Re: The Crisis with Remailers

["E. ALLEN SMITH" <EALLENSMITH@ocelot.Rutgers.EDU>]

From:	IN%"bruce@aracnet.com"  "Bruce Baugh" 19-MAY-1996 04:10:44.56

>a point here. I don't think most cypherpunks realize how anonymity is
>perceived out in the net at large.

>Take news.groups, a fairly important group I happen to read regularly. With
>the exception of Rich Graves' presence, _all_ the uses I see there are for
>cowardly abuse in a way that lets the poster escape having to answer for his
>views. I'm not talking about presenting important information where
>wrong-headed authorities could engage in reprisals, either, but baseless
>accusations of theft, child abuse, and just plain torrents of obscenity.

	Would you suspect that having more warning labels (before & after,
not just in the headers) would help with any negative reputation thus
generated?

>That's _all_ it's used for (again, with the exception of Rich).

>There's a problem here. It's one thing to say that the benefits of anonymity
>outweigh the problems. I'm inclined to that view myself. But it's much
>harder to defend that view in a forum where anonymity is used so commonly
>for problematic ends, and to offer anything in the way of constructive
>solutions. It would be pleasing to see more cypherpunks actively dealing
>with these problems out there in net.land.

	You might try pointing out that the only remailing that people see is
for allegedly illegitimate reasons. Psychiatrists who are beginning to interact
with patients over the net certainly have a good cause to use such remailers...
including to prevent governmental tapping, given A. authoritarian governments
such as China (blackmail for espionage purposes, for instance); and B. insane
U.S. legal decisions like the one I heard about on NPR on 5-21, in which a
judge ruled that there was no confidentiality protection prohibiting turning
over psychiatric notes. One wonders what that judge's reaction (and the lawyer
who asked for the notes) would be to having their confidential documents
put into public view... I see no reason to give lawyers more of a privilege
than religious/psychiatric individuals.
	-Alle