Re: Followup-To: header temporarily disabled at flash

[Charlie Comsec <comsec@redneck.efga.org>]

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dritz@primenet.com (David Ritz) wrote:

> | Hi there,
> | 
> | because of (too much) abuse (newsgroup trolling) through my remailer,
> | I have temporarily disabled the Followup-To: header until I have in-
> | stalled sanitize.
> | 
> | I don't have too much time at the moment, so this might take some
> | time.
> | 
> | Sorry for any inconveniences.
> 
> I am sorry for your inconvenience, too.
> 
> Thank you for taking this selfishly mandated step.

I'm not sure whether you meant that sarcastically or not, but let me
assume that you didn't.

IMO, it sets a bad precedent to disable a feature like that, and an
even worse one to imply that it was "mandated".

It paves the way for a piecemeal attack on remailers to shut them
down gradually, one feature at a time.  If all it takes to get
something diabled is for one person to intentionally abuse that
feature (as often as necessary), then you'll find no shortage of
people willing to do exactly that.  And since they can do it
anonymously, the same person can both commit the abuse then turn
around and indignantly demand that it be eliminated.  It's been
called "designer abuse".

In general, I do not support having those who desire or need to
remain anonymous, for reasons that only they need to know, being
treated in a second-class fashion for exercising their liberties in
that manner.  Where at all possible, anonymous posters should be
afforded all of the privileges of non-anonymous ones and not
be stigmatized in any way for that choice.

Is it possible for a "middleman" type remailer to be able to support
header pasting without subjecting the operator to abuse and
retribution by those with hidden agendas?  Are remailers stripping
these headers, where found, or merely not allowing them to be added
at their hop?  "Sanitize" was mentioned, and I'm not exactly sure
how it works.

- --
Charlie Comsec <comsec@redneck.efga.org>
Finger for PGP key


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