Anonymous Servers - Are Remailers Serious Privacy Utilities?

Author

Are Remailers Serious Privacy Utilities?

Fritz Wuehler

2008-01-02, 7:12 pm

This isn't meant as a remailer-bashing post. I know that most of what goes
through remailers is like most of what goes through usenet in general, but
often with more irresponsibility because the poster is anonymous.

OK, that can't be helped, but have remailers ever, even once, been used by
somebody who found out something nasty about a government agency or a
crooked cop or judge, or about somebody or something that the poster did
not have the courage to confront in public?

It seems like they should be a good way to get the news out about such
things, but I can't recall ever having heard of them being used for that.

That still leaves remailers as utilities that let you speak frankly when
you don't have the courage to attach your name to what you say, and that's
a good thing, and they are worth having for that alone.

It would be nice, though, to think that they were viewed as a secure and
certain means to keeping powerful people from misusing their power.

Otherwise, they are a bit trivial.

Thomas J. Boschloo

2008-01-02, 7:12 pm

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Fritz Wuehler wrote:
[snip]
> OK, that can't be helped, but have remailers ever, even once, been used by
> somebody who found out something nasty about a government agency or a
> crooked cop or judge, or about somebody or something that the poster did
> not have the courage to confront in public?

http://cryptome.org/ms-drm.htm was posted anonymously through remailers
to sci.crypt (I lurked there when it was posted so I saw it)

Useful to know but probably highly illegal in most western countries.

The guy who posted this would get a stiff sentence from a US judge. But
thanks to remailers he cannot be found.

Something that is wrong according to a judge in your country, can be
right morally and to humanity.

Ironically a lot of media publishers have moved away from DRM because
the people don't like to buy products with DRM in it and they make more
money if they don't limit the rights of their buyers in what they can do
to the product they paid for.

Thomas
- --
A society with suicide bombers
is a polite society

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Nomen Nescio

2008-01-03, 1:16 am

Fritz Wuehler wrote:

> This isn't meant as a remailer-bashing post. I know that most of what
> goes through remailers is like most of what goes through usenet in
> general, but often with more irresponsibility because the poster is
> anonymous.

How would you know anything of the sort unless you were a remailer
operator? And why would you be whining about it now unless you were a
*former* remailer operator who happens to be the first and only
operator in the history of the remailer network to be flatly banned
from participating in any way, shape, or form?

Yes, you're too stupid to keep from giving yourself away. Your stink is
so foul you'll never be able to wash it off.

SUCKS to be you I'd bet. <laugh>

Cyberiade.it Anonymous Remailer

2008-01-03, 1:16 am

Fritz Wuehler wrote:

> This isn't meant as

<FLUSH!>

XXXX off Eelbash, you're more worthless than an anal fisting
Bosch-o-loon. Don't even have the entertainment value of a diaper
wearing XXXXwit.

Fritz Wuehler

2008-01-03, 7:12 pm

Fritz Wuehler <fritz@spamexpire-200801.rodent.frell.theremailer.net> wrote:

> OK, that can't be helped, but have remailers ever, even once, been used by
> somebody who found out something nasty about a government agency or a
> crooked cop or judge, or about somebody or something that the poster did
> not have the courage to confront in public?

Yes.