privacy anonymity on the internet faq of archive name net privacy part last modified version notes on anonymity on the internet compiled by l detweiler ld longs lance colostate edu what are some known anonymous remailing and posting sites what are the responsibilities associated with anonymity how do i kill anonymous postings what is the history behind anonymous posting servers what is the value of anonymity should anonymous posting to all groups be allowed what should system operators do with anonymous postings what is going on with anon penet fi maintained by j helsingius what are some known anonymous remailing and posting sites currently the most stable of anonymous remailing and posting sites is anon penet fi operated by julf penet fi for several months who has system adminstrator privileges and owns the equipment including anonymized mail usenet posting and return addresses no encryption send mail to help penet fi for information hal finney has contributed an instruction manual for the cypherpunk remailers on the ftp site soda berkeley edu pub cypherpunks hal s instructions see also scripts tar z unix scripts to aid remailer use and anonmail arj msdos batch files to aid remailer use ebrandt jarthur claremont edu anonymized mail request information from above address elee h rosebud ee uh edu experimental anonymous remailer run karl barrus elee sf menudo uh edu with encryption to the server request information from that address hal alumni caltech edu experimental remailer with encryption to server and return addresses request information from above address hh soda berkeley edu hh cicada berkeley edu hh pmantis berkeley edu experimental remailer include header request remailing to nowhere bsu cs bsu edu experimental remailer allowing one level of chaining run by chael hall request information from above address phantom mead u washington edu experimental remailer with encryption to server finger site address for information notes cypherpunk remailers tend to be unstable because they are often running without site administrator knowledge liability issues are wholly unresolved so far all encryption is based on public key cryptography and pgp software see the question on cryptography encryption aspects message text destination address replies vary between sites multiple chaining alias unlinking and address encryption are mostly untested problematic or unsupported at this time what are the responsibilities associated with anonymity users use anonymity only if you have to frivolous uses weaken the seriousness and usefulness of the capability for others do not use anonymity to provoke harass or threaten others do not hide behind anonymity to evade established conventions on usenet such as posting binary pictures to regular newsgroups if posting large files be attentive to bandwidth considerations remember simply sending the posting to the service increases network traffic avoid posting anonymously to the regular hierarchy of usenet this is the mostly likely place to alienate readers the alt hierarchy is preferred give as much information as possible in the posting i e references etc remember that content is the only means for readers to judge the truth of the message and that any inaccuracies will tend to discredit the entire message and even future ones under the same handle be careful not to include information that will reveal your identity or enable someone to deduce it test the system by sending anonymized mail to yourself be aware of the policies of the anonymous site and respect them be prepared to forfeit your anonymity if you abuse the privilege be considerate and respectful of other s objections to anonymity hit and run anonymity should be used with utmost reservation use services that provide anonymous return addresses instead be courteous to the system operator who may have invested large amounts of time be personally risking his account or dedicating his hardware all for your convenience operators document thoroughly acceptable and unacceptable uses in an introductory file that is sent to new users have a coherent and consistent policy and stick to it state clearly what logging and monitoring is occurring describe your background interest and security measures will the general approach be totalitarian or lassaiz faire formulate a plan for problematic ethical situations and anticipate potentially intense moral quandaries and dilemmas what if a user is blackmailing someone through your service what if a user posts suicidal messages through your service remember your users trust you to protect them in the site introductory note give clear examples of situations where you will take action and what these actions will be e g warn the user limit anonymity to email or posting only revoke the account out the user contact local administrator etc describe exactly the limitations of the software and hardware address the bandwidth limitations of your site report candidly and thoroughly all bugs that have occurred work closely with users to isolate and fix bugs address all bugs noted below under in stability of anonymity document the stability of the site how long has it been running what compromises have occured why are you running it what is your commitment to it include a disclaimer in outgoing mail and messages include an address for complaints ideally appended to every outgoing item consult a lawyer about your liability be committed to the long term stability of the site be prepared to deal with complaints and hate mail addressed to you if you do not own the hardware the system runs on or are not the system adminstrator consult those who do and are be considerate of providing anonymity to various groups if possible query group readers keep a uniformity and simplicity of style in outgoing message format that can be screened effectively by kill files ensure the key text anon is somewhere in every header take precautions to ensure the security of the server from physical and network based attacks and infiltrations readers do not complain attack or discredit a poster for the sole reason that he is posting anonymously make blanket condemnations that equate