I'm going to avoid the "right to privacy" and "freedom of the net" discussions for the nonce. I'd like to address a more fundamental question. >From: "John W. Redelfs" <[log in to unmask]> >On the other hand, the technology doesn't stay still, does it? What >is impossible today, may be entirely possible tomorrow. I have done >some reading about encryption and anonymous posting. It seems to me >that utilizing encryption AND anonymous posting SOME degree of privacy >could be achieved, keeping in mind that perfect privacy never exists >offline either. I'm glad that *someone* realizes that privacy cannot be guaranteed. In most cases, notably the store-and-forward schemes, confidentiality cannot be assured either.......of course, I can turn on my Network General Sniffer in the back room and capture every packet that crosses my net- work backbone. There are several *public domain* software packages that convert PCs into such monitors; someone could be recording my keystrokes as I type this, and I'd never know it. (I've discovered users doing this very thing -- we can't assume that they'll all be ethical) >Without privacy, free speech and free assembly are meaningless >concepts. How about it? Is the limiting factor the technology or the >prejudices of the people involved? I think that the bigger issue is one that most participants in this dis- cussion have not considered, namely: Can the current network support anonymous/pseudonymous work *with the proper respect* for anonymity/pseudonymity? I say that it cannot. I say this for several reasons: - Almost *anyone* can monitor a local network. (the PC net monitoring software described above) - Most real-time traffic from a given site goes through a single point of control to reach the 'outside world'. There's another opportunity for monitoring and violation of confidentiality. My site, for example, gateways into SURANet; I wouldn't be surprised if our gateway saw every bit of traffic flying across the SURANet backbone. If your local firewall/gateway has acutal users (as opposed to a standalone system), they could conceivably see every piece of email flying through the gateway..... - Electronic mail is not necessarily a point-to-point channel. Your message may sit in a mail queue on your local machine; that's an opportunity for loss of confidentiality. (without even reading the message itself, depending on the information provided in mail logs) On some systems, *any* user can list the messages in the email queue. If the message cannot be delivered directly, it will sit in similar queues at several other systems before reaching its destination. I've seen email messages (and Usenet postings) that travelled through 12-15 systems before reaching me. - Almost *any* email administrator (or list owner, for that matter) can examine messages in the queue. 'Nuff said. - In some cases, queues can be examined by third parties. (other than the aforementioned administrators) For instance, I can retrieve quite a bit of information about queued BITNET files, even if they were not sent from (or destined to reach) my site. (At one time, it was possible to examine the headers of queued RSCS files on other systems, which revealed the sending and des- tination addresses; this may no longer be possible.) - Most electronic mail systems return "bounced mail" messages when email cannot be delivered. Most of these messages, in turn, in- clude the headers of the failed message and the content of the message itself. - Of course, all multi-user computer systems are (almost by definition) insecure. If someone breaches security on a system, they probably have access to everything on the system. 'Nuff said. If you want to entrust your anonymity/confidentiality to such a large audience spread over (possibly) dozens of sites, I guess you can do so; *I* wouldn't trust "network anonymity" as far as I could throw it. (I wonder what a "bounced mail" message from an anonymous service reveals.) In conclusion, I do not believe that the current network structure can properly support anonymity/pseudonymity. Those who maintain that it can do so are merely fooling themselves; this false sense of privacy (or security, or confidentiality) should not be encouraged. The foremost rule of electronic communications is still, in my opinion, the first rule taught to me: Never entrust anything to electronic communications that you would not wish to see in your local newspaper. At a minimum, I would use encryption techniques on *every* anonymous or pseudonymous message. I've seen postings using PGP and other public key schemes; that's a step in the right direction. Plaintext *cannot* be considered secure or confidential in today's network environment; no 'alias server' or third-party email forwarding can provide the level of privacy/confidentiality you want. --Wes