Re: AT&T bans anonymous messages

[Rich Graves <llurch@networking.stanford.edu>]

On Tue, 25 Jun 1996, Intense wrote:

> On Tue, 25 Jun 1996, Rich Graves wrote:
> 
> > given username. If you send a message traceable to AT&T, they are held
> > accountable. I think it's reasonable for them to demand that you make
> > messages traceable to yourself so that you are held accountable. 
> 
> Under the common carrier law, i do not think that would apply

This is true, but I wrote "accountable" rather than "liable" on purpose. 
Sites known as spam havens are regularly mailbombed, killfiled, aliased out,
and so on. With the possble exception of mailbombing, all of these means of
holding ISPs accountable for their users' abuse of network are completely
legal and require no legal action on the part of the responding site.

I see no excuse for the craven "indecency" and "personal information" bits
of the AUP, but my reading of the "anonymity" bits is simply that if you
configure Netscape "wrong" and send a spam or a harassing note, you'll get
kicked off. You can still use encryption, and you can still send messages to
anonymous remailers.

Actually, you'd be a fool to rely on AT&T for your privacy services, since
they can determine your identity based on Message-ID. Even Sameer will track
you down and kick you off if you spam from c2. The difference is that Sameer
encourages you to use his services responsibly in ways that ensure that even
he doesn't know who you are. 

Of course AT&T's language SUCKS. I'd like to see an explicit recognition of
the right to anonymity, when done PROPERLY, i.e., with anonymous remailers
or more freedom-loving ISPs intended for that purpose. An opportunity?
Probably not, but it's something for stockholders to consider. 

Skim news.admin.net-abuse.misc for messages from the respected spam-stompers
who are extremely sensitive to free speech issues -- Tim Skirvin, Seth
Breidbart, Chris Lewis, Russ Allbery, JEM. 

-rich