anonymity with cowardice and criminality or assail anonymous traffic in general for mostly neutral reasons e g its volume is heavy or increasing react to the anonymous information unemotionally abusive posters will be encouraged further if they get irrationally irate responses sometimes the most effective response is silence notify operators if very severe abuses occur such as piracy harassment extortion etc do not complain about postings being inappropriate because they offend you personally use kill files to screen anonymous postings if you object to the idea of anonymity itself avoid the temptation to proclaim that all anonymous postings should be barred from particular groups because no possible or conceivable need exists references see e g ftp eff org pub academic anonymity this article is an excerpt from an issue of fidonews on individual privacy and the use of handles it accepts the need of a system operator to know the name of a user but suggests that the use of a handle is analogous to a request to withhold the name in a letter to the editor the article concludes with a set of guidelines for preserving the right to be anonymous how do i kill anonymous postings james thomas green jgreen zeus calpoly edu try putting this in your kill file anon h j anonymous h j this will search the headers of the messages and kill any that contain anon or anonymous in them not perfect and won t kill followups note that anonymous server operators have the capability to mask anonymous postings under which the above method will not work so far this practice is not widespread but it may become more common as a countermeasure to widespread anonymous filtering what is the history behind anonymous posting servers originally anonymous posting services were introduced for individual particularly volatile newsgroups where anonymity is almost the preferred method of communication such as talk abortion and alt sex bondage one of the first was one by dave mack started in for alt sex bondage another early one was wizvax methuen ma us run by stephanie gilgut gilgut enterprises but was disbanded due to lack of funds the system provided anonymous return addresses n kbt rain com john opalko took up the functions of this server including reinstating the anonymous alias file the group alt personals has been chewing through servers like there s no tomorrow spurred by the disappearance of wizvax and interested in researching the idea karl kleinpaste karl kleinpaste godiva nectar cs cmu edu developed his own system from scratch in six hours by this time the idea of extending the server to new more mainstream groups was starting to emerge and he explored the possibility partly at the specific request by multiple users for anonymity in other groups the intended advantage of my system was specifically to allow multiple group support with a single anon identifier across all this was arguably the single biggest deficiency of previous anon systems k kleinpaste posted a message on rec nude asking users whether an anonymous service would be welcome there and judged a consensus against it k kleinpaste introduced what he calls a fire extinguisher to squelch or plonk abusive users in response to complaints and used this in three cases nevertheless after a few months of intense traffic he was eventually overwhelmed by the abuses of his server even as restricted as it was my system was subjected to abuses to the point where it was ordered dismantled by the facilities staff here such abuses started right after it was created in nov johan helsingius julf penet fi set up the most controversial anonymous site to date anon penet fi is based on scripts and c code written by k kleinpaste and supports anonymized mail posting and return addresses he initially wanted to confine the service to scandinavian users but expanded it to worldwide accessability in response to lots of international requests j helsingius policy of allowing anonymous posting to every usenet newsgroup has been met with strong and serious ideological opposition e g by news adminstrators in news admin policy because of the relative newness and recent emergence of the medium abuses by anonymous posters tend to have higher visibility than routine abuses his total commitment to preservation of anonymity is also controversial for example in a highly controversial and publicized case in feb an anonymous user posted a supposed transcript of desperate crew dialogue during the challenger shuttle disaster via anon penet fi to sci astro despite that the transcript had been posted in the same place up to a year earlier then non anonymously and actually originated not with the poster but a new york news tabloid subsequent responses consisted largely of vociferous outrage at the poster s use of anonymity reverberating through many newsgroups the original poster using the same anonymous handle later conceded that the story seemed likely to have been fabricated suggesting the plausible possibility that the original intent was not to provoke outrage but gauge reactions on the authenticity of the story albeit crudely free of personal risk from perceived association with the item the ensuing commotion generated queries for the original article by late entering readers the anonymous user later posted deliberately offensive comments at his detractors despite piercingly irate and outraged complaints and even the vocal opposition and verbal abuse of k kleinpaste and eminent news operators j helsingius has largely avoided use of the fire extingisher and the group bouncer mechanisms that limit the scope of the service as of march the anon penet fi site is best described as inundated it has registered over users in its initial three months of operation forwards messages a day and approximately of all usenet postings are anonymized through the site the immense popularity is probably largely due to the capability for global anonymity which has allowed users to find creative uses in diverse areas not previously envisioned johan helsingius has been subject to extraordinary pressure to dismantle his server in feb at one point k kleinpaste threatened publicly to