Web Browsers and Anonymous Mail (Was: NSA net trolling)

Wayne Madsen wrote somewhere:
> A knowledgeable government source claims that
> the NSA has concluded agreements with [...] Netscape to
> permit the introduction of the means to prevent the anonymity of
> Internet electronic mail, [...]

I suspect this may actually mean that they're pushing Netscape to
incorporate cryptographic authentication into browser email, which I think is
a useful development. I'm not aware of any public remailers previously 
operated by Netscape Communications Corp. that have now shut down. ;)

At any rate, it's an excuse for me to ask some questions:

(0) I'm not aware of any class library objects or methods in stand-alone Java
for calling the local mail transport agent. Is there any class library 
support in Java+{Navigator, HotJava, Mosaic, NetCruiser, the AOL web tool, 
etc.} for applet calls to the local mail agent that's configured in the 
browser ?  

I would prefer not to reimplement SMTP using the Socket class in my own 
applets. Ideally I'd like to have an applet that presents a form with some 
entry boxes and check boxes, quantizes and encrypts the input according to 
the check box settings, and spews the resulting byte streams to the MTA. 

(1) As I recall, I used to be able to set (as an Option) the path and name of 
the local MTA (e.g. /usr/lib/sendmail) in an earlier version of Netscape. 
That seems to have disappeared in Navigator 2.0. Is there indeed no longer a 
way to set that ?  

It occurs to me that we could have achieved partial integration of
remailing into Navigator quite cheaply with that option.

Comments from Sun and/or Netscape and/or anyone else would be welcome.
Thanks :)

-Lewis	"You're always disappointed, nothing seems to keep you high -- drive 
	your bargains, push your papers, win your medals, fuck your strangers;
	don't it leave you on the empty side ?"  (Joni Mitchell, 1972)

lmccarth@cs.umass.edu wrote:
> 
> Wayne Madsen wrote somewhere:
> > A knowledgeable government source claims that
> > the NSA has concluded agreements with [...] Netscape to
> > permit the introduction of the means to prevent the anonymity of
> > Internet electronic mail, [...]
> 
> I suspect this may actually mean that they're pushing Netscape to
> incorporate cryptographic authentication into browser email, which I think is
> a useful development. I'm not aware of any public remailers previously
> operated by Netscape Communications Corp. that have now shut down. ;)

  Actually I believe that the quote from Madsen is his overblowing and
misinterpretation of our agreement to sell the government fortezza enabled
products.  There is no agreement that I know of between us and the NSA
regarding anonymity or e-mail.  Since I'm the one doing the code, someone
had better tell me if there is...

> At any rate, it's an excuse for me to ask some questions:
> 
> (0) I'm not aware of any class library objects or methods in stand-alone Java
> for calling the local mail transport agent. Is there any class library
> support in Java+{Navigator, HotJava, Mosaic, NetCruiser, the AOL web tool,
> etc.} for applet calls to the local mail agent that's configured in the
> browser ?
> 
> I would prefer not to reimplement SMTP using the Socket class in my own
> applets. Ideally I'd like to have an applet that presents a form with some
> entry boxes and check boxes, quantizes and encrypts the input according to
> the check box settings, and spews the resulting byte streams to the MTA.

  We do not curently allow Java to get access to our mail subsystem.

> (1) As I recall, I used to be able to set (as an Option) the path and name of
> the local MTA (e.g. /usr/lib/sendmail) in an earlier version of Netscape.
> That seems to have disappeared in Navigator 2.0. Is there indeed no longer a
> way to set that ?
> 
> It occurs to me that we could have achieved partial integration of
> remailing into Navigator quite cheaply with that option.

  I believe that we have always spoken SMTP via direct connection to port 25
on your designated mail server.

	--Jeff

-- 
Jeff Weinstein - Electronic Munitions Specialist
Netscape Communication Corporation
jsw@netscape.com - http://home.netscape.com/people/jsw
Any opinions expressed above are mine.

lmccarth@cs.umass.edu wrote:
> 
> I wrote:
> # I would prefer not to reimplement SMTP using the Socket class in my own
> # applets. Ideally I'd like to have an applet that presents a form with some
> # entry boxes and check boxes, quantizes and encrypts the input according to
> # the check box settings, and spews the resulting byte streams to the MTA.
> 
> Jeff Weinstein writes:
> >   We do not curently allow Java to get access to our mail subsystem.
> 
> Hmmm.  Can I write an applet that reads form input, processes it, dumps the
> output to an applet window, and tells the user to cut & paste it into a
> Netscape mail sending window ?  That would be a messier solution than I'd
> like, but still decent.

  Forms and HTML pages are not exposed to Java either.  For that you need
JavaScript.  In a future release when JavaScript and Java can talk to
each other you will be able to do what you suggest.

	--Jeff

-- 
Jeff Weinstein - Electronic Munitions Specialist
Netscape Communication Corporation
jsw@netscape.com - http://home.netscape.com/people/jsw
Any opinions expressed above are mine.

I wrote:
# I would prefer not to reimplement SMTP using the Socket class in my own
# applets. Ideally I'd like to have an applet that presents a form with some
# entry boxes and check boxes, quantizes and encrypts the input according to
# the check box settings, and spews the resulting byte streams to the MTA.

Jeff Weinstein writes:
>   We do not curently allow Java to get access to our mail subsystem.

Hmmm.  Can I write an applet that reads form input, processes it, dumps the 
output to an applet window, and tells the user to cut & paste it into a
Netscape mail sending window ?  That would be a messier solution than I'd 
like, but still decent.

Thanks
-Lewis	"You're always disappointed, nothing seems to keep you high -- drive 
	your bargains, push your papers, win your medals, fuck your strangers;
	don't it leave you on the empty side ?"  (Joni Mitchell, 1972)