Re: Mail-Future Free Remailers

[VACCINIA@UNCVX1.OIT.UNC.EDU]

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Karl writes:
>> People often like to postulate on the list that eventually there
>> won't be any more of these philantropic free remailers, and people
>> will be charging small amounts for every remailed message, to make
>> some money off it.
>> I've thought of a pretty good reason why this might not ever happen. 
>> [...] one's primary reason might be to ensure oneself anonymity. 

>Interesting point... I guess that is a good reason why free anonymous
>remailers might not ever die out, but pay remailers may be able to
>offer enhanced features and services that would tend to attract the
>vast majority of customers (assuming such a service would be
>considered as valuable by enough people ;)

In actuality having only purely commercial remailers in a chain would likely
lead to security concerns of the following nature. When remailers end up 
requiring postage, people will tend to use the cheapest remailers to cut down 
on costs. Who will be in a position to offer the cheapest rates under a 
commercial proposition? Someone who has deep pockets, perhaps? An entity that
really doesn't rely on profit to stay in business? Our own governmental TLA's
could attract much remailer traffic by offering unbeatable prices (with our 
own taxes), even a modest price edge skews traffic in their favor.

This speaks highly for the "every man a remailer" concept. If you know people 
who run remailers and trust that they are not compromised, a mix of commercial 
and philanthropic remailers may actually be the most secure chain of remailers
to use. One could then safely use the price edge of the commercial remailers 
and the advanced features they offer and at the same time thwart the TLA 
planted remailers attempts to trace traffic (at least ideally). This could be 
done by inserting personally trusted philanthropic remailers into the chain in 
strategic places. Hal has been mentioning such strategic placement of 
remailers which is very interesting indeed.

Since I leave for Honduras tommorrow I must soon unsubscribe until the 23rd so 
that I don't usurp all available disk space on our system with cpunks mail 
while I'm gone. All the organized mayhem on the list will be missed (but I'm 
not giving up diving in Roaton for it!) see you guys later. 

Vaccinia@uncvx1.oit.unc.edu




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