organize a sort of vigilante group of irate news operators to send out revocation commands on all messages originating from the site j helsingius has also alluded to threats of flooding the server the server has crashed several times at least once due to a saturation mailbombing through it by an anonymous user mr helsingius reports spending up to hours per day answering email requests alone associated with the service s administration in response to the serious threats he disabled global group access temporarily for one week and encouraged his users to defend the service publicly based on fast moving dialogue and creative suggestions by cypherpunks j helsingius has identified many security weaknesses and valuable new features for the service and is currently in the process of code development and testing he is planning on upgrading the ibm compatible machine to a soon to handle the voluminous load and is considering integrating a new system with very sophisticated functionality including multiple email aliases alias allocation control public key encryption etc a very sophisticated anonymous posting system was set up in dec by d clunie dclunie pax tpa com au that used cryptography in both directions to from the server for the highest degree of confidentiality seen so far however it was running on a public access account and he had to shut it down after only several weeks upon receiving requests and conditions apparently ultimately originating from nsf representatives d clunie has released the software to the public domain recently the idea of a newsgroup devoted to whistleblowing on government abuses has received wide and focused attention and group formation is currently underway in the basic scenario the group would allow people to post pseudonymously using remailers and even establish reputations based on their authentifiable digital signatures the traffic may eventually reach reporters in the mainstream news media deltorto aol com has volunteered to attack multiple aspects of this project including distributing easy to read documentation on posting anonymization and encryption see also sections on views on anonymous posting below and what is going on with anon penet fi in this document thanks to carl kleinpaste karl kleinpaste godiva nectar cs cmu edu david clunie dclunie pax tpa com au and johan helsingius julf penet fi for contributions here what is the value of anonymity kondared purccvm bitnet i think anonymous posts do help in focusing our attention on the content of one s message sure lot of anonymous posts are abusive or frivolous but in most cases these are by users who find the anon facility novel once the novelty wears off they are stopping their pranks morgan engr uky edu wes morgan i don t mind seeing the miscellaneous hatred prejudice racism those things are part of our nature however the notion of providing anonymity s shield for these ideas repulses me if they have such strong feelings why can t they put their name s on their postings quite frankly i loathe communication with people who refuse to use their names dclunie pax tpa com au david clunie many seem to question the value of anonymity but who are they to say what risks another individual should take there is no question that in this rather conservative society that we live in holding certain views making certain statements adopting a certain lifestyle are likely to result in public censure ridicule loss of status employment or even legal action given the heterogeneity of the legal jurisdictions from where the many contributors to usenet post who knows what is legal and what is not some say that anonymous posters are cowards and should stand up and be counted perhaps that is one point of view but what right do these detractors have to exercise such censorship from doug cc ysu edu doug sewell why is it censorship to not expect someone to speak for themselves without the cloak of anonymity this is at best a lame argument you tell me why what you have to say requires anonymity and you tell me why the wishes of a majority of non anonymous users of a newsgroup should be disregarded when they don t want anonymous posts anonymous users have less rights than any others they are not legitimate usenet participants i would not honor rfds cfvs control messages or votes from one brad clarinet com brad templeton i can think of no disadvantage caused by anon posting sites that doesn t already exist other than the fact that they do make more naive net users who don t know how to post anonymously the old way more prone to do it from mandel netcom com tom mandel i cannot speak for others but i regard anonymous postings in a serious discussion as pretty much worthless views that hide behind the veil of anon are hardly worth the trouble of reading n anon penet fi hank pankey since i began posting anonymously to show support for general principles of personal privacy i have been subject to far more abuse and attack than i ever received before people seem to find it easier to flame and insult someone whose name they don t know perhaps it s easier to pretend that there is no person behind the email address who feels the sting of abusive comments anonymity does hinder some methods of controlling other posters actions people who seek such control will naturally oppose it from acearl leo bsuvc bsu edu instead of making this a free er medium by allowing posters to protect themselves with anonymity simply require that all posters be prepared to discuss their sources of information and take the heat for unsubstantiated dribble this seems to be the way things are currently done xtkmg trentu ca kate gregory in misc kids there are three threads going on started by anonymous posters one was about changing jobs so as to work less hours job sharing and so on from a woman who didn t want anyone at her current place of work to know she was thinking of looking for work elsewhere the next was from a woman who is thinking of having a baby sometime soon and doesn t want coworkers friends family etc etc to know all about it but who wants advice the third is about sex after parenthood actually this was started by people