The Kiwi spam-protection package
                                       
   The popularity of the internet has caused numerous people, often of
   questionable legality, to send out mass emails, or spam to as many
   addresses as these people can find.
   
   No rational person wishes to receive such email in their mailbox. One
   common technical solution is for people to modify the email address
   they use to post to newsgroups in to an invalid email address. It is
   usually obvious to a human looking at the email address what the
   actual email address is, but a computer program run by a spammer to
   obtain email addresses will not obtain the email address in question.
   A look at most Usenet newsgroups shows that this is a very common
   practice. This practice is called munging.
   
   Munging, while effective, has a number of downsides:
   
     * Munging is against traditional internet nettiquette. This can be
       seen, for example, in Usenet2, where munging is expressly
       forbidden.
     * Munging makes it more difficult for moderates who need to send out
       a large number of rejection messages in a short period of time.
     * Munging makes it difficult for people to respond via email to
       Usenet postings.
     * The practice of munging encourages people to not have their email
       address altogether in their postings. This encourages anonymity,
       which results in a lower signal to noise ratio in discussion
       groups.
       
   We can see that munging is, in many ways, undesirable. For many
   people, however, making their private email address available to the
   world every time they have a "mailto" link on their web page or post
   to Usenet is not a viable option.
   
   The Kiwi package provides a method of allowing one to send out email
   with a valid return address, without placing one's personal email
   address on spammers' lists. The way it works is by taking an email
   address in the form
   
     name@domain.com
     
   and converting it to the form
   
     name+cookie@domain.com
     
   Where the cookie is a short (32-bit) encrypted message that can
   contain information such as:
   
     * The date and time an email was sent out or an article was posted.
       This allows us to have email addresses time out after a set period
       of time--Three days, two weeks, or 90 days, depending on where the
       email address is being made public. This way, while spammers can
       obtain a temporary email address of ours, the email address
       quickly becomes worthless.
     * The ip someone views a "mailto" link from. This allows us to find
       out where spammers obtain email addresses on web pages from, and
       take action on this information.
     * A five letter code. This code can be used as an email address that
       we use to subscribe to a list. Should the email address get spam,
       we can inform the mailing list manager that a spammer is mailing
       list members, and change the address we have subscribed to the
       list.
       
   The Kiwi system works was designed and tested on RedHat Linux 5.2 and
   RedHat 6.2 systems, and is geared toward UNIX systems.
   
   All software and other files included with Kiwi infringe on no
   patents, and is released to the public domain.
   
   The file Files.html is a "Quick start" guide geared for experienced
   Unix users.
   
   The file Start.html gives detailed information on how to set up a
   Kiwi-enabled mailbox.
   
   The file Webmailto.html gives detailed