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>From owner-cypherpunks@Algebra.COM  Wed Jun  4 16:52:19 1997
From: owner-cypherpunks@algebra.com
Date: Wed, 4 Jun 1997 17:52:04 -0400 (EDT)
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To: owner-cypherpunks@Algebra.COM
Subject: BOUNCE cypherpunks@Algebra.COM:     Admin request of type /\bsub-scribe\b/i at line 7  

>From cpunks  Wed Jun  4 17:51:59 1997
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Date: Wed, 4 Jun 1997 17:42:33 -0400 (EDT)
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@pathfinder.com>
Reply-To: declan@well.com
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Anonymity should be banned for speakers and vendors
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[Ray, a recent DC law school grad and anti-spam activist, is a good guy
but is IMHO sadly mistaken here. Thought this might be interesting.
--Declan]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
X-FC-URL: Fight-Censorship is at http://www.eff.org/~declan/fc/
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Date: Wed, 4 Jun 97 17:25:36 -0400
From: Ray Everett-Church <ray@everett.org>
Sender: owner-fight-censorship@vorlon.mit.edu
To: sameer <sameer@c2.net>, tbetz@pobox.com
Cc: fight-censorship@vorlon.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Spam costs and questions

On 6/4/97 4:52 PM, sameer (sameer@c2.net) wrote:

>> If Wallace were up against criminal and civil penalties if he continued to 
>> hide his customers' real identities, he'd give them up in a hot second.  Of 
>> course, as soon as there was a chance of that happening, he'd get out of 
the 
>> business entirely. 
>
>	So how do criminal and civial penalties for not revealing a
>customer's name protect anonymity on the internet?
>	Anonymity on the internet must be preserved. If you could come
>up with a way to make spam illegal and preserve anonymity, I would be
>very glad. Until then, I will have to oppose making spam illegal.

As stated before, I have heard no convincing argument that it is in the 
consumers best interest to have an anonymous *vendor*. Sure it's vital 
that *consumers* be allowed to remain anonymous, but if you're selling a 
product or service, there's no legitimate reason why a business needs to 
remain anonymous given issues of warranties, product liability, sales 
taxes, etc.

And in the case above, since the remailer in question is simply acting as 
an agent for the business, there's no question of legitimate anonymity 
implicated. Indeed, perpetuating anonymity for the business often times 
facilitates activites that constitute a breach of contract and sometimes 
even fraud. The whole reason to use a pro-spam anon remailer is so that 
you can violate your ISP usage agreement without being traceable or 
accountable. And if you've entered into that contractual relationship 
with the ISP with the *intent* to breach that contract, it's fraud.

Anonymity for consumers, Yes!  Anonymity for vendors, NO!

-Ray
<everett@cauce.org>
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Ray Everett-Church, Esq.  <ray@everett.org>    www.everett.org/~everett
 This mail isn't legal advice.   Opinion(RE-C) != Opinion(clients(RE-C)) 
 (C)1997 Ray Everett-Church ** Help outlaw "spam"=> http://www.cauce.org 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

----- End of forwarded message from owner-cypherpunks@algebra.com -----

Quoting Ray Everett-Church:

> As stated before, I have heard no convincing argument that it is in the 
> consumers best interest to have an anonymous *vendor*. Sure it's vital 
> that *consumers* be allowed to remain anonymous, but if you're selling a 
> product or service, there's no legitimate reason why a business needs to 
> remain anonymous given issues of warranties, product liability, sales 
> taxes, etc.

I can think of a number of reasons why a business would want to remain
"hidden".  Fear of retribution is the biggest.  This could be "valid"
retribution (such as for selling shoddy products or annoying sales
practices) or "invalid" retribution (such as selling a product that
offends the local moral or legal establishment), but is a product that
people desire and are willing to pay money for.

But such markets are "illegal" and thus not to be thought about by good
little citizen units.

alano@teleport.com | "Those who are without history are doomed to retype it."

At 4:00 PM -0700 6/4/97, Alan wrote:
>Quoting Ray Everett-Church:
>
>> As stated before, I have heard no convincing argument that it is in the
>> consumers best interest to have an anonymous *vendor*. Sure it's vital
>> that *consumers* be allowed to remain anonymous, but if you're selling a
>> product or service, there's no legitimate reason why a business needs to
>> remain anonymous given issues of warranties, product liability, sales
>> taxes, etc.
>
>I can think of a number of reasons why a business would want to remain
>"hidden".  Fear of retribution is the biggest.  This could be "valid"
>retribution (such as for selling shoddy products or annoying sales
>practices) or "invalid" retribution (such as selling a product that
>offends the local moral or legal establishment), but is a product that
>people desire and are willing to pay money for.
>
>But such markets are "illegal" and thus not to be thought about by good
>little citizen units.

I must've missed the original on this...haven't seen a post from Ray
Everett-Church (one of those highfalutin' hyphenated names!) in a long time.

It turns out that I had this precise discussion with Chaum just before our
panel discussion at CFP; Michael Froomkin was also there and agreed with my
points (he can clarify this if he wishes).

Namely, Chaum argue that seller anonymity was not needed, except for
illegal markets, which he claimed he would not support.

Well, I immediately pointed out, what about providers of, say, birth
control information in jurisdictions where such information is illegal?
(Not all such information is free, and any metered access system that was
not seller anonymous would be a prime candidate for stings by government
agents).

I also pointed out other markets for other kinds of information, which at
various times and places have been illegal. Sometimes retroactively so.

Chaum said he had to agree that these were good examples, and that he'd
think about the issue furhter. He speculated during his panel presentation
that possibly a mechanism could be found to allow such vendor or seller
anonymity for _educational_ and similar materials, but not for other
things...Froomkin and I were incredulous.

The fact is that seller and buyer anonymity are equally important. Every
transaction has two parts, and it is a logical fallacy to assume that only
buyers wish untraceability.

It may be true that in the _conventional model_ of retail shops selling to
walk-in customers, the ontological reality is that the shops are far from
anonymous while the customers are often anonymous, but this model is not
the only model of an agoric marketplace. Sellers of information on the Net
are quite likely to be serious customers of anonymity...look at the use of
pseudonyms in general in literature.

And so on. The archives have several threads on this subject.

--Tim May


There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws.
Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!"
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^1398269     | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."