Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1993 10:35:30 -0500 (EST)
From: Paul Robinson <tdarcos@access.digex.com>
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Internet *67 Service
Reply-To: Paul Robinson <tdarcos@access.digex.com>
Organization: TELECOM Digest
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 13, Issue 36, Message 3 of 8

Having a full Internet feed for the first time including news group
access has exposed me to a new and wider range of services and
features available from the Internet.  I'd like to tell people about
one of them.

If the phone system had had Caller ID from the very start, the way
people place telephone calls now would be very different.

Electronic Mail has generally always identified who sent a message to
you, especially on the Internet where all mail is in RFC 841 format
which provides the sender's name/id and account address.

Only now there is a new capability out which I call "Internet *67
Service" after the telephone code which someone dials to send a
message.

This service - the one that's left - is being provided by a system in
Finland.  You send it messages with distribution information in the
header and it resends them out with a unique alias.  It uses a
"double-blind" system, where if you send a reply to someone's alias,
it assigns YOU an alias and sends the message to them with the alias
for your account!

Mostly people have been using it to post to "embarassing news groups"
 - usually certain "alt" ones - but it could be used in any case where
someone wishes to post a comment where the identity of the sender
might be embarassing (One example was Moderator having to post a
message for "a major telecommunications executive" because he
preferred it not be known who it was.)  Hirings and Work Wanted items
could spring to mind.  Posting of messages by persons who want to
discuss how they recoverered from being the victim of incest are
another.

You can get information about this service by sending a request to
help@anon.penet.fi.  

Note earlier in this message I said "the one that's left".  There was
a service being run in Australia that did even more.  First you used
the program PGP - a free RSA Public key generator - to create a public
and private key.  You could then send the service your public key
first, then send messages which were UUENCODEd using the matching
private key, and told that system where to send the message.  It would
use the previously supplied key to decrypt the message and then
forward it under the unique ID.

Unfortunately the backbone supplier for his area caught on to what he
was doing, and like most stuffy governmental authorities, takes a dim
view of people keeping their private matters private, informed him
that the activity he was doing was not a valid use of the network and
ordered the service discontinued.  Boo.


Paul Robinson -- TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM, TDARCOS@ATTMAIL.COM, 
TDARCOS@ACCESS.DIGEX.COM  (Sort of tells you I like this name, doesn't it?)


[Moderator's Note: I guess the Internet equivilent of 'blocked call
blocking' (where people refuse to accept calls sent with ID blocked)
would be to put a line in our kill files automatically sending
messages from anon.penet.fi to /dev/null, eh?   :)     PAT]