Re: AT&T bans anonymous messages

[Hal <hfinney@shell.portal.com>]

WorldNet User <anonymous-user@worldnet.att.net> writes:
>>From the "AT&T WorldNet Service Operating Policies":
>		(i) Members may not post or transmit any message
>		anonymously or under a false name. Members may
>		not permit any other person (other than an agent
>		acting on Member's behalf and subject to Member's
>		supervision) to access the Service Member's
>		account for any purpose.

(I can't get through to http://www.worldnet.att.net this morning.  Makes
me appreciate that dial tone I get every day.)

Is the WorldNet service an Internet access account, providing dial-in
SLIP or PPP access?  Or does it also provide user accounts like shell
accounts or like AOL?

The wording of this restriction is a bit ambiguous.  Technically if I
choose to resend someone else's mail I am not transmitting it anonymously
or under a false name, especially if I make clear what I have done.
He is anonymous, not I.

Rather, if I want to post a message anonymously I must access an
anonymous remailer to do so; if I want to post under a false name I must
hack my message headers or connect to someone else's news or mail server
and supply false data.

Doing the latter is something of a violation of the Internet rules, such
as they are, so I could see forbidding it, but forbidding use of an
anonymous remailer on someone else's system seems unreasonable.  AT&T
should not try to control what Internet services I access.

If I run an anonymous remailer on my home PC, connecting to WorldNet to
download the mail, decrypt it, scramble it, and re-send it under my name
but with a disclaimer attached telling what I have done, I have not
posted or transmitted anything anonymously or under a false name.  The
source of the material I choose to transmit, as long as it is legal, is
not something under AT&T's control.

Hal