Re: Standard Headers for Anonymous Remailers

> From: pierre@shell.portal.com (Pierre Uszynski)
 > > From: Karl Lui Barrus <klbarrus@owlnet.rice.edu>
 > > The attitude expressed by the individual on io.com shows a problem we
 > > will have in educating others - "anonymous posts CAN destroy a civil
 > > conversation".  Yes, maybe so, but in my experience on mailing lists,
 > > bbses, etc. I've noticed that "flame wars" and "anonymous posts" have
 > > NO correlation, and are quite independent of one another.  
 
 > > Since I've seen "flame wars" on systems with absolutely no anonymous
 > > posting facilities (or none that were used), I conclude that civil
 > > conversation is destroyed by strongly held differences in opinions (or
 > > some other factor I can't pin down).
 
 > I'll second that. The main menaces against "civil conversations" have been,
 > on Netnews, flame wars and wars between two individuals.

There is another level of *menace* which I suppose many of you are unaware.
The queer newsgroups of usenet, have been experiencing waves of 
net-terrorism for the last couple of years. I don't mean the usual
mean-spirited or dogma-driven type of uninformed posting that 
echoes the stereotypical stuff we are used to dealing with in 
daily life. Nor do I mean the occasional 
*ALL FAGS SHOULD DIE POSTED IN ALL CAPS FROM SOMEONES ACCT THAT THEY 
LEFT LOGGED IN ON A PUBLIC TERMINAL AT AN INSTITUTION OF -ahem- 
HIGHER LEARNING*

I mean people who exploit insecure sites and networking skill to forge
mail and articles as part of a concerted and ongoing campaign of
harrasement.
Stuff that has resulted in very serious consequences.

Theres no need to go into detail here about the array of tactics and
the widening scope of the phenomenon, but I think it needs to be looked
at as an example of how and why systems are abused.

If anti-social immaturity can easily find shelter for puerile behavior,
then any socipathic agenda or ruthless competitor can do likewise.


 > the flamers and the opponents are clearly
 > identified. They are usually proudly posting under their usual Name (as
 > they are all fighting for their Reputation, and for establishing their
 > opponent's Incompetence) (... do we recognize anybody yet :-? ) I actually
 > can't remember such a war involving an anonymous poster (as in "using
 > penet or similar").

soc.motss and other newsgroups have seen a long list of pseudo-persons
posting from non existent sites, and yes.. penet has been used to this
effect.

 > What destroys discussions (and forces people to leave them...) is the
 > tendency of threads to start genuine, and to end as flame wars.
 > Certainly, for-money systems would tend to shorten flame wars..

I think that there is no shortage of contributing factors to the
shortcomings of network distributed ascii based communication.

Bottom line is that when we have our full range of auditory clues,
and visual context, we use all of that and more in order to convey
meaning, and in network distributed ascii communication the clues and
context are missing unless we *spell it out*.

Most of us aren't that diligent or patient.

I think it is interesting to also note that people will engage in
levels of flaming that tehy would never do to another person 
face to face. That is also a form of non-acountability by being unreachable
when your content might otherwise earn you a fist in your face.

Personally, I believe that some levels and forms of anonymity are 
highly desireable. Reality is that some levels and forms of anonymity
are too easily subverted by sociopaths who don't care about the 
consequences of their acts, or the restrictions that may come about
due to their abuse.

Not to get too far past the scope of mailers and netnews, but
these issues have importance to the growth of Networked commerce
in general.

I think that the design of privacy systems needs to take these
dark-side issues seriously and do their best to minimise the potential
for abuse. 

If for no other reason, where there is money, there is abuse
and criminally sociopathic predators who will do anything in their
power to gain advantage over their competition.

Perhaps a *zoning* concept is needed, in such that transactions would
have qualifying conditions - or in such that *zones* exist as data-space
with authentication qualifications for *entry* or transaction.


LUX ./. owen

D. Owen Rowley wrote:

>I think that the design of privacy systems needs to take these
>dark-side issues seriously and do their best to minimise the potential
>for abuse. 

Yes, but it's more than just the privacy systems that need good
designs; applications like mailers could benefit from (say) digitally
signing every message and reporting the signature on a document rather
than where it came from.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I will quote some
private email I sent to another indiviual concerned with these things
(hopefully eveybody else who is going to post in about needing to
minimize abuses and stuff will read this and find out such things are
being worked on!)

>I hope this is because people really feel like schmucks taking
>anonymous pot-shots :-)  I mean, I wouldn't like to see anonymous
>remailers abused either.

>As I mentioned, a more "satisfying" solution to me is to be using a
>positive reputation system along with a pay-per-remail anonymous
>remailer.  The problem is infrastructure - there exist anonymous
>remailers, but right now positive reputations and pay-remailers aren't
>at the same level.  

>A good positive reputation system would require people to habitually
>sign their messages and posts, even if the key they used can't be
>traced (say, the username is a pseudonym).  Plus, you'd need software
>(built in to the mail software you use would be best) that reports
>signatures instead of email address.  This would allow you to see who
>sent the message (who signed it) rather than where it originated from.

>A good pay-remailer would charge enough per letter so as to make
>everyone think before firing off a letter in haste.

-- 
Karl L. Barrus: klbarrus@owlnet.rice.edu         
keyID: 5AD633 hash: D1 59 9D 48 72 E9 19 D5  3D F3 93 7E 81 B5 CC 32 

"One man's mnemonic is another man's cryptography" 
  - my compilers prof discussing file naming in public directories