Re: License for mixminion dist

[200203041606.g24G60795304@scs.cs.nyu.edu]

> From: Nick Mathewson <nickm@alum.mit.edu>
> Date: 23 Apr 2002 13:12:03 -0400
> 
> Now, for David's ARPL.  As near as I can tell (and I'm not much of a
> lawyer) the goal of this license is to make it a violation of the
> license terms to operate an modified node without flagging it as such.
> This tries to prevent people from running modified nodes without
> identifying them.
> 
> Whom are we defending against?

This mostly defends against unreasonable law enforcement requests.
For example, the FBI pressured us very heavily to modify some of the
software on nym.alias.net without telling anyone.  Our response was
that because we published a paper describing the system a certain way,
it would be academically dishonest to run software that did something
fundamentally different from what we were claiming.

If someone runs this kind of server outside of a
university--particularly if they don't have free (to them) legal
counsel--it might be harder for them to figure out how to handle such
a request.  The ARPL would at least give them a subtle way to alert
the rest of the world that something is not right.  (All they would
need to do is replace the ARPL with the GPL, and people who care would
understand.)

David