we got along just fine in the uucp dialup world with occasional
connections; in an environment like remailers where you _want_
batchy performance, the clunkiness can even be a "feature".

I don't know how many providers are offerring uucp or ip dialout
from their servers, or whether they're much cheaper than real ip,
but you can do ok with, say, hourly polling to a TIA or term connection
to fill your mailbox from a POP server, or nightly if that's enough.

TIA also has the advantage over SLIP/PPP that outgoing mail from your 
system will _always_ have unverifiable IP addresses - you look like
netcom.com, just like everyone else TIA-connecting from netcom does.
And connections from shared-IP-address-pool systems like netcruiser
or dialup PPP systems probably don't do much logging of who's used
what IP address beyond when nameserver caches clear.

		Bill