On Fri, Mar 28, 2003 at 01:10:56PM -0500, Perry E. Metzger wrote: > > http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/archives/000336.html > > Quoting: > > Here is one example of the far-reaching harmful effects of > these bills. Both bills would flatly ban the possession, sale, > or use of technologies that "conceal from a communication > service provider ... the existence or place of origin or > destination of any communication".
Frankly, I'm puzzled by the reactions to this. The text specifically talk about technologies, not humans. And, practically, the only civilian use technology it applies to is spam. It does not apply to NAT, with due respect to contrary opinions in the list, because NAT does not hide the originating or destination IP. That IP is the place of origin/destination of all packets of the translated network. It also does not apply to remailers, for the same reason -- the source/destination is that remailer. But, someone may ask, isn't a human the eventual origin/destination? Perhaps so, but the fact is that -- by definition -- *all* technologies stand in the middle and effectively conceal from a communication service provider the existence or place of origin or destination of any human involved in the communication. Humans can't send electrons in the wire, airwaves in the ether -- there is always a piece of technology in-between. Cheers, Ed Gerck
