No Subject

[wayner@cs.cornell.edu (Peter Wayner)]

I often find it useful to think about these matters
by mapping them over to the real world. 

Anonymous remailers are really quite common. Here
are a few common sources:

1) Academic journals which review papers. These
often keep the names of the reviewers and the names
of the paper authors hidden to allow people the 
chnace to speak freely. 

2) Newspapers with personals sections offer both
anonymous mailboxes and anonymous voiceboxes for
obvious reasons. 

3) The WSJ also offers these advertisements for executive searches. 

4) The Police, in some cities, maintain anonymous tip lines.
They also occasionaly offer cash rewards to these
anonymous tipsters. I think the NYPD has a anonymity office set
up to do just this.

I realize that the cypherpunk mailing list likes
to cloak itself in the romance of the counter
culture, but in moments like this it might 
make sense to think about how mainstream and
suburban and respectable the concept of
anonymous mailers can be. In many cases,
authority reacts to the perceived threat--
not to the threat itself. 

-Peter Wayner