possible solution to the anonymous harrassment problem

(I'm also marc@mit.edu.  But composing over a 9600 baud line sucks :-)

I just had an idea.  Assume we have some sort of workable system for
anonymous return addresses.  What if every message were *required* to
have one, and if the remailers verified their correctness (at least as
far as we can, given the fakability of net mail)?  Then, if someone
received harassing email, she could ask the remailer maintainers to
find the real name of the sender of a piece of mail.  Assuming
reasonable remailer maintainers (and we can use positive reputations
to decide that), they'd be able to do this.  The system has a built-in
safety:  All the remailer maintainers would have to agree that a
message was indeed harassing to the recipient before they would use
their private keys to follow the chain back.  Unless all the
maintainers agreed to trace the message, it would be impossible, and
the sender's anonymity would be assured.

I'm just trying to think of technical solutions to our societal woes,
as hopeless as this may be.  Remember, if people were honest, we
wouldn't need encryption, either.  Sigh.

		Marc

the remailer of my dreams would offer ironclad guarantees of
anonymity.  call me a cynic, but asking me to place my trust in the
hands of ...  well, just about anybody! leaves me cold.

i recognize that social issues will surely arise, but society has
managed to deal with anonymity in other contexts.  for example, i
can send postal mail with high confidence of anonymity, and can make
anonymous phone calls (with care, e.g., by using phone booths and
moving around).

something tells me that the difference here is that we are getting
remailer services for free.  how's the cypherpunks bank coming along?
i have an application in mind ...

a final comment:

>                              Remember, if people were honest, we
> wouldn't need encryption, either.

forgive me if i'm coming on too strong, but that is total bullshit.
privacy and honesty are orthogonal.


	peter