Politics of Rmailers

[norm@netcom.com (Norman Hardy)]

Theodore Ts'o writes:
 
  If your mail system is broken enough that it inserts signatures without
  your permission, and you have no way to controlling it, it's broken.
  End of statement.  Fix it or ditch it.  
 
I can imagine a system administrator choosing to require that
all mail originating from his machine include a signature that 
correctly identifies the local name of the sender.
 
I make this special point to illustrate a broader problem with
remailers: They require operators of remailers to be sympathetic
with the ends of the users of remailers. This obviously does not
include the entire population for at least the recipient is not
sympathetic. I suspect that technical solutions sought in recent
mail will founder in presence of the politics of the operators
of the remailers. I understand that routing your message thru
at least one "friendly" remailer may be enough but if your reasons
for using remailers are not sufficiently popular, then society,
in some form, will pressure the friendly remailers to betray
the sender without advance warning.
 
If society polarizes into camps then there may be remailers in
each camp. A remailer in one camp is unlikely to service messages
from the other. Barriers then arise. I think that the technical
issues are only the tip of the iceberg.