posting in the usual way but then it was pointed out that the anonymous posting service might let more people participate misc kids doesn t seem to be suffering any harm from the presence of anonymous posters in fact it seems to have been helped by it hoey zogwarg etl army mil dan hoey while there has never been any real security against anonymous or forged postings on usenet the process has until now been sufficiently inconvenient error prone and undocumented to limit its use by persons who have not learned the culture of the net on the other hand a recent use of the anonymous posting service on sci math seemed seemed to be a student asking help on a homework problem it has now been attributed to a teacher asking for an explanation of a dubious answer in his teaching guide he says his news posting is broken so he is using the anonymous service as a mail to news gateway karl barrus elee sf menudo uh edu some argue that the opinions of the people who hide behind a veil of anonymity are worthless and that people should own up to their thoughts i agree with the latter point in an ideal world we would all be sitting around engaging in socratic dialogues freely exchanging our opinions in an effort to learn but in an ideal world nobody will threaten you for your thoughts or ridicule you but we live in a world where the people who don t agree with you may try to harm you let s face it some people aren t going to agree with your opinion no matter how logically you try to present it or how reasoned out it may be this is sad since it does restrict people from voicing their opinions red redpoll neoucom edu richard e depew the consensus seems to be that a general anonymous posting service such as that at anon penet fi seems sufficiently corrosive of the trust and civility of the net that this particular experiment should be ended perhaps the next time the question comes up we can say we tried it we learned it does more harm than good and we stopped it from c vm urz uni heidelberg de alexander eichener anonymous posting has not created major problems aside from angering irate people like you who would rather ban anonymous pseudonymous posting altogether because real men can stand up for what they said or comparable puerile arguments as others have brought up dave elxr jpl nasa gov dave hayes what a primal example of human nature i have three questions for you folks do people really say different things to each other based upon whether their identity is or isn t known are people really so affected by what other people say that the verbage is labeled abuse most importantly on a forum that prizes itself on the freedom of communication that it enjoys is there really such a thing as freedom of communication from terry geovision gvc com terry mcgonigal sigh just how many anon services are needed will everybody start running one soon what s the purpose who stands to benefit when there are n anon services then n then n out there where has this sudden fasination with anon services come from for better or imho worse it looks like we er gonna get stuck with these things and as much as i don t like the idea of services like this becoming the norm i don t really think there s much to be done since it s obvious that anyone who wants to can set one up with a bit of work karl kleinpaste cs cmu edu karl kleinpaste weak reasoning with freedom comes responsibility dave elxr jpl nasa gov dave hayes responsibility isn t real if it is enforced true responsibilty comes with no coercion should anonymous posting to all groups be allowed morgan engr uky edu wes morgan i will be the first to admit that i hold some controversial opinions indeed i m sure that none of us are completely orthodox in our opinions however i ve received hundreds of anonymous email messages over the last few years fewer than of them were reasonable posts made with good motives it s getting more and more difficult to remember why we need anonymity at all the abusers are once again lousing things up for those who truly need the service or those who would put it to good use i m not suggesting that we should ban anonymous servers as i ve said there are several situations in which anonymity is a good thing tm however the notion that anonymity s shield should be automatically extended to every usenet discussion is ridiculous it opens the door to further abuse twpierce unix amherst edu tim pierce of course how does one determine whether a group requests the service a flat majority of posters voting in favor a positive margin of votes or what no one speaks for a newsgroup i m not convinced by the arguments that an anonymous posting service for all newsgroups is inherently a bad idea simply because it s a diversion from the status quo since the status quo previously permitted anonymous posting to no newsgroups any anonymous posting service would reject the status quo hartman ulogic uucp richard m hartman writes it is facist to suggest that a newsgroup is best able to decide whether it wants to allow anonymous postings instead of having them forced upon them by an service administrator ogil quads uchicago edu brian w ogilvie the service provides a mechanism for forwarding mail to the original poster since most usenet readers don t know john smith from jane doe except by their opinions and their address the effect of having an anonymous posting to which mail replies can be directed is minimal except for those who personally know the poster and the lack of anonymity could be serious any mechanism like this is liable to abuse but the benefits as well as the costs must be weighed limiting the service to alt groups or specific groups would not help those who want advice on sensitive issues in more professional newsgroups from tarl sw stratus com tarl neustaedter an additional point is that some of us find anonimity in technical matters to be profoundly offensive anonimity in different forums has different meanings if i get a phone call from someone who won t identify himself i hang up if i get u s mail with no return address it goes into the garbage unopened if someone accosts me in the street while wearing a mask i back away carefully