Re: MAIL: crime and remailers

[Matthew J Ghio <mg5n+@andrew.cmu.edu>]

Karl Lui Barrus <klbarrus@owlnet.rice.edu> wrote:

> I see that RSADSI contacted Mr. Perry's employer (jpunix consultants
> here in Houston?) and the remailer is "temporarily" shut down.

The remailer is back up.

I don't know if it's really my place to comment here, but I would like
to clear up the misconceptions.  Someone from RSA (probably Bidzos)
contacted Perspective Scientific (persci.com), a company which hired
John Perry to install and maintain their network.  Since Mr. Perry was
not in at the time, they demanded to speak to the CEO.  The caller then
proceeded to tell him that Persci's computers were being used to
distribute proprietary, copyrighted encryption software on the internet.
 This claim is false, and I assume that the caller knew it was false but
made it anyway.  Jpunix.com is John Perry's personal computer at his
home.  The caller could have gotten his home number from the whois
record and called him personally; there was absolutely no reason for
them to call his employer.  RSA called PerSci for no other reason than
to harass John Perry and attempt to get him in trouble at work.  This is
not the first time they have done this type of thing (and based on the
various lawsuits against them, it would seem they consider it standard
procedure).  Fortunately, the CEO of Persci was open-minded enough to
realise that RSA's complaint had nothing to do with Perspective
Scientific, and dropped the issue there.  Failing that, there isn't much
else RSA can do to harass Mr. Perry, and they seem to have given up for
now...