SolveYourProblem
eLearning Series
Internet Security
Should
I Use an Internet Remailer?
Why
would a person want to use an Internet remailer service,
and for that matter, exactly what is an Internet
remailer? Let’s take the second question first. A remailer
is anonymous, and is also called an anonymous server. An Internet
remailer is free. The Internet remailer allows a person to
send email to a person without that person knowing the name
or email address that it came from. Internet remailers are
generally free services, usually designed by people for their
own personal use who then allow others to use them as well.
The reason for them being free is rather simple: the people
using them are concerned with privacy and are not likely to
give out a credit or debit card number.
Why
would you use an Internet remailer? Let’s say you live
in a community that has political controversy. You want to
express your political views to others inside and outside of
the community but wish to be anonymous to avoid retaliation.
This could for example be a political controversy. By using
an Internet remailer you are able to stay anonymous and still
get your views across.
Now, let’s say that you are looking for a new job. There are
dozens of job boards out there to post your resume on, but
you know that the HR people at your current company scan the
job boards themselves, and if they find out you are looking
for another job, then you are in danger of loosing the job
you have prematurely. Using an Internet remailer allows
you to target the companies you’d like to apply to secretly. You
won’t have to worry about the boss finding out what you are
doing.
Another
use of Internet remailng services is to protect a whistle
blower. If you work for the government for instance,
and you discover something illegal going on and want to expose
it, but want to do so in a manner that will keep you safe from
retaliation an Internet remailer is useful. Imagine if, during
the Watergate years, the Internet had existed. Rather than
calling Woodward and Bernstein at the Washington Post and arranging
dangerous meetings in parking garages, Deep Throat would simply
have used an Internet remailer to send Woodward and Bernstein
the information they needed.
How
does an Internet remailer work? For a good example, look
at the Internet remailer that was operated by Johan Helsingius.
Helsingius is President of a Helsinki, Finland Company. When
his service was in operation you could write to someone through
his company and his computer would strip away your address
and your name, replacing it with a dummy address and it would
then forward the message to the recipient. His computer would
also forward you your new anonymous address. Helsingius recently
ceased operation of his remailer due to harassment from groups
who disapproved, and because as he said there were many other
services doing the same thing, so his was no longer as necessary
as he felt it once was. There are more than a dozen public
Internet remailers active right now, and the numbers change
daily as they tend to come and go. This comes from the fact
that they require time and money to maintain and produce no
income.
Helsingius was interviewed in Wired Magazine recently and
in the article he compared Internet remailers to telephones
with caller ID and anonymous calling features. When caller
ID first came out, many people were upset that their ID would
be known. They were used to the phone being an anonymous device.
That quickly led to an anonymous calling feature. Since the
beginning of the telephone people were used to anonymity, and
expected the same thing in email. Helsingius also stated that
he was inspired in creating his Internet remailer by the oppression
he had witnessed in the former Soviet Union. As a native of
Finland he grew up next door to the Soviet Union and saw how
they controlled ways of spreading information. For instance,
in the Soviet Union if you owned a photocopier or a typewriter,
samples of the product produced by the typewriter or copier
had to be supplied to the government. Then they could trace
information to you that came off of your machine. This control
of the information flow is contrary to western thought and
the ideal of freedom of speech and expression that is best
exemplified in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,
part of the American Bill of Rights. Helsingius believed that
in creating a way to send email anonymously he was doing his
part for freedom of speech. # # # # #
SolveYourProblem.com : 2007
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