and expecting violence in a technical discussion anonimity means that the individual isn t willing to associate himself with the matter being discussed which discredits his utterances and makes listening to them a waste of time anonimity leads to fun psych experiments the literature is filled with all the various things that people will do anonymously that they won t otherwise including one notorious study involving torture that would not have passed today s ethical standards fun stuff in any case fine leave us out of it from jbuck forney berkeley edu joe buck you obviously have never submitted an article to a refereed journal where you will receive anonymous reviews through a server the editor that behaves much like the one in finland e g you may reply and the editor will maintain the anonymity your comparison of someone who wants to express him herself on a technical issue anonymously with a person who approaches you on a dark street with a ski mask is just emotionally overwrought nonsense such posters pose no physical threat to you jik mit edu j kamens it seems obvious to me that the default should be not to allow anonymous postings in a newsgroup the usenet has always operated on the principle that the status quo should be kept unless there s a large number of people who want to change it if someone really needs to post a message anonymous in a newsgroup in which this usually isn t done they can usually find someone on the net to do this for them they don t need an automated service to do it and the automated service is by its nature incapable of making the judgment call necessary to decide whether a particular posting really needs to be anonymous from twpierce unix amherst edu tim pierce for any newsgroup you name i bet i can envision a scenario involving a need for secrecy if an accurate content based filter of each anonymous posting could be devised to screen out those that don t require secrecy wonderful but it can t be done from lhp daimi aau dk lasse hiller e petersen if a newsgroup wants to be noise and nuisance free then it should call for moderation this should happen on a per newsgroup basis and not as a general usenet ban on anonymous postings of course one principle of moderation might be to keep out all anonymous postings and could be achieved automatically it would still be moderation personally i would prefer moderation criteria being based on actual content david a clunie dclunie pax tpa com au if a group doesn t want to receive certain posts it should become moderated there are clearly defined mechanisms on non alt groups for this to take place an automated moderator excluding posts from certain eg anonymous sites or individuals could easily be established if anyone wants to take such a draconian approach then they are welcome to do so and good luck to them i doubt if i will be reading their group from dave frackit uucp dave ratcliffe what possible need would someone have for posting anonymously to a sci group sure most adults are willing to post under their own names why would they want to hide behind an anonymous posting service ashamed of what they have to say or just trying to rile people without fear of being identified anonymous posting have their place in certain groups if i or anyone else needs to tell you what those groups are then you ve been on another planet breathing exotic gases for too long from karl kleinpaste cs cmu edu it s bloody fascinating that all the proponents of unimpeded universal anon posting access can t seem to find any middle ground at all why is there such a perception of absolutism where does this instant gratification syndrome come from i want anon access and i want it now who are the control freaks here from acearl leo bsuvc bsu edu remember this is a newsgroup for posters writing about scientific issues anonymous discussion of scientific issues leads to bad science from noring netcom com jon noring though many have personal philosophical arguments against anonymous posters their arguments have not been compelling enough to convince me that omni newsgroup anonymous posting should be banned or severely restricted though i cannot prove it it seems to me that those who do not like anonymous posting in principle do so for reasons that are personal read psychological discomfort rather than for reasons related to maintaining the integrity of usenet remember it is impossible to be able to ascertain all the conceivable and legitimate motives for anonymous posting to newsgroups one normally would not deem to be sensitive in general i fear even letting newsgroup readers vote on either allowing or not allowing anonymous posting since a priori they cannot know all the motives of legitimate posters and i do not believe that any system should ever be instituted that would inhibit the posting of legitimate and informative posts lestat wixer cactus org lyle j mackey writes i personally don t believe that pseudonymous postings are appropriate in a serious discussion area if there is a legitimate reason for concealing the posters identity perhaps but simply because they re not so sure if they want their name attached doesn t qualify as legitimate in my book oh and if you can come up with a legitimate purpose for anonymous postings please enlighten me sderby crick ssctr bcm tmc edu stuart p derby three of our the u s s founding fathers madison hamilton and jay seemed to think anonymous posting was ok the federalist papers were originally printed in new york newspapers with authorship attributed to publius i wonder if you would find their purpose legitimate what should system operators do with anonymous postings from emcguire intellection com ed mcguire i would like to know how to junk all articles posted by the anonymous service currently being discussed ideally i would actually tell my feed site not to feed me articles posted by the anonymous service assuming the c news performance release what is a simple way to accomplish this or where should i look to learn how to do it myself from dclunie pax tpa com au david clunie that s a bit draconian isn t it have your users unanimously decided that they would like you