From: pnwp-0@onion.rain.com
Newsgroups: pnw.personals
Subject: How to use the pnw.personals Anonymous Forwarding Service
Date: 1 Oct 92 13:15:54 GMT
Article-I.D.: onion.1992Oct1.131554.10066
Reply-To: pnwp-0@onion.rain.com
Distribution: pnw
Organization: Anonymous Forwarding Service
X-Posting-Software: afs 1.0a

[ Last updated:  March 18, 1992 ]

HOW TO POST AN ARTICLE ANONYMOUSLY

   ** Send e-mail message to			To post to:
   ** ----------------------------------------------------------
   ** pnwp-personals@onion.rain.com             pnw.personals

The Subject: line of this message will become the Subject: line of the
article.  A new header will be created for the article, with From: and
Reply-To: lines of the form "pnwp-###@onion.rain.com".  Nothing in the
header of the article will tell anything about who or where you are,
or what (or who?) you had for dinner last night.  If your message has a
signature in the standard form (beginning with a line containing "--"),
it will be deleted.  There is no enforced limit to the length of a
message at this time.  Please keep your message reasonable.

NOTE: The first time you send something to the AFS, be it a posting
or a reply to a posting, you are assigned an alias of the form
pnwp-###@onion.rain.com.  As long as your From: line contains the same
information when it gets here, anything you post or e-mail will appear
to come from this alias.  If you send something that has a different line
in From:, you will be assigned a new alias.  This includes mail sent from
the same person but happened to go through a different path to get to
onion.rain.com Both aliases will work.  This may be a bug or a feature,
depending on your point of view.

Suggestions For Anonymous messages:

1) Don't include phone numbers, street addresses, or e-mail addresses
in the body of the article.  It of defeats the point of anonymous
messages, doesn't it?  If your mailer automatically inserts such
information about you anywhere but in a properly formatted signature,
get it fixed.  If all else fails, add a line of "-----" at the end of
the text you want in your message.

2) PLEASE don't send anonymous test messages to pnwp.personals just
to find out what your alias would be if you posted a "real" message.
Send a message to pnwp-ping (see below) instead.

These are guidelines, not rules, not laws.

REPLYING TO ANONYMOUS ARTICLES

Just reply to an anonymous article as you would to any other article
or send e-mail to the alias listed in the From: line of the article.
The message will be e-mailed to the poster's alias at onion.rain.com.
When it gets here, the software will intercept the message, substitute
your e-mail address with an alias, replace the poster's alias with
their real e-mail address, and send it on with a completely rebuilt
header, no signature.  There is no enforced limit to the length of
replies either.  Please keep your message reasonable.

At this point, it's possible for any two people whose aliases are
registered in the database here to carry on an e-mail conversation
without ever knowing each other's e-mail address.  Just send your
message to the alias at onion.rain.com and the system will do the rest.

PRIVACY AND SECURITY

I've done what I can to ensure that the identities of the users of
the Anonymous Forwarding Service will be kept private, but I can't make
any guarantees.  I will not divulge the name of anyone using the service
without a court order, but there is always the possibility that someone
will successfully crack this system, or that someone will examine your
article before it gets here.  Usenet is not totally private, and you
use this service at your own risk. 

One of the things that happens fairly frequently on the net is 
bounced e-mail.  It could be unpleasant if this happened to a message
destined for the AFS.  To make sure that you have a clean mail path,
you can send e-mail to "pnwp-ping@onion.rain.com".  This is a mail echo
system.  When your message gets here (if it gets here), the system
will grab your return address and send you an e-mail message containing
your alias in the AFS system and the header of your message as it
arrived here.  If you don't get a reply with a Subject: line of
"AFS ping reply", assume that either your message never got here,
or the reply went astray.  In either case, you shouldn't try to use
the anonymous forwarding service.  Try to find another e-mail path that
works first.

To use this service, send EMAIL to:
Anonymous posting:	pnwp-personals@onion.rain.com
Anonymous reply:	pnwp-###@onion.rain.com
Test path/get alias:	pnwp-ping@onion.rain.com
For help:               pnwp-help@onion.rain.com

To correspond with the PNWP administrator, send EMAIL to:
pnwp-admin@onion.rain.com            (non anonymous mail to pnwp admin)
pnwp-0@onion.rain.com                (anonymous mail to pnwp admin)


-- 
For help with AFS, send mail to:                 pnwp-help@onion.rain.com
To post anonymously to pnw.personals:            pnwp-personals@onion.rain.com
For details on AFS, send mail to:                pnwp-admin@onion.rain.com
To reply to the author of an anonymous message:  pnwp-###@onion.rain.com
Newsgroups: pnw.personals