Anonymizing Scam

Lance M. Cottrell lcottrell at anonymizer.com
Sat Nov 24 00:15:16 PST 2001


Given how widely know my email address is, I am saddened that people 
would post this kind of unsubstantiated rumor without any attempt to 
check on the validity.

Anonymizer has always offered its services to all comers. This has 
always included law enforcement. They have used our services to keep 
an eye on certain websites for many years, without tipping them off 
to the focus of their interests. Seeing "fbi.gov" in the log files is 
a bit of a giveaway. They have no special access to our systems, and 
no ability to monitor our users.

Describing our policy of open access as "sucking up to the TLAs" is 
absurd. I would have thought my history in this field would have 
earned me some consideration before jumping to that kind of 
conclusion. Does government and industry have no rights to, or needs 
for, privacy? It seems a hypocritical position for Cypherpunks to 
take.

	-Lance Cottrell


At 5:34 PM -0500 11/23/01, R. A. Hettinga wrote:
>--- begin forwarded text
>
>
>Status:  U
>Date: Fri, 23 Nov 2001 16:02:10 -0800
>To: cypherpunks at lne.com
>From: John Young <jya at pipeline.com>
>Subject: Anonymizing Scam
>Sender: owner-cypherpunks at lne.com
>
>Below are strange statements coming from Lance Cottrell.
>Is there no anonymizer that is not sucking up to the TLAs?
>Worse, has there ever been?
>
>-----
>
>
>http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/internet/11/20/privacy.reut/index.html
>
>One company that is still making money off privacy is
>Anonymizer.com, a San Diego-based company that offers
>anonymous Web surfing for $50 a year, or $5 a month. The
>company has 20,000 active subscribers, said President Lance
>Cottrell.
>
>"We're still seeing very strong growth," Cottrell said. "Most
>people are looking to prevent their boss, insurance company,
>spouse, ISP (Internet Service Provider) from knowing where
>they're going."
>
>Even so, Anonymizer.com began a push six months ago to
>market its service to corporations, including law and investigation
>firms, and the U.S. government, he said.
>
>"Intelligence agencies have been using us for years, especially
>since September 11," Cottrell said. "They use us to keep an eye
>on bad guy sites" with covert monitoring.
>
>-----
>
>The pattern: initial big deal about helping the public protect its
>privacy, then boom, a later revelation it was impossible to
>continue ...  well, the reasons vary, but the cover story is always
>the need for money, the Judas rationale.
>
>Meanwhile, the fabulous surfing data archive allegedly inviolate, or
>never retained, or no way to ever know who was using the
>service, that is the data all free-gift marketers aim to collect.
>
>Were any anonymizing archives ever trashed or truly protected
>against concurrent snarfing? Is Safeweb laughing like ZKS,
>like Lance? First, the US, then EU, then CN, all the way to
>MD.
>
>What does this say about commercial anonymizing services,
>and remailers? And crypto, especially free PGP, and the honeypot
>AES?
>
>--- end forwarded text
>
>
>--
>-----------------
>R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
>The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
>44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
>"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
>[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
>experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'


-- 
Lance M. Cottrell                  lcottrell at anonymizer.com
Anonymizer, Inc.		   President
Voice: (619) 725-3180 X304         Fax: (619) 725-3188
www.Anonymizer.com



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