Re: Remailers

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

"Halvor Kise jr." <HALVORK@dhhalden.no> wrote:

(with reference to Scott Collins catalyst-remailer):
> Would this guy told Brad if he could? I'll newer use that
> remailer again!

I think you're missing the point.  He doesn't keep logs so that nobody
can try to force him to reveal someone's identity.  It provides a very
convienient excuse. :)  And it certainly reinforces my trust in the
remailer to protect my anonymnity.

> I think appinions change from here you live. I live kind of close
> up to Russia (Live in Norway). Norway is a sosialistic(?) country
> and we actually had the World War II here, so we have felt, and
> can see what the freedom of speach is. So Imagine that I am an
> Albanian citisen(?) and have some disturbing news about the
> Albanian goverment.  I post this news to the world through this
> remailer. Wouldn't I be breaking a law by doing this? Yes, I
> would! Use your brains! Wouldn't this news be of importance
> for the world? And to you trigger-happy americans: What if the
> news about the invasion of Quwait came from Iraq trough an
> anon remailer? Wasn't that of "importance for the world"??
> Or did you americans loose so many lives for nothing? The
> world is at war! And I would allow nearly any action to 
> distribute information! Eaven if this means that sombody is
> using my remailer to break the law by distributing
> copyrighted information.

This is the reason that we have tried so hard to get remailers all over
the world.  Unfortunatly, with one exception, all our remailers are in
the United States.  If someone was sending copyrighted material through
my remailer, and the AP got upset about it, they could do a lot to
harass me, as I'm sure they have contacts with people at this
university, since they are a large American-based news agency and have
offices in this area.  If some Albanian or Norweigen government person
started complaining, I could basically tell them to take a hike (or less
idiomatically, ignore them and tell them to go away).  They certainly
aren't going to take a trip across the Atlantic just to come over here
and make trouble for me because of a few politically incorrect messages,
and I doubt they could seriously interest the government here with their
own polticial problems.  This is why I strongly encourage you to set up
a remailer in Norway.  If we can have many remailers distributed
throughout the world, the chances of political pressures threatening the
remailers is diminished.