anonymous remailers, network computer, singles sites, etc.

well, nobody has commented on this a whole
lot here from what I can tell, 
but the net is now *plastered* with
anonymous remailers in various forms. it's
definitely not going away.

we now have mail.yahoo.com which can create
an alias in a few minutes. also, www.hotmail.com
and there are others.

one could argue the Net PC (NC) is already here!!
web TV allows much software to be run on it
(btw, does anyone know if it runs java? if so,
I'd say that's definitely a NC). the point is
that sites such as games.yahoo.com etc. are
essentially sites in which a web site is
indistinguishable from software. "the network
is the computer". larry ellison went home
with his tail between his legs on the NC idea,
but what he doesn't realize is that it is
actually here en masse. (just not so much
in the corporate arena as he envisioned)

an interesting subset of anonymity is being
used very intensely with online personals!!
here's a sophisticated example

http://personals.swoon.com/e_personals/static/help.html#e-mail

they have a lot of info on how their site
acts as a remailer for email messages.
this is a very "slick" online magazine clearly showing
huge amount of production cash which I personally
haven't heard too much about. a bit risque for
some peoples tastes, but very intriguing application
of cyberspace one never would have dreamt up just a 
few moons ago.

incidentally, there are bazillions of singles sites
out there on the internet. its another application of
the net one wouldn't necesarily have foreseen, but
it really makes sense. hooking up people with people.
a strange "killer app" of the net judging by how many
there are.  there's less "romantic" types of this thing too, for
just hooking up people with similar interests, such
as www.icq.com and www.cyberfriends.com

one tasteful/decent place to start for singles sites is

http://www.zdnet.com/yil/content/mag/9803/gurlsites.html

ultimately the internet population is starting to discover that
the key thing it does is related to *communities*....

OK, I can't resist this one...

> an interesting subset of anonymity is being
> used very intensely with online personals!!
> here's a sophisticated example
> 
> http://personals.swoon.com/e_personals/static/help.html#e-mail
> 
> they have a lot of info on how their site
> acts as a remailer for email messages.
> this is a very "slick" online magazine clearly showing
> huge amount of production cash which I personally
> haven't heard too much about. a bit risque for
> some peoples tastes, but very intriguing application
> of cyberspace one never would have dreamt up just a 
> few moons ago.

I think maybe you need to have your dreaming apparatus checked out.

As far as I know, the very *first* anonymous remailing system on the
Net, which was created long before there was a Cypherpunks list and long
before there was a Worldwide Web, was the anonymous posting/reply system
for alt.sex.bondage. It was quickly followed by systems for a few other
groups. Especially prominent among these were the anonymous contact
systems for alt.personals and alt.personals.bondage.

Actually, I may have the order wrong. In any case, the systems were
definitely well established by 1990, and I seem to remember them
starting up in around 1988. Since they also predate things like
DejaNews, and since my memory of those days is clouded by age and
general dissipation, it's would take some resarch to find out exactly
when they were set up, and I don't think I care to do it.

I believe that these systems were the inspiration for
anon@penet.fi. They sort of fell apart when the PENET remailer came into
being.

Of course, these weren't truly anonymous systems in the sense that the
Cypherpunks remailers are, or in the sense that Zero Knowledge is
setting up, but they were probably more secure than the remailing
services on most personals Web sites.

... and newspaper personal ad sections have been providing a similar
service with paper mail for longer than I've been alive. Probably for
centuries.

There's actually a closely related "identity escrow" application that I
expect to see soon, if it hasn't already been done. People who meet for
anonymous sexual encounters are putting themselves at increased risk of
assault, murder, and that sort of thing, but typically don't want to
tell their mothers where they'll be. A system that could be used, under
carefully controlled conditions, to find out who they were with when
they disappeared, would act as a deterrent and might provide a bit more
peace of mind.

                                        -- John B.