Re: An alternative to remailer shutdowns

[Bill Stewart <stewarts@ix.netcom.com>]

At 03:05 PM 5/21/96 -0500, you wrote:
>To make it easy, how about a two part MIME message with the key and the 
>PGP-encrypted message.  The message text would be directions on opening 
>it up, and breaking the "seal", which constitutes acceptance of the 
>remailer terms...

Is that really any different than delivering the message rot-13?
One of the reasons people object to getting anonymous email is spam;
sending "You have mail; pick up message-id #2718281828 by midnight tonight!"
encourages you to go to some effort to pick up the message,
so you'll be even more annoyed if it's spam.  Similarly, for hate-mail.

PROPOSAL
--------
On the other hand, a pickup system could reduce directed spam,
if people generally don't pick up remailer pickups unless they recognize
the messageid, leaving the remailer system to people who actually
want to communicate with each other anonymously, which _had_ been one
of the original goals of remailer systems.  

Protocol support requirements:?  We could build in a fancy header,
or we could just use the Subject: line, which many remailers know
how to paste in anyway, and let the remailer do a messageid.
Response mechanisms should probably be an email message to the remailer
        ::
        Deliver-Message: 2718281828
A secondary concern is handling multi-casts - should the remailer 
create one copy for each recipient (secure, easy, space-wasteful),
or should it try to get fancy and keep the message for N recipients or D days?
Two ways to implement the fancy version are to keep a flag that says
not to delete the article upon receipt, while the normal behavior deletes it,
or to use different keywords for picking up delete-after-pickup and shared
messages.

NEGATIVES
---------
The big negatives with this approach are that it doesn't support PGP-encrypted
messages, since they don't easily fit into one line, while they also encourage
people to forget that the header of their message will be delivered insecurely.
But it's probably close enough for non-anti-government work.

Of course, it also doesn't do chaining; that either needs to be implemented
by recognizing well-known remailers and forwarding directly instead of
pickup, or
by using a standard message format, so other remailers could do pickup.
It's probably worth doing both, to support other remailer types transparently
and to allow remailers to use pickups without having to be well-known.
Adding automatic remailer registration is easy, but requires care to avoid
spammers
falsely registering victim@wherever.com as a remailer and then spamming.

SPAM POSSIBILITIES
------------------
That still allows 1-line spams like 
        Subject: <Expletive Deleted>!  You <perjorative deleted><ethnic slur
deleted>!
or      Subject: Our new Remail-Spam(tm) system lets you fit 1015 characters
in a Subject:                       line, just like this one, so your whole
message can fit through those
                anti-marketing filters!  You can MAKE M0NEY REAL FAST
building your downline -
                send e$1 of Bank Foo ecash to the top three addresses in the
Cc: line
but at least it cuts down on the annoyance level.  

It also supports messages like
        Subject: Secrets of the Scientologists for Sale!  Pick up message for 
                free sample and price list!  Operate your own Thetan today!
which permit direct-e-mail spams, or as some people prefer to call them,
marketing opportunities.  An interesting security/legality wrinkle is that
if somebody is trying to multicast-publish unencrypted contraband data,
it's sitting around in the mail-pickup spool, it can be seized by Bad Guys /
courts / sheriffs / etc.  As with most remailers, there's also a risk that
outgoing unicast mail could be seized while in the spool, which is higher
for a pickup system because the data may be in the spool longer.


#					Thanks;  Bill
# Bill Stewart, stewarts@ix.netcom.com, +1-415-442-2215
# goodtimes signature virus innoculation