Remailer Follies

[nobody@huge.cajones.com (Huge Cajones Remailer)]

Jeff Burchell wrote:
> 
> I have added your address to my block list, this remailer won't send
> anything directly to you in the future. 

> -Jeff
> Operator... Huge.cajones.com

  I have a friend who used to operate a remailer and he told me a
story about receiving an abuse complaint and request for blocking
from an acquaintance who was unaware that he was the operator of
the remailer. The person making the complaint was also a user of
the remailer.
  My friend composed a highly officious reply which indicated that
he had logged and read the remailer messages of both parties and
had reached the conclusion that the complaintant was indeed a
fascist, asshole, etc. and thus did not have a valid complaint
according to the policy of the remailer. He included enough 
personal details regarding the complaintant to indicate that he
had actually been snooping through the messages.
  The complaintant was dumbfounded and responded with a message
asking, "Are you crazy? Do you have any fucking idea what the
concept of anonymity implies?", etc. He concluded by stating that
in the future he would be using encryption in his remailer activity
and send them via other remailers.

  My friend enlisted the aide of another remailer operator who
was a close friend of the complaintant and was known by him to
be the operator of the second remailer.
  The second fellow emailed his friend to announce that a group
discussion between remailer operators had resulted in the decision
that his friend would only be allowed to send plaintext messages
through the remailers since it was standard policy to monitor the
messages to and from "troublemakers" in order to protect the
operators from unfounded accusations against them.
  At this point the complaintant was slightly suspicious of being
the butt of a joke but he was still gullible enough that the two
remailer operators had a bit more fun before copping to the fact
that they were just yanking the complaintant's chain. They had 
the decency to promise not to use the complaintant's real name
when telling the story of their prankery.

> P.S.  Besides... aren't ad hominum attacks on Tim May a Cypherpunks
>       tradition?

  A day without a Tim C. May attack is like a day without moonshine.

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