::scr Paying for It

[David Cantrell]

On Thu, May 02, 2002 at 01:05:51PM +0100, Alex Robinson wrote:

> How about (using cookies or ip address or inflatable halibuts - it's not
> important right now) simply limiting the number of pages per session that
> can be viewed and then pulling down the shutters with a message saying that
> to continue viewing actual content right now  you need to subscribe (and
> have a model of subscription so that it can be as short or as long as the
> punter wants - a la loot). This way searchability and openness are
> maintained but in the best tradition of (annoy|cripple)ware, the user is
> prodded in to doing the "right" thing ...

The Anonymiser <http://www.anonymiser.com> does something like that.  Their
main service - that of hiding your origin from web server operators by
frobbing HTTP headers and stripping out spyware like Javascript - is available
for free.  The free service is SLOW, but works.  Once you pay them money, it
gets a lot faster.  Pay them more money and you get more services too.

I paid them more money, so that my connection to their anonymising proxy is
tunnelled through ssh so the government's spyware can't see what I'm doing.
It also means I don't have to trust the other people on my DSL segment to
not have hacked their routers and be sniffing traffic, nor do I have to
trust BT or my ISP.  I *do* have to trust the folks at Anonymiser, but I
feel I can safely do that, as their business will evaporate immediately
their are reports of them being untrustworthy - just like what happened to
Safeweb who had a similar offering but turned out to be funded by the CIA.

-- 
David Cantrell | david@cantrell.org.uk | http://www.cantrell.org.uk/david

   The voices said it's a good day to clean my weapons