Re: An alternative to remailer shutdowns

["Mark M." <markm@voicenet.com>]

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On Mon, 20 May 1996, Hal wrote:

> I was contacted by the FBI on Friday due to some threatening mail which
> was apparently sent through my remailer.  According to 18 USC 875(c),
> "Whoever transmits in interstate commerce any communication containing
> any threat to kidnap any person or any threat to injure the person of
> another, shall be fined not more than $1,000 or imprisoned not more
> than five years, or both."  I may not be able to continue operating
> either of my remailers (alumni.caltech.edu and shell.portal.com) for
> much longer due to this kind of abuse.
> [...]
> 
> My thought is to turn the block list concept on its head, and make it a
> "permit list".  Simply, the remailer will only send mail to people who
> have voluntarily indicated their willingness to receive it.  Someone who
> has not sent in a message granting this permission will not be sent
> mail.  For larger forums such as newsgroups and mailing lists, permission
> may be granted by some consensus mechanism.  Most would be blocked, but a
> few like alt.anonymous.messages and the cypherpunks list would be
> permitted, and others could be added if they wished.
> 
> This should hopefully essentially eliminate complaints about abuse,
> much more effectively than the current method of block lists.  People
> who want to test the remailer by sending mail to themselves, as most
> people do when they are learning, can simply register themselves on the
> permit list.  People who want to receive anonymous mail, or participate
> in anonymous mailing lists, can register themselves.  People who want
> to use nyms can register themselves.  People who run other remailers
> can register.  It's all voluntary, and if someone does get some
> objectionable message at least they will know that they granted
> permission.  They can always ask to be taken off the list.

One problem I see with this is that if even one remailer operated using the
block lists instead of permit lists, then every other remailer in the chain
could hypothetically be held accountable for the contents of the message.
This idea of permit lists makes sense, but I am not sure it would really solve
anything.

- -- Mark

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"The concept of normalcy is just a conspiracy of the majority" -me


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