[Mailman-Developers] Full anonymization

[Rashi Karanpuria]

I have tried to answer the questions listed below.

> 1. Who can be trusted?
> 2. Who needs to be anonymous?
> 3. What are the social threats if anonymity is breached?
> 4. What are the technical threats to anonymity (ie, how can it be
> breached)?
>
>
>> [1]:
>> 1. *Alcoholics list*:
>>         Here alcoholics suffering and willing to give it up share their
>> issues
>> and seek help from the community and people of the same type. Trust
>> though could act as a plus point here as we are handling a social issue.
>> But it still meets its purpose without involving trust as the major work
>> is to arrive to a solution and meet people of your type and share the
>> pain and get cured.
>
> Answers:
>
> 1. The list-admin needs to be trustworthy for starters. The situation
> could be
> that there is one single person who can be contacted to join this  list
> (who knows the original email of each user).
>
> 2. All the subscribers are anonymous among themselves.
>
> 3. Social implications of breach may be loosing your job?
>
> 4. The list-admin can be threatened to reveal the identities of
> subscribers
>   (or single subscriber).

>> 2. *therapy group*:
>>         Controlled by the doctor and as he knows everything being the
>> list
>> moderator he can better help his patients allowing them to mingle
>> anonymously and as above it serves the causes aimed at.

1. The list admin needs to be trusted who is the doctor in this case.
2. The patients want to remain anonymous.
3. If anonymity is breached,the doctor loses  trust, his shop closes
obviously but  we can't overlook the mental torture patients will undergo.
4. For eg :the therapy group is for helping psychopaths .The doctor maybe
threatened by federal officials if they are in a search of a compulsive
killer , they would want to know the details of the specific anonymous
users coming under suspicion.(eg. if a patient is discussing his
compulsive killing behaviour , they would want to know him for
investigation)

>> 3. *Drug Peddlers group or mafia asso.*:
>>         Although we are not aiming at helping this section of people but
>> just a
>> thought! The king pin is the head and so is supposed to know everything
>> but the workers below him need not know him or the co workers.

1. The mafia head (as the list admin) needs to be trusted.
2. The peddlars or workers here need to be anonymous from each other and
the head should be anonymous too from the workers.
3. If anonymity is breached in this case it would only benefit the society
and the police.
4. First of all it is meant to be a private list so as to bound the
subscribers (so only gang members are allowed a subscription) .Also it is
hard to catch the mafia let alone threaten him to expose the subscribers
:p

>> 4. *Whistle Blowers*:
>>         As mentioned it works on proofs and not trust.
Suppose a media house maintains such list where people subscribe to know
or to expose ill practices all possible organizations.

1. Here the list admin is the head of the media house needs to be trusted.
2. The whistle blowers need anonymity.
3. The whistle blowers can be fired or fined to expose these matters
4. Technical threats are bribing or threatening the list-admin.

>> 5. *Pope Confessions*:
>>         Similar functioning to therapy group.

1. Pope as the list-admin needs to be trusted
2. Confessors need to be anonymous
3. Confessors might be harassed and Pope might not be trusted again
4. Police or the orthodox might threaten him to reveal the confessors'
identity

>> 6. *Battered wives*:
>>         Suffers as if the list moderator knows the users (here wives not
>> interested in revealing identities to any one) who will she be so that
>> the wives (users) should trust her.

Suppose there is an NGO who maintains such a list where the subscribers
are specialists of that matter and the suffering wives
1. The NGO head needs to be trusted
2. The wives wish to remain anonymous
3. If the anonymity here is breached NGO loses the trust and it won't
remain as a favourable choice anymore.
4. Police may wish to find the assaulters under which the wives are
suffering in order to punish them so they may force the NGO to reveal.

>> 8. *Teacher Student feedback and discussions*:
>>         College/School authorities are the list admins and moderators
>> here. And
>> in such a list lesser the trust better the feedback ;)

1. Institute authorities are the list-admin here and they are trusted
2. Students need anonymity
3. Teacher-Student relationships are spoiled and the teacher might get
biased towards that student,
4. technical threats are not expected in this case

Regards,
Rashi