Anonymity is one of several issues involving some Internet users in a dispute with the Church of Scientology.
Last month, copies of what were purported to be copyrighted internal documents of the church and its related organizations began appearing from anonymous sources on two Usenet bulletin boards where supporters and critics of the California-based sect have been dueling for 3 1/2 years.
On Jan. 3, attorneys for the church wrote to several remailers to demand that they block any further anonymous E-mail to the bulletin boards or face legal action. A week later, church counsel submitted a request to close down one of the bulletin boards altogether because of alleged violations of trademarks and copyrights held by the church and because the board is used mainly to attack Scientology.
"The situation is very serious," said Smith, the remailer in Ithaca, who described himself as an excommunicated Scientologist. He said he would not knowingly pass along copyrighted material. "But people are able to publish at will, by hitting the return key ... You would have to have a police state to have (enforced) copyright laws."
Efforts to control anonymity, or any other aspect of Internet traffic, might never succeed, whether attempted by governments or by litigation, several experts conclude. "By design of the system, it was set up so that nobody could shut it down," said Frank Connolly, American University professor of computer science and author of the "Electronic Bill of Rights."
And in the culture of the Internet - an uneasy clash of anarchy and democracy - the answer to any move smacking of censorship is likely to be a backlash, said Bill McCarthy, a Catholic University of America professor who studies flaming and other Internet phenomena. "As soon as people detect an effort to censor an issue, that issue becomes more amplified," he said.
Jon Noring, a California-based electronic publisher who is circulating an E-mail petition asking the Church of Scientology to back off, said anonymity was too important, and too easily achieved to be blocked.
"Suppose they knock down the (U.S.) remailers," he said. "The
remailers will just set up elsewhere. The Net is huge, and there
are people that are just going to get the information out, no
matter what."
Philadelphia Inquirer