Re: Remailer Pricing

[Hal Finney <hal@rain.org>]

From: ph@netcom.com (Peter Hendrickson)
> Right now the remailer network is a mess.  There just aren't that many
> remailers operating in a timely and reliable manner.  I am not knocking
> the remailer operators for this, it's just clear that "free" doesn't
> make it worth their while to keep the remailers operating perfectly
> at all times.

I agree with this very much.  For a long time we have had two contradictory
notions floating around: nobody will pay for remailing services because
free ones are available, and the remailer network can't be reliable because
the operators don't have the resources to make them work better.  Clearly
if people understand that the choice is between free remailers that don't
work well and for-pay ones which do, things look a little different.

Peter's idea of having the remailers keep accounts for people receiving
anonymous mail, possibly even sending them a monthly check, would
completely change the spam equation.

> Furthermore, many remailers don't use 2048-bit keys.  Why not?  Because
> they don't want to spend money on the cycles.  That's okay with me -
> it's charity.  But, if I pay a dollar for a remailer, I can expect
> to be able to use a very strong key.

Actually when I ran a remailer I had a small key because it was on a system
which I did not control.  The small key was meant as a signal to potential
users that my system wasn't all that secure.

The big problem that I always saw with the for-pay remailing model was
the fear of greater liability when abusive mail goes through the remailer.
I felt that operating a service for free would make it easier for me
to argue that I was offering a public service, while running it for pay
would mean that I would be profiting from the abuse.  I don't know if
this is really a valid argument, though.

Hal