The Crisis with Remailers

[Dave Harman]

! so list attention turns once again to a looming remailer "crisis"...

PLEASE TURN YOUR ATTENTION TO THE CONTINUING CRYPTO EMERGENCY

! where are there so few remailers? the reasons are pretty obvious.
! these problems have been transparently apparent from the very 
! beginning.
! 
! 1. there is no economic incentive.
! 
! as soon as there is a good economic incentive to run remailers, you
! will see them proliferate. but currently they have no virtually
! no value to the creator. it's like building a house for other people
! to live in out of humanitarianism. note that with web pages, you
! are buying free publicity for your company. but in fact you are
! typically buying yourself *negative* publicity by running a remailer.
! 
! what is the current incentive to run remailers? answer: adulation
! by other cypherpunks. hmmm, not necessarily all that motivating
! to very many.

WORKS FOR MEEEE

! 2. there is no good way to deal with spams or other so-called "abuse"

NETNEWS SPAM IS CAUSED BY MODERATION GET RID OF MODERATION TO END SPAM ONCE AND FOR ALL

! I commend the remailer operators for starting a mailing list to
! deal with spam. but the solution remains essentially "stop
! spam by hand". spammers still have the ability to be a serious
! threat to the network. this has been a threat from the beginning
! and has never been resolved. note that "spam avoidance" is a
! very, very difficult problem that plagues far more than remailers,
! such as mailing lists and usenet. but it is particularly acute
! with remailers.

USENET SPAM SAVES DISK SPACE ADMINS LOVE IT

! 3. liability
! 
! there is a lot of liability to the operator of a remailer, and
! again, this risk is totally unsupportable from their current
! returns (nil). Hal Finney recently suggested restricting posts
! from remailers to avoid copyright liability. this will limit
! the liability and risk but does not totally remove it.

THE BEST STUFF IS CUMMING FROM CRYPTO WANNA BEE ON INSIDE TRACK FOR CLEAR TEXT TEEN NUDES

! 4. no need for a network
! 
! in fact there is not really a need for a remailer network on one
! level. there is only a need if the service is not available. why
! is there only one anon.penet.fi? well, because of the above reasons,
! and also by the fact that only one is sufficient to serve all of
! cyberspace, virtually. what I mean is that there is easily enough
! traffic to justify another anon.penet.fi type remailer, but it's
! not totally critical (i.e. to the point that someone puts their
! resources where their mouth is) as long as anon.penet.fi is running.

THERE IS EXTREME UNDERCAPACITY FOR CRYPTO AND ANONYMINITY

! 5. etc.

ETC

! ==
! 
! if people want to know why remailers haven't proliferated  in
! the same way that other cyberspace infrastructure has in the
! past, such as news servers and web sites, you have to focus on
! the above issues. remailers are NOT like other cyberspace services.
! they are a tremendous burden to run, instead of being of high
! use to the maintainer (even though they don't generate cash)
! in the way a web page or usenet server is.

INCORPORATE AND SELL ADVERTISING SPACE IN THE SIG THE COOLEST PEOPLE GET ANONYMOUS MAIL POSTS THERE IS A VAST UNTAPPED SOURCE OF REVENUE GUNS DRUGS CRYPTO PYRO PORN PERSONALS ETC INFORMATION WANTS TO BE PAID FOR

! the main problem, getting cash for the service, is slowly dissolving
! to the point that it will not be an obstacle. I predict that 
! remailers (and many other unusual services) may begin to proliferate
! at that point-- but not as much as other areas of cyberspace such
! as the web. remailers are always going to be plagued by the other
! problems I mentioned above unless some really brilliant genius
! comes along to solve what seems to be the unsolvable.

INCORPORATE AND SELL ADVERTISING SPACE IN THE SIG THE COOLEST PEOPLE GET ANONYMOUS MAIL POSTS THERE IS A VAST UNTAPPED SOURCE OF REVENUE GUNS DRUGS CRYPTO PYRO PORN PERSONALS ETC INFORMATION WANTS TO BE PAID FOR

! another tact the cypherpunks might take to get anonymity into 
! the cyberspace infrastructure is to target forum architecture.
! instead of trying to create remailers that "feed into" other
! networks, why not build in remailers into those networks themselves?
! I am thinking of the way NNTP could be a massive anonymous 
! remailer network, and that in fact it was once but that this
! was purposely designed against in the protocol (preventing people
! from anonymously submitting articles to NNTP hosts).

BUT IN THE MEAN TIME WE WANT MORE SERVERS

! I propose that as long as there are serious elements involved
! in building up cyberspace that are hostile to anonymity, you
! are not going to see it flourish in the way other services have.
! it seems to me the major obstacles to widespread anonymity
! are perceptual, not technological. if people can find a way

WE WANT OTHERS TO DO THE WORK FOR US

! to handle the above issues and still provide anonymity, it will
! spread. otherwise, I doubt it will ever become very "mainstream".
! perhaps the above problems are intrinsic to anonymity, which would
! be a pity in my view.
! 
! BTW, TCM laments that he hasn't seen master's thesis on remailers.
! I consider Lance Cottrell's mixmaster work to be really on that
! level, and highly commendable. LC has really advanced remailer
! technology by tremendous leaps and bounds since putting his mind
! to it. also Levien's remailer page is another very outstanding
! service. it is possible that all the real research into remailers
! is being done at the NSA <g>
! 
! seriously, though, I think cpunks have an opportunity to do some
! introspection here. it seems a pretty good rule in cyberspace that
! "cool and useful services flourish and grow". witness Usenet
! and the web. why haven't the cpunks been able to tap into that
! kind of exponential force with remailers? the problems are not
! merely technological. I would say the technological problems
! associated with the remailers are the most straightforward to
! solve. its the complex social issues that are seemingly insurmountable.
! 
! I really believe that if anyone wants to get more anonymity in
! cyberspace, they must deal head on with the sociological 
! "anonymity taboo" in society. why is there a taboo in society
! against anonymity? could it be there are some good reasons for it?
! is it possible to create a "socially acceptable" anonymity? of
! course this line of thinking is going to be utterly repulsive
! to some on this list, but I contend it is essential to remailer
! growth strategy.
! 
! of course if people don't want remailers to ever go "mainstream"
! anyway, well then there is no problem. the remailer network still
! has an "underground" feeling to it and perhaps that will always
! be part of its draw, and its actual structure.

ANYONE FUCK WITH MY REMAILER AND I SUMMON TEN SKINHEADS TO BREAK OFF THEIR DICK