For Richard @Quicksilver - CNN blast from the past.

Your work is famous forever, dude.

Will anonymous e-mail become a casualty of war?

February 13, 2002 Posted: 8:56 a.m. EST (1356 GMT)

By Tom Spring

(IDG) -- Ever wonder how to trace the trail of that spam, track 
its source, and shut it down once and for all? These days, so 
does the U.S. government.

E-mail messages yielded a few clues to the location of abducted 
Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. But investigators 
complain the search for Pearl is hampered by difficulties 
pinpointing where the e-mail originated. Authorities have 
released few details, but apparently the e-mail was prepared and 
sent in a way that made it difficult to track. In at least one 
case, investigators were able to identify three Pakistanis who 
allegedly had links to a particular PC used to send photos and 
messages about Pearl.

The Pearl case is just the latest current event fueling a 
contentious debate over anonymity on the Internet. Tracking down 
bad guys is good thing. But without anonymity, can free speech 
and whistle-blowers exist online?

Options for anonymity
Sending anonymous e-mail is quite easy. Both fee-based and free 
services pander to the paranoid and guarantee anonymity. 
Advicebox.com lets you send e-mail anonymously and free through 
a Web-based interface. Anonymizer charges $5 monthly for a 
subscription that supports anonymous e-mail and Web browsing. 
Both it and QuickSilver also let you post messages anonymously 
to Usenet groups. Other anonymous e-mail software programs 
include Private Idaho and Potato, which make tracing an e-mail 
nearly impossible.

The simplest way to send anonymous e-mail is through one of 
about 35 remailers. The service strips your e-mail of all 
electronic ties to you and ships the message to its recipient. 
However, privacy purists point out that the remailer still knows 
your real identity. So some remailers encrypt and send e-mail 
through the Mixmaster network, developed by Anonymizer president 
Lance Cottrell.

The Mixmaster network involves client software that runs on your 
PC, and Mixmaster servers that forward your e-mail. The client 
can be used as a plug-in for the QuickSilver e-mail client or 
with other remailer software. When you use QuickSilver, e-mail 
is encrypted (under triple DES technology) and sent to multiple 
Mixmaster servers, stripping the return address each time and 
making e-mail impossible to trace. On the last leg of your e-
mail's journey, it's decrypted and delivered to an in-box. 
Cottrell insists the Mixmaster remailer network is hack-and 
spook-proof.

"If a message is sent and you want to find out who sent it, 
there is no way you can," Cottrell says.<.p>

Tiers of anonymity, paranoia
Most Internet users don't realize how easy it is to trace e-
mail. For most normal law-abiding people a Yahoo Mail account 
under a pseudonym is sufficient.

However, e-mail sent from Web-based e-mail services like Yahoo 
or Hotmail carry the fixed Internet protocol address of the PC 
or network used to send the message. A site like Advicebox.com 
doesn't carry IP information with its Web-based mail.

Advicebox.com keeps tabs of computers that visit its site but 
doesn't log or record the e-mail sent through its service, 
according to Tim Cutting, company spokesperson. But last year, 
Advicebox.com had to hand over the electronic evidence to police 
when a recipient of a death threat delivered by Advicebox.com e-
mail reported it to police.

"AdviceBox keeps zero record of the e-mail contents sent from 
the site. However, as with any computer server, it does keep a 
record of what ISPs access the server and at what time," Cutting 
adds.

Anonymizer intentionally keeps no records of people's comings 
and goings, making a subpoena useless, says Cottrell. How do the 
Feds feel about that? Since September 11, law enforcement has 
not contacted Cottrell except to sign up for his service. 
Cottrell says his clients include local cops, FBI agents, and 
U.S. embassies.

Anonymous or responsible?
Most anonymous e-mail proprietors admit their products can be 
tools for terrorists, pedophiles, and scammers. But they also 
point out that anonymous e-mail can protect whistle-blowers or 
the politically oppressed, and help shield the identity of 
people who would otherwise be afraid to seek help over the Net.

"Just like any powerful technology, in the wrong hands it can be 
misused," says Rob Courtney, policy analyst with the Center for 
Democracy and Technology. "It's quite clear the benefits of 
anonymous e-mail greatly outweigh the risks," he claimed.

Certainly, anonymous e-mail can be a safe way for an employee to 
blow the whistle on a questionable business practices, or to tip 
off police to a crime. On the other hand, it also is easy to 
imagine anonymous e-mail making it safe for terrorists to 
communicate, plan murderous attacks, or issue ransom notes.

