A Lesson for Mr. Remailer Operator on Ethics, Accountability, and Anonymity

["L. Detweiler" <ld231782@longs.lance.colostate.edu>]

I am quite perplexed that Mr. Remailer Operator has sent me and my
postmaster mail about how he never intended to create a climate of `an
unruly net of irresponsibility' by running his service. He claims that
(1) I wrote the SQUISH announcement (2) I am therefore responsible for
it (3) even if posted through a remailer.

Mr. Remailer Operator, What *are* you trying to accomplish with a remailer?

All assertions disguise Mr. Remailer Operator's own responsibility to
the net. Yes, Mr. Remailer Operator, you have *responsibility*.  Mr.
Remailer Operator, if I wished to be responsible for my posting, I
would post it under my own name. But you have provided a service that
supposedly removes this accountability, by guaranteeing to me that you
will not reveal my identity to anyone.

Don't you see the reasoning? How is it that you, Mr. Remailer Operator,
can claim that the people who use your remailers are responsible for
what they post, but then defy anyone who wishes to trace them? Don't
you understand? accountability== tracability. You cannot have one
without the other. All this froth about `true names' has nothing to do
with personalities or whatever-- the root issue is *accountability* and
thereby *traceability*. Those who are not traceable are not
accountable. Those who are traceable are accountable.

By creating your remailers, Mr. Remailer Operators, you have created an
extremely volatile atmosphere on the net. You have completely failed to
address the *obvious* issues that your design entails. What if someone
mailbombs through your remailers? Sends death threats? Libel? you are
Not Accountable, right? but what does that *mean*? that you will
*allow* mailbombs, death threats, and libel through your remailers? 

I'm getting this strange sense of deja vu as I write this. When I first
joined your little conspiracy club, over a year ago now, these were
some of the first subjects I wrote about. I asked how you would deal
with anonymous death threats, mailbombs, use of your remailers by
terrorists and drug dealers, and criminals, and net.psychopaths.  But
no one was interested. Everyone denied that Mr. Remailer Operator
should ever even have to worry about these things. `Not Liable' was the catchphrase.

Mr. Remailer Operator, you didn't, and still apparently don't, seem to
realize that this is not a real answer that holds up in the real world
of use. Mr. Remailer Operator, you cannot continue to pretend that you
have no ethical or moral decisions to make in the design of technology!
Mr. Remailer Operator, you have a *duty* to consider them foremost! And
in fact, in *neglecting* your duty, Mr. Remailer Operator, in your
*negligent* design, you, Mr. Remailer Operator, are learning the *hard*
way. Isn't it kind of pathetic that you, Mr. Remailer Operator, are
just now coming face to face with the effects of *your* technology? Do
you, Mr. Remailer Operator, really believe that there is no ethics or
morality associated with the development and use of technology?

Mr. Remailer Operators, please come up with a coherent policy on the
following subjects, or expect that you remailers will be *abused* by
people *taking advantage* of your own *failures of judgement*.

- What happens when someone mailbombs someone through your remailer,
Mr. Remailer Operator?
- What happens when someone mailbombs a list through your remailer, Mr.
Remailer Operator?
- What about `libel'? What about `harassment'? What about `violent
death threats'? Mr. Remailer Operator?

You, Mr. Remailer Operators, have clung to two mutually inconsistent
philosophies-- one is that you are providing a responsible service to
the Net, that there are `positive' uses of anonymity, and that people
are going to use those, and that you will not be accountable for what
originates from your site merely by putting in disclaimers into your
messages, `I am not responsible'. All is ASCII, right? no harm can be
done by the mere existence of a remailer, right? Libel and harassment
and death threats do not exist, right?

But then when someone uses your remailer, Mr. Remailer Operator, in the
obviously malicious ways, that anyone with the tiniest smidgeon of
brain cells could anticipate, like mailbombs, massive mailing list
campaigns, libel,  violent death threats, etc., you claim that it is
Libel and Harassment and Violent Death Threats. Or, at least, someone
other than psychopunk co-conspirators-- the `in crowd'. Oh no! We have
to stop this! Yee Gad!

Obviously, the lesson is that Good Anonymity is that which can go
through Mr. Remailer Operator's remailer without upsetting Mr. Remailer
Operator or having people yell at Mr. Remailer Operator, and Bad
Anonymity is anything that upsets Mr. Remailer Operator or causes
people to yell at him. I encourage Mr. Remailer Operator to further
develop this interesting code of the Ethics of Anonymity, which he has
so far denied even exists, but by his own shrieking obviously it does!

Mr. Remailer Operators, I have long warned you about the negative
consequences of your supposed belief that No One is Responsible for
Anything on the Net, and you have found that this is simply an
untenable and unbearable philosophy from your own experience. What are
you going to do to change that?

* * *

This is not merely one of the most condescending and exasperating
messages I have ever written. It is a list of suggestions! I recommend
the following (the deja vu is thick again):

1. Remailers should *not* be able to send anything to any list on the
Lists of Lists or any other known mailing list, by default. If the
moderator approves it, the remailers are allowed.

2. Mailbombing through the remailers should be dampened with
limitations on the size of messages and the frequency.

3. The ability for *anyone* to state that they do not want to receive
anonymous mail should be *automated*-- and the remailers should act as
a *whole network* in propagating these `requests for denial' between them.

4. You should keep and pass around lists of people that have caused one
remailer operator problems, so that others have the option of denying service.

When I first proposed these ideas, they were Heretical Blasphemy. Do
you still oppose them? Do you need some more (painful) Lessons?

I ask you, Mr. Remailer Operator, *What* exactly is the purpose of a
remailer? How is it that You, the Cypherpunks, have gone this long
without really having any serious clue about what you are actually
doing? about what effect remailers actually have on cyberspatial morale
and etiquette and human relations in general? How can you deny that
Netiquette does not exist when you run your remailers, but complain and
screech at the top of your lungs about Netiquette based on what comes
out? What kind of machine, or monster, have you created, Mr. Remailer Operator?