Remailer Abuse Solutions

[Peter Hendrickson]

At 1:38 PM 11/15/1996, Adam Back wrote:
>Peter Hendrickson <ph at netcom.com> writes:
>> However, if you restrict postings to an approved group of people, perhaps
>> everybody on the mailing list, you can eliminate spam.  How, then, do we
>> allow anonymous postings to come through?  Individual people on the list
>> can receive the proposed post and forward it to the list if it is
>> appropriate.  They could even charge a fee for doing it.  That's easy to
>> do if there is a "paying" remailer which will handle the money for them.

> Not necessarily a good idea.  The post may be a hot potatoe, and the
> forwarder may find themselves in legal trouble.  (Say RC4 & RC2 source
> code, NSA handbook, the results of the Mykotronic's dumpster diving
> spree, etc).  Exercising `editorial control' has landed some ISPs in
> trouble, to the extent that some are specifically avoiding it for that
> legal reason alone.  Being _paid_ for forwarding the message may make
> that even worse.

> Often the posts which would get the anonymous poster (or the true name
> forwarder) into the most troublle, are the ones which are most
> interesting, and also very on topic.

(In case you get this out of order, this is my second response.)

Another way to have anonymous posting but not be subjected to spam
and the like is to dispense tokens every week to the subscribers.
They can be signed blindly so that anonymity is preserved, just
like e-cash.

Peter Hendrickson
ph at netcom.com