to do this or have you decided for them from emcguire intellection com ed mcguire good question nobody has decided i have no definite plan to do this just wanted the technical data carl kleinpaste karl kleinpaste godiva nectar cs cmu edu were i to be in the position of offering such a service again my promises of protection of anonymity would be limited not on the basis of personal opinion of what gets posted but on the basis of postings which disrupt the smooth operation of the usenet the most obvious and direct recourse would be to out the abusive individual less drastic possibilities exist the software supports a fire extinguisher by which individuals can be prevented from posting john iastate edu john hascall since when is usenet a democracy if someone wants to run an anonymous service that s their business if you want to put that host in your killfile that s your business if a newsadmin wants to blanket drop all postings from that site that s between them and the other people at that site if everyone ignores a service the service effectively doesn t exist from jik athena mit edu jonathan i kamens nntp servers that allow posting from anyone are not a service to the net they do the net a disservice terminal servers have the same problems as open nntp servers they allow people who want to do illegal immoral unethical things on the internet to do so without accountability there are by now public access sites all over this country if not all over the world that allow very inexpensive access to the usenet and the internet there is no reason for nntp servers to allow anyone to post messages through them and there is no reason for terminal servers to allow anyone to connect to them and then make outbound connections through them perhaps when it was harder to get to the internet or the usenet open servers could be justified but not now jbotz mtholyoke edu jurgen botz i think that what these points show clearly is that an anonymous posting service has a great deal of responsibility both towards its clients and towards the net as a whole such a service should imho have a set of well defined rules and a contract that its clients should sign under the terms of which they are assured anonymity from an anon penet fi is the problem that some are used to punishing posters who are upsetting in some vague way by complaining to the usually acquiescent sysadmin or organizations that the poster belongs to that surely is the most gutless approach to solving problems but my experience on the net shows that the same users who vilify anonymous postings are the first to write obsessively detailed grievances to the poster s supervisor when his or her tranquility is disturbed by some intrusive or subversive post or another anonymous postings prevent just this kind of intimidation from gandalf cyberspace org eric schilling the main point i would like to make here is that while we can go through and revise the news sw to reject anon posts to technical newsgroups or some such thing i think the attempt will prove futile each attempt to modify news can result in a changed approach by anon service providers to thwart the change i think this would be pointless from julf penet fi johan helsingius i have tried to stay out of this discussion and see where the discussion leads but now i rally feel like i have to speak up i have repeatedly made clear that i do block users if they continue their abuse after having been warned in many cases the users have taken heed of the warning and stopped and in some cases even apologized in public and when the warning has not had the desired effect i have blocked a number of users i have also blocked access to groups where the readership has taken a vote to ban anonymous postings although i feel changing the newsgroup status to moderated is the only permanent solution for newsgroups that want to formalize discussion red redpoll neoucom edu richard e depew does this mean that you are volunteering to issue a request for discussion to ban anonymous postings or to moderate each of the newsgroups that your server can reach i don t think so but this illustrates the trouble that your server is causing please listen to the consensus of the news administrators in this group any newsgroup should be consulted before letting your server post messages to that group from c vm urz uni heidelberg de alexander eichener there is no pompous consensus of the news administrators here maybe you would like to invent one there is a sizeable number of people who are concerned about the possible and to a minor extent about the actual abuse of the server as it is configured now these concerns are respectable johan is dealing with them there are some few who rage with foam before their mouth and condemn the service altogether and a number who defend it pointing out like kate gregory that even a group like misc kids can benefit from pseudonymous postings from julf penet fi johan helsingius i have answered a lot of personal mail related to server abuse and as a result of that blocked a number of abusive users i have also withdrawn the service from several newsgroups where the users have taken a vote on the issue i have not made any comments on news admin policy partly because the newly implemented password feature as a emergency measure against a security hole has kept me really busy answering user queries the last two weeks and partly because i feel it is not for me to justify the service but for the users the problem with news admin policy is that the readership is rather elective representing people whith a strong interest in centralised control from hartman ulogic uucp richard m hartman this seems to be a rather bigoted attitude i would consider that this group is for anyone who wishes to discuss how the net should be controlled saying that we only have an interest in centralized control is a clear indication of bias you are perfectly welcome to join in the discussions here to promote your views on control jbuck ohm berkeley edu this whole debate is a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing because even if you all decide to ban anonymous posting servers it is