Community standards for email anonymity

Good point, Ted, what we're after is some "community standards"
for cyberspace, and what I'm suggesting is the fairly libertarian
standard that goes like this:

    Prefer technological solutions and self-protection solutions
    over rule-making, where they are feasible.

This is based on the notion that the more rules there are, the more
people will call for the "net police" to enforce them.  If we can
encourage community standards which emphasize a prudent level of
self-protection, then we'll be able to make do with fewer rules and
a less intrusive level of policing.

Some more specific versions of this:

      Self-protection                       Protection via rules
      ---------------                       --------------------

 "Don't read the newsgroup 	       Forbid all newsgroups which a
 if it offends you"                    reasonable person would find offensive.


 Allow anonymous posting       Use software to           Forbid all
 in all newsgroups; use        allow anonymity in        anonymous posting.
 information filters.          some groups only.     


 Handle volume bombs by                Track down volume bombs
 using digital postage and             and disconnect the offender.
 information filters.                   


 Trace harrassing notes to          Tell people to just ignore or filter
 the source.                        out harrassing material.


I guess it's a matter of preference.  I wonder if it's asking
too much to achieve general agreement among us cypherpunks?


-- Marc Ringuette (mnr@cs.cmu.edu)

Date: Sun, 14 Mar 1993 03:27-EST
   From: Marc.Ringuette@GS80.SP.CS.CMU.EDU

	 Self-protection                       Protection via rules
	 ---------------                       --------------------

    Allow anonymous posting       Use software to           Forbid all
    in all newsgroups; use        allow anonymity in        anonymous posting.
    information filters.          some groups only.     


    Handle volume bombs by                Track down volume bombs
    using digital postage and             and disconnect the offender.
    information filters.                   


There's only one problem.... information filters and digital postage are
not widely available right now, and will probably not be widely used for
a long time.  And while digital postage sounds nice, as long as once
remailer site doesn't require digital postage, twits will still be able
to perform volume bombs.

So until the majority of the people reading USENET have the means of
self-protection, is it unreasonable to that people get protected via
some set of rules?  

You say that what you suggesting is a "Libertarian standard"; yet even
the most rabid Libertarians believe in having rules against murder, and
violence, instead of claiming that everyone must train themselves in
martial arts so they can defend themselves.....

						- Ted