Remailers and ecash

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

An anonymous brother wrote:
>Given: We want more (reliable) remailers
>       But someone has to pay for them
>
>Conjecture: New remailers can be financed by charging the users a fee per
>            message to use the remailers.
>
>   If a remailer charges a fee, the number of users will be reduced to
>   those who are willing to pay the fee.
>
>   When the number of users is reduced, the potential for traffic analysis
>   is increased, which reduces the value of the remailer.
>
>   If the value of the remailer is reduced, it will not be worth the cost
>   to many users, and those users will seek a less expensive, higher
>   traffic remailer.
>
>   Thus, the commercial remailer is forced to lower its prices until it is
>   unprofitable.
>
>Conclusion: Pay-per-message commecial remailers are not economically viable.

You know how the remailer operators do all their work now for free
because they believe in it?  And how all this software has been
written and given away because people believe in it?  Maybe some other
people will help pay for the maintenance of the remailers because they
believe it is the right thing to do.

Especially since it need not be forever.

And, I have to believe that out of the millions of well heeled
Internet users, there are enough privacy oriented people to pay for a
small remailer network, at the very least.  We just have to get the
ball rolling, that's all.

> - Pay a flat fee per month for remailer access

This is isormorphic to using ecash if you want to keep the messages of
each user disassociated from each other.

> - Everyone a remailer.  Remailers only accept messages from other
>   remailers.  To use remailers you must run a remailer.

I don't grow my own wheat, grind it up, and then make my own bread.  I
also prefer not to run a remailer.

> - Pay for access to an anonymous message pool

Interesting!

> - Sell cpu cycles in exchange for remailer access

If we use ecash, you can sell anything in exchange for remailer access.

Monty Cantsin
Editor in Chief
Smile Magazine
http://www.neoism.org/squares/smile_index.html
http://www.neoism.org/squares/cantsin_10.html

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.6.2

iQEVAwUBNDP8VpaWtjSmRH/5AQEMNgf9FY0zq4+p1R6F4GPIvLCqQQsXJ9TeeNSX
v8sH99yUpYm+FmJuxwoGzel0Q0VRaR6NakuTx/Q1tKzSA4H2cnslEixyft9c0CsE
5dWEXe7694x/el4xXJcoX3+XNrKjo8qAERe9jcttPUtEgwT+2+JnfcMOudX7UZd6
LL8OvpD9CJrwQuJIeaNgbftwuVukuLkCRWJ1wrsJAs37Y9w9GqA+RTlqNXbElyi6
ryC17sysWOaFVryjLEHYXL9r60Ct9ZHp1hQoP0O1yCyKa5BMrTsVfXWOXuU/qSDe
w0cfkcZ6lI8EmZObcOLr3sRdblq7nojoBctypSkILwEtEqgbpW0HXg==
=TgmT
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Monty Cantsin wrote:

> > - Everyone a remailer.  Remailers only accept messages from other
> >   remailers.  To use remailers you must run a remailer.
> 
> I don't grow my own wheat, grind it up, and then make my own bread.  I
> also prefer not to run a remailer.

You don't have to.  You pay someone to bake your bread for you, and you can
pay someone to run your remailer for you.

This idea has been around since remailers began.  The basic premise is that
a group of remailers are set up which only accept mail from other remailers.
A pinging system can be set up to verify that all the remailers are
operating correctly.

The catch is that in practice each remailer is only required to accept mail
from other remailers, but can actually accept mail from anybody the operator
wants to.  So if you don't want to run a remailer, just pay someone to run a
remailer on your behalf, and then you can send anonymous messages through
that person's site.

Thus forwarding within the remailer network is free, but it costs money to
insert new messages.  This scheme is a little more flexible than attaching
ecash to each message because you can arrange any type of fee schedule you
like, such as a flat rate per month.

There's also the reverse of this, where remailers accept from anyone, but
only send to other remailers.  Thus you have to pay to get your messages
out of the remailer network.  This is more restrictive because the payment
must be anonymous.


> > - Pay for access to an anonymous message pool
> 
> Interesting!

Sign up with an ISP that offers alt.anonymous.messages.  This one is a
no-brainer. (and profitable for the ISP)

This results in a system where sending messages is essentially free (since
free remailers exist) but it costs money to receive them.  So far it seems
to be successful, at least for those who pay a flat fee for usenet access.