Scientologists may subpoena anonymous remailer records

I thought that most or all of the cypherpunk anonymous remailers don't
keep records.  Not even on backup tapes.  The whole idea is that there
aren't logs.  But maybe they have found some remailers that are
non-cypherpunk.  And I haven't verified the truth of what's in the msg
below.  If anyone hears anything, please let me (or eff@eff.org) know.

	John Gilmore

Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 18:27:02 -0700
To: fight-censorship+@andrew.cmu.edu, eric@remailer.net,
        farber@cis.upenn.edu (Dave Farber)
From: jwarren@well.com (Jim Warren)
Subject: (fwd fyi - NOT verified!!)  very urgent news

Seems like it's just a tad overbroad, if true.  Another example of, "all
the 'justice' that one can buy"?

--jim

>Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 15:44:52 -0700 (PDT)
>From: shelley thomson <sthomson@netcom.com>
>Subject: very urgent news
>To: jwarren@well.com
>
>Hello, Jim Warren:
>
>        The church of scientology plans to subpoena the records of every
>anonymous remailer in the USA.
>
>        I publish a news/black humor magazine on the net called **Biased
>Journalism**.  As a journalist I have covered the collision between the
>church of scientology and the net.  My last three issues have focused on
>legal action by the church against Grady Ward and Keith Henson.
>
>        Today I had a note from Grady Ward, whose deposition was finished
>today.  He said that they asked him a lot of questions about me, and
>warned me that they may issue a subpoena for me and a demand for my
>email.
>
>        The church presumably intends to claim that I am not a real
>journalist because I only publish on the net.  I need to prepare a legal
>defense, and needless to say, can't afford a lawyer.  If you can direct
>me to any resources, I would appreciate it very much.
>
>        On the basis of events today, Ward believes the church will
>issue subpoenas for the records of every anonymous remailer in the USA.
>
>        If these records are delivered to the church, our First Amendment
>rights go with them.
>
>        Shelley Thomson
>
>        publisher, **Biased Journalism**
>        800-731-0717 voice message

> 
> I thought that most or all of the cypherpunk anonymous remailers don't
> keep records.  Not even on backup tapes.  The whole idea is that there
> aren't logs.  But maybe they have found some remailers that are
> non-cypherpunk.  And I haven't verified the truth of what's in the msg
> below.  If anyone hears anything, please let me (or eff@eff.org) know.
> 

	Exactly. I'm not worried. I look forward to the publicity and
added business this will bring.
	I might even be disappointed if it doesn't happen.

-- 
Sameer Parekh					Voice:   510-601-9777x3
Community ConneXion, Inc.			FAX:     510-601-9734
The Internet Privacy Provider			Dialin:  510-658-6376
http://www.c2.net/ (or login as "guest")		sameer@c2.net

John Gilmore wrote:

| I thought that most or all of the cypherpunk anonymous remailers don't
| keep records.  Not even on backup tapes.  The whole idea is that there
| aren't logs.  But maybe they have found some remailers that are
| non-cypherpunk.  And I haven't verified the truth of what's in the msg
| below.  If anyone hears anything, please let me (or eff@eff.org) know.
| 
| 	John Gilmore

	Does that prevent a subpeona as a form of harrassment?  There
are already reliability problems in the remailer network.  (Witness
the anon messages that get received twice, as insurance that it gets
through.)  Making the remailers less reliable is in the intrests of
the bad guys.

Adam

-- 
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once."
					               -Hume

> I thought that most or all of the cypherpunk anonymous remailers don't
> keep records.  Not even on backup tapes.  The whole idea is that there
> aren't logs.  But maybe they have found some remailers that are

When a person recieves a message from someone using an anonymous 
remailer, the return address will usually work, depending on the 
remailer. The return address is for an address on the remailer, and 
sending to that address, the remailer will forward the message back to 
the person who owns that anonymous address.

The problem with that, of course, is that the remailer has to keep a 
record of who owns each anonymous account, so that it can direct the 
replies to the anonymous person. These records could be siezed.

Also (not related to the records), if the remailer does not encrypt the 
replies that it forwards to the anonymous owner, it would be *very* 
vunlerable to traffic analysis... Just watch for your message leaving the 
remailer, and see the address of the anonymous person, or the address of 
the next remailer in the chain.

I don't really know much about remailers, but I don't think there's much
to know... If I'm mistaken about any of the above, I'm sure someone will
correct me. 

BTW, has anyone out there created an anonymous web forwarder? I'm sure 
there are a lot of people out there who don't like the idea of having 
their email address in the log files of dozens of web servers... Creating 
a simple web forwarder wouldn't be hard.

On Wed, 10 Apr 1996, Steve Reid wrote:

> > I thought that most or all of the cypherpunk anonymous remailers don't
> > keep records.  Not even on backup tapes.  The whole idea is that there
> > aren't logs.  But maybe they have found some remailers that are
> 
> When a person recieves a message from someone using an anonymous 
> remailer, the return address will usually work, depending on the 
> remailer. The return address is for an address on the remailer, and 

The above is very confusing and stems, IMHO, from imprecise use of terms.
It is important to distinguish between 4 types of remailers: 

* traceable pseudonymous
* untraceable pseudonymous
* traceable anonymous
* untraceable anonymous

The text quoted above is true if it describes a "traceable pseudonymous" 
remailer, e.g.  anon.penet.fi.  This is different from, say, a cypherpunks
style remailer. 

For a full, perhaps tedious, explication of all this and other stuff too, see

http://www.law.miami.edu/~froomkin/ocean1-7.htm

an earlier, much shorter, and slightly dated, treatement of the anonymity 
issues only can be found at http://www.law.cornell.edu/jol/froomkin.htm

[...]

A. Michael Froomkin        | +1 (305) 284-4285; +1 (305) 284-6506 (fax)
Associate Professor of Law | 
U. Miami School of Law     | froomkin@law.miami.edu
P.O. Box 248087            | http://www.law.miami.edu/~froomkin
Coral Gables, FL 33124 USA | It's warmish here.