future existence of free remailers?

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. 
Hal Finney (or maybe it was Jim Dixon. Probably both) recently realizd
and revealed to us that if one operates a remailer oneself, you effectively
hide your identity from even the _first_ remailer on your chain, because
it doesn't know if the mesage is in fact from _you_, or from someone using
your remailer. In practice, simply having some remailer software running
that no one other then you uses wont' work. You've got to have a busy 
remailer running with lots of traffic coming in as well as going out.
 
This means that if someone wants to send secure anonymous mail using remailers,
it's in his best interest to operate a remailer himself, and to try
and get as many people to use it as possible. So philanthropy or profit
aren' the only reasons to run a remailer; one's primary reason might be
to ensure oneself anonymity. You could try to get some profit out of it too,
but the more people who use your remailer, the better for you, so it's in your
interest to make it free so many people will use it. This motivation could
provide us with lots of free remailers for years to come. Maybe. It's
an interesting thing to think about, anyhow.

> 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. 
> Hal Finney (or maybe it was Jim Dixon. Probably both) recently realizd

I think this was me, or at least I've advocated that many people
become "first class citizens" be being remailers themselves. There are
thus no "sources" or "sinks" of messages...any Federales who pound on
your door can be told "Oh, but I was just _remailing_ that message you
traced to me." 

> and revealed to us that if one operates a remailer oneself, you effectively
> hide your identity from even the _first_ remailer on your chain, because
> it doesn't know if the mesage is in fact from _you_, or from someone using
> your remailer. In practice, simply having some remailer software running
> that no one other then you uses wont' work. You've got to have a busy 
> remailer running with lots of traffic coming in as well as going out.
>  
> This means that if someone wants to send secure anonymous mail using remailers,
> it's in his best interest to operate a remailer himself, and to try
> and get as many people to use it as possible. So philanthropy or profit
> aren' the only reasons to run a remailer; one's primary reason might be
> to ensure oneself anonymity. You could try to get some profit out of it too,
> but the more people who use your remailer, the better for you, so it's in your
> interest to make it free so many people will use it. This motivation could
> provide us with lots of free remailers for years to come. Maybe. It's
> an interesting thing to think about, anyhow.


This ubiquitousness is why I advocate "Mom and Pop" remailers,
including "Remailer-in-a-box" easy-to-install packages. (Apologies to
the "Internet-in-a-box" folks.)

Whether remailing services are free or not is not for us to
decide--the market will eventually evolve prices, strategies, etc. I
don't mean anything "academic" here, I mean simply that various people
will set their own policies. As long as we don't try to force people
to charge, or not charge, then all of them can compete. Maybe some
free remailers will exist (as many "free" things exist now, including
remailers), and maybe many people will pay a bit extra for
"businesslike" remailers. Who can say?

All as it should be.

--Tim May


-- 
..........................................................................
Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
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408-688-5409           | knowledge, reputations, information markets, 
W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA  | black markets, collapse of governments.
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"National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."