not enforceable the only people who conceivably could enforce retrictions are those that control the international links policy changes should be made by cooperation not by attempting to dictate you need to persuade those who run the services to act like this through friendly persuasion not by trying to beat them over the head with a stick especially a stick you don t even have spp zabriskie berkeley edu steve pope i am finding this bias against pseudonymity boring our friend posting through penet has a point the old guard would like to keep their network the way it always has been and this new thing these pseudonymous servers cuts into their turf so they whine and bitch about it and every time there s the slightest abuse such as somebody s sig being too long they try to parlay that into an argument against pseudonymity i ll go on record as saying three cheers for the admins at anon servers like penet pax and n kbt and for all the access service providers who are willing to preserve their clients privacy and a pox on those who try to defeat and restrict pseudonymity mimir stein u washington edu al billings i wouldn t help people get rid of anon postings as a group if you don t like what someone says then you put that anon address in your kill file not all of them of course if and when i get an anon site going i m just going to assign fake names like jsmith instead of anon to avoid most of the hassles you ll never know it is anonymous will you from anne alcor concordia ca anne bennett i must admit to some astonishment at this argument i see the value of anonymous postings under some circumstances yet believe strongly that these should be identified as such so that people who do not wish to read material from people who won t identify themselves don t have to i fail to see what good you would be accomplishing and indeed surmise that you will cause many people inconvenience and annoyance by hiding the anonymity of postings from your anonymous site would you care to justify where the hell you get the gall to try to prevent people from effectively filtering their news as they see fit from dclunie pax tpa com au david clunie i thought i was out of reach here in australia too unfortunately one of the us sites involved in the us aus feed complained to the australian academic reasearch network through whom my site is connected not about anything in particular just the concept of anonymous mail having no redeeming features and consuming a narrow bandwidth link with which i can t argue and that was that stop the service or face disconnection i consider the demise of my service to have been rather unfortunate and i wish the finnish remailer luck it is a pity that there are very few if any similar services provided with in the us i guess that s the benefit of having a constitution that guarantees one freedom of speech and a legal and political system that conspires to subvert it in the name of the public good what is going on with anon penet fi run by j helsingius from karl kleinpaste cs cmu edu funny how beating the rest of the usenet over the head with a stick is ok if it s anon penet fi and universal anon access but somehow people on the other side of the same equation not even arguing to shut it off entirely but rather just to have some control applied to the abuses that manifest themselves aren t allowed to do that i have written to johan several times in the last couple of weeks he used to reply to me quite readily after all i was the source of the software as originally delivered to him he used to be downright prompt about replying to me funny now he s being an impolite bastard who doesn t answer mail at all even when it consists of really very civil queries from julf penet fi johan helsingius in your mail you told me you sent me one or more messages on feb th feb th and th the server was down and the flood of mail that resulted from the server coming up again crashed my own mail host the problem was aggregated by an abusive user sending thousands of messages to another user filling up that users mailbox the bounce messages ended up in my mailbox overflowing my local disk as well i can only suppose that your message got lost in that hassle as i have tried to answer as much as possible of the anon related messages i get from routine mis addessed messages to complaints about the service on the average i spend hours per day answering anon related messages from karl kleinpaste cs cmu edu why is it that everybody else has to put up with the impoliteness and insensitivity of the misuse of anon penet fi whose definitions of polite and sense apply and why why is universal anon access considered to be within the realm of this fuzzy concept of politeness in the first place i think johan has long since crossed the line into being a rude bastard and i told him so in private mail a little while ago at this point i deeply regret a having created an anonymous system supporting newsgroup and b having given the code to johan i didn t copyright it but i thought that some concept of politeness and good sense might follow it to new homes interesting that johan s ideas of politeness and good sense seem to have nearly no interesection with mine i could even cope with universal anon access if johan would be willing to engage in abuse control but somehow that seems to be outside the range of reality from julf penet fi johan helsingius there is no way for me to convey how sad and upset your message made me i do to some extent understand your feelings but it still feels really bad running the server requires getting used to a lot of flames but mindlessly abusive hate mail is so much easier to deal with than something like this as i do respect and value your views and opinions to a high degree no i m not asking for sympathy i just wanted you to know that i am really giving your views quite a lot of weight when i asked for the software i was actually only going to provide the service to scandinavian users but a lot of people requested that i keep the service open to the international community i now realize that i ought to have contacted you at that point to ask how you feel about me