Anonymity at any cost, from The Netly News

[Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>]

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http://cgi.pathfinder.com/netly/opinion/0,1042,1594,00.html

The Netly News (http://netlynews.com/)
November 24, 1997

Anonymity At Any Cost
by Declan McCullagh (declan@well.com)

        When Lance Cottrell created an easy-to-use anonymous e-mail service
	back in 1994, he feared that nobody would use it. "I used to be
	worried that people didn't want anonymity enough to pay for it,"
	he says. Today his company, Infonex, boasts 3,000 customers who
	pay $60 a year to browse the Web without leaving behind digital
	footprints.

        Which leaves Cottrell with new and more troubling worries. The
	mushrooming popularity of his Web-based "Anonymizer" (he also
	offers a slower, free version) has placed him at the heart of
	an explosive Internet debate over the limits of free speech and
	privacy online. Is Infonex - or Cottrell personally - responsible
	if a user breaks the law and can't be traced? Should the
	government restrict anonymous remailers or untraceable Web
	browsing?

        Last weekend Cottrell and I joined 40 lawyers, technologists and
	academics at a conference sponsored by the American Association
	for the Advancement of Science. Our charge: to puzzle through
	some of the questions surrounding anonymous communication.

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