"The abuse bothers me," acknowledges Richard Christman, the 
developer of QuickSilver. But he says free speech is more 
important. Anonymizer's Cottrell says his services have helped 
many, such as Yugoslavian human-rights activists during the 
Milosovec regime. Also, an airline mechanic once inquired about 
Anonymizer so he could anonymously tip off airline executives to 
shoddy maintenance practices.

Anonymity: A smoking gun?
Anonymity is an important aspect of free speech, say government 
legal agencies. But if it's used for a crime, law enforcement 
will try to strip away the cloak.

The FBI likens anonymous e-mail to guns. Like firearms, services 
and software are legal, but if they're used in a crime, the FBI 
will take action. "If we need to, we will investigate," says 
Steven Berry, an FBI spokesperson. Tracing e-mail has helped 
catch bad guys, such as the Philippino creator of the I Love You 
virus. It also identified a University of California at Irvine 
student whose e-mail message threatened to "hunt down and kill" 
Asian students.

Late last year, the U.S. government got some serious 
investigative help when Congress passed the Patriot Act in 
response to the terrorist attacks. The measure gives government 
the authority to monitor e-mail and other electronic 
communication and share that information among agencies. "E-mail 
is just one clue to the larger crime," says a representative of 
the Department of Justice, of the new tools provided by the 
Patriot Act.

Last November, the FBI acknowledged the existence of Magic 
Lantern, a Trojan horse program under development. It is 
intended to render encryption useless by logging the keystrokes 
on a suspect's PC. That will only help in some cases, however; 
if FBI officials can't figure out who is sending e-mail, how can 
they plant a bug on the computer?

Sensibility drift
The threat to online privacy is real, say privacy activists. 
They argue that anonymous e-mail, in an age of cookies, Web 
bugs, and government surveillance, may be even more important 
today than before September 11.

Since the terrorist attacks, public and political sensibility 
has shifted regarding privacy, says Beth Givens, director of the 
Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. Americans are now more willing to 
accept facial recognition technology at the Olympics, show a 
personal ID to virtually anyone who asks, and surrender their 
anonymity online.

That sensibility has reached the Internet. Anonymous Internet 
usage is getting harder to achieve. Just days after the 
terrorist strike, the government required ISPs to open their 
records in hope of finding electronic leads.

Zero Knowledge, which ensured anonymous Internet access, shut 
down its Freedom Network, which provided anonymous e-mail and 
Web surfing. SafeWeb closed its free anonymous Web browsing 
service, too. Both say they halted anonymous Net access not 
because of government pressure, but because they were not 
commercially viable.

Privacy advocates say this weakens consumers' protection from 
government and big business. Givens says anonymous remailers are 
not a rogue tool, but one of the Net's last free speech 
vehicles. She argues the Internet has also become less anonymous 
as companies use libel suits to find and unmask their online 
critics.

Legal prying continues
In fact, civil and criminal investigations have pried at 
anonymous communication. Anonymity could have helped 21 Raytheon 
employees who riled Raytheon executives on a Yahoo bulletin 
board. Raytheon was so upset by the postings, which it alleges 
disclosed confidential information, that it forced Yahoo by 
court order to reveal the users' identities. Charges were 
eventually dropped.

Remailers, though legal, are not immune from such 
investigations. At the request of California police and the 
Church of Scientology, Finnish police ordered Johan Helsingius 
to identify an Internet user who allegedly stole files from the 
church and was using Helsingius' remailer technology to post 
them on Usenet groups.

In 1999, Canadian Carl Edward Johnson used a remailer network 
called Cypherpunks to send rambling but threatening messages to 
Bill Gates, the IRS, and government officials. Investigators 
pieced together rants posted on Web sites, in e-mail messages, 
and writing found at his home to confirm his identity.

The issue raises concern throughout the political spectrum. 
Anonymous communications has a long, proud history in the United 
States, says Adam Thierer, of the Cato Institute, a right-wing 
Libertarian think tank. In 1776, Thomas Paine's Common Sense, a 
pamphlet urging separation from Britain, was released under the 
pseudonym "An Englishman."

"Paine didn't hide his identity to be cute or clever. He did it 
so he wouldn't be thrown in jail or put to death," Thierer says. 
"Anonymity is a key component to free speech and political 
discord."

The most cautious even worry that some remailers are operated by 
hackers or government agents.

"There is no evidence that any of these tools of anonymity have 
ever been used by a terrorist," says Anonymizer's Cottrell. But 
then again, if terrorist did use Cottrell's Anonymizer service, 
how would anyone know?

https://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/internet/02/13/anonymous.email.idg/