using your stuff in such a context again i really want to apologise and i will replace the remaining few pieces of code thet still stem from your system unfortunately there is no way to remove the ideas and structure i got from you again i am really sorry that the results of your work ended up being used in a way that you don t approve of and i will be giving a lot of hard thought to the possibility of shutting down the server alltogether from karl kleinpaste cs cmu edu i think i m feeling especially rude and impolite if it s good for johan it s good for me after all he didn t ask the greater usenet whether universal anon access was a good idea he just did it yes i m a seriously rude pain in the ass now and i think i ll arm the usenet death penalty slightly modified not for strategic whole site attack but tactical assault just an anon penet fi destruction only outside alt too let s say to parrot this line people have been doing things like the udp that is cancelling others postings for years no one could ever stop them and it s only politeness and good sense that has prevented them up to now in fact i have people who have expressed privately the desire and ability to arm the udp ps no in fact there are not newsadmins ready to arm the udp it would be amusing to know how many people gulped hard when they read that though i don t see it as any different from johan s configuration pps now that i ve calmed some fears by the above ps there are newsadmins ready to arm the udp they ve asked for my code i haven t sent it yet only one site would be necessary to bring anon penet fi to a screeching halt anyone can implement the udp on their own if they care to politeness and good sense prevents them from doing so i wonder how long before one form of impoliteness brings on another form from julf penet fi johan helsingius it would be trivially easy to bring anon penet fi to a screeching halt in fact it has happened a couple of times already but as we are talking threats here let me make one as well a very simple one if somebody uses something like the udp or maliciously brings down anon penet fi by some other means it will stay down but i will let the users know why and name the person who did it ok as somebody said on this thread you have to take personal responsibility for your actions right from avs ccc amdahl com atul v salgaonkar i am very grateful and appreciative of this service courtesey of penet fi some important questions about my personal life career job were resolved due to kind help of other people who had been thru similar situations in return i have also replied to anon postings where i thought i could make a positive contribution in general anon service is a great in my opinion although like any tool some people will not use it responsibly i suggest that it should be kept alive wasting bandwidth is less important than saving lives i think from us mmm serc m com elisa j collins i have been informed that the anonymous posting service to many newsgroups has been turned off as a result of discussions in this newsgroup over people abusing it i had been posting to a nontechnical misc newsgroup about an intimate topic for which i felt i required privacy i have received immeasurable help from the people in that newsgroup and i have never used anonymity to behave in an abusive immature or unethical fashion toward anyone please folks believe me i need this service please consider my point of view and permit admin anon penet fi to turn the service back on thank you see also part first file what is identity on the internet why is identity un important on the internet how does my email address not identify me and my background how can i find out more about somebody from their email address why is identification un stable on the internet what is the future of identification on the internet what is privacy on the internet why is privacy un important on the internet how in secure are internet networks how in secure is my account how in secure are my files and directories how in secure is x windows how in secure is my email how am i not liable for my email and postings how do i provide more less information to others on my identity who is my sysadmin what does s he know about me why is privacy un stable on the internet what is the future of privacy on the internet what is anonymity on the internet why is anonymity un important on the internet how can anonymity be protected on the internet what is anonymous mail what is anonymous posting why is anonymity un stable on the internet what is the future of anonymity on the internet part previous file what unix programs are related to privacy how can i learn about or use cryptography what is the cypherpunks mailing list what are some privacy related newsgroups faqs what is internet privacy enhanced mail pem what are other request for comments rfcs related to privacy how can i run an anonymous remailer what are references on privacy in email what are some email usenet and internet use policies what is the mit crosslink anonymous message tv program what is digital cash what is a hacker or cracker what is a cypherpunk what is steganography and anonymous pools what is security through obscurity what are identity daemons what standards are needed to guard electronic privacy what is the electronic frontier foundation eff who are computer professionals for social responsibility cpsr what was operation sun devil and the steve jackson game case what is integrated services digital network isdn what is the national research and education network nren what is the fbi s proposed digital telephony act what other u s legislation is related to privacy on networks what are references on rights in cyberspace what is the computers and academic freedom caf archive what is the background behind the internet how is internet anarchy like the english language most wanted list change history this is part of the privacy anonymity faq obtained via anonymous ftp to pit manager mit edu pub usenet news answers net privacy or newsgroups news answers sci answers alt answers every days written by l detweiler ld longs lance colostate edu all rights reserved
