On Mon, May 07, 2001 at 01:27:12PM -0400, Pete Weiss wrote:
> Have them send it to a moderator who would post on their behalf (w/
> appropriate "anonymous" disclaimer info provided by the moderator).

This puts the moderator at risk. If a 3rd party discovers who the post
originated from, the sender will suspect the moderator revealed the
source and there is no way for the moderator to prove otherwise.

A much more secure approach would be for the posters to use Freedom.
http://www.freedom.net

Freedom would not only protect posters' meatspace identity, it would
also allow them to establish a persistent pseudonym ("nym"). A nym is
better than anonymous posts in several ways: it allows establishing a
netrep for credibility, etc; it allows private replies without revealing
meatspace identity; it frees the moderator from any additional
workload (a nym is subscribed just as any other user would be); and,
it avoids the spam risk of subscribing an anonymous remailer.

There are other alternatives each with it's trade-offs. A throw-away
email account is easy to use but has limited security. The remailer
network is daunting to use for newbies, but allows very high security.

http://www.stack.nl/~galactus/remailers/nym.html

has an introduction to the remailer network.

-rex
--

  Whatever the motivation may be, at least in the field of literary
  endeavor, the interest in having anonymous works enter the
  marketplace of ideas unquestionably outweighs any public interest in
  requiring disclosure as a condition of entry. Accordingly, an
  author's decision to remain anonymous, like other decisions
  concerning omissions or additions to the content of a publication,
  is an aspect of the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment.
      [ McINTYRE v. OHIO ELECTIONS COMM'N, U.S. (1995) ]