Brad Templeton, ClariNet, and remailers

[collins@newton.apple.com (Scott Collins)]

  >Brad and ClariNet have already caused one remailer to go down (the
  >operator of it has commented here before and of course can do so again
  >if he sees this), and his comments Saturday night cause me to think he
  >may be considering a test case of some sort. (He is fearful of losing
  >his Associate Press/etc. franchise if he fails to enforce his rights.)


I might be the (ex-)remailer operator in question.  I find Brad's lack of
knowledge about remailers quite surprising in light of almost 4 hours of
conversation devoted solely to this topic, by telephone, over the course of
a month.

My summary analysis of Brad is: he'll try to scare/bully you into getting
what he wants by citing (or imagining) laws upon which he will base
prosecution.  Prosecution never follows.  If you debate his law, he resorts
to "You are Netcom's customer; Netcom is my customer; if you want to remain
Netcom's customer then you had better toe my line."  Persection of more or
less potency always follows.

I try not to flame, but the greater my contact with Brad---the greater my
disdain for him.  He is an extremely small-minded man.

Brad can't yet even demonstrate a crime.  He constantly reports remailer
abuses in the form of AP Newswire articles distributed anonymously; and
thus (_obviously_) stolen from ClariNet.  The AP Newswire, however, is
already distributed electronically has a vast army of legitimate
direct-subscribers.  Brad never offers evidence that the posts actually
come from ClariNet, and in fact ***he immediately deletes the posts
whenever he sees them*** (and saves no copies!).

I have no idea how or why he is allowed to do this.  Though it certainly
cuts down on `competition'.

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collins@acm.org                                Scott Collins