Re: Remailers and ecash (fwd)

[Fisher Mark <FisherM@exch1.indy.tce.com>]

Jim Choate writes:
>What would motivate an average consumer to use an anonymous remailer?
>
>Clearly simple anonymity or writing nasty letters to Grandma
anonymously are
>not going to motivate most folks irrespective of cost - they simply
have no
>interest in such activities. So, the question becomes:
>
>What besides raising hell anonymously, laundering money, and defeating
>merchant purchase traffic analysis are commercial anonymous remailers
good
>for?


Well, maybe the avenue to pursue isn't the average consumer, but the
average employee.  I don't doubt that at least some companies are under
email traffic analysis by their competitors (and/or their competitor's
governments) to get a clue about future directions for their products.
I could see where many (eventually most) companies would send email to
each other using remailers, so that only the companies involved know
that they communicated with each other.  Internet email doesn't provide
the same level of privacy that snail mail, phones, and faxes do now.
With the use of remailers, Internet email could provide more privacy
than snail mail, phones, or faxes.
==========================================================
Mark Leighton Fisher          Thomson Consumer Electronics
fisherm@indy.tce.com          Indianapolis, IN
"Their walls are built of cannon balls, their motto is 'Don't Tread on
Me'"