Re: The Remailer Crisis

[tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May)]

rishab@dxm.ernet.in wrote:

> Tim urges recently that we need to do something about the "remailer crisis."
> 
> I remember Sameer once mentioning that he could set up remailer-in-a-box 
> accounts for possibly anonymous 'sponsors' who'd be the legal owners therefore
> indemnifying Sameer (the tolerant sysadmin) of responsibility. I know he allows
> 'remail-to-yourself' blind-server accounts for $10 / meg or something. That's
> probably a bit expensive for a sponsor of a public remailer (any stats on 
....

I of course agree with everything Rishab just said, because I've made
these points repeatedly over the last year or so. The
"remailer-in-a-box" was even my coinage, though I make no claims to
working on it more than just proposing some ideas.

I mention this because I sense a fair amount of frustration by many of
us that the same ideas keep coming up, keep getting general support,
but don't move along further. I've certainly felt this, and I know
others have, too.

(I sometimes think that nearly all messages here are just skimmed by
the readers, so the same stuff keeps bubbling up over and over again.)

Yet I'm not pointing a finger at the remailer operators or anyone
else. The problems are systemic, related to why things don't get done.

In any case, I strongly urge--and have several times now--that the act
of owning or operating  a site be explicity disconnected from the act
of having an account that does remailing.

Sites/Owners that allow remailing accounts ARE NOT THE SAME AS
accounts/owners that actually do the remailing! 

Further, there is no legal requirement (U.S.) that accounts be
"identifiable" publically--and probably no legal requirement that
accounts be identifiable at _all_. Thus, I could buy (Rishab's
"sponsor") a remailer account on foo.bar for some amount of money,
paid with paper currency sent to the remailer (just to help defray
costs, not as a sophisticated "paid remailer" scheme).

(And if charges of abuse, or legal letters from the Church of Aptical
Foddering, cause the site owner to "shut down" account
remailer73@foo.bar, then a new account, remailer121@foo.bar can be
instantiated immediately. Nothing illegal about this, unless the site
itself is (somehow) declared to be a contributory nuisance or somesuch.)

For reasons which should be apparent to all, having my name, or any
other name, attached to a remailer (e.g., "Tim-Remailer@foo.bar")
could invite deliberate attacks, spams, etc. Better to have remailers
have no such flags or invitations, a point several of you have also
commented on (in terms of picking domain names that are not
inflammatory or that will not trigger local scrutiny).

Like Duncan F., I will be willing to sponsor or buy some remailer
accounts. How many I sponsor will depend on the price, features,
reliabillity, etc. (Please do not post "Hey, I'm willing to do this,
so send me your $100 now." messages....for obvious reasons.)

I am waiting for such services to be actually, formally, solidly
announced, not just casual remarks that it might be possible. And of
course the software should be "ready to wear," port-a-potty, so that
the remailer account owner does nothing more than pay for the account.

(Aside: I strongly recommend that some emergent naming conventios be
discussed. For example, the "remailers-in-a-box" may need to be "no
frills" remailers, with no errors reported to the sender, no help to
those who send the wrong instructions, no hand-holding, and even _no
further contact_ between those who sponsored/bought the accounts and
the account itself! This could be marked as "anon-nf-137@foo.bar,"
meaning, an anon account, no frills, number 137 (of many more,
hopefully). And so on.)

And it will also depend on site reliability, uptime, etc. One site I
would otherwise be tempted to sponsor a remailer account on recently
took 5 days to forward a test message, so the problems are
apparent. (I believe remailer operators need to _promote_ their sites,
by citing uptimes, features, policies....but this is another one of
those ideas that keeps coming up over and over again, from various
people.)

The "crisis" I am talking about is that we are down to a handful of
sites, down from nearly 20 at one time, and with no apparent upward
trend in numbers.

Separating the act of having the courage/dedication to allow remailers
from the act of operating remailers out of accounts is the key.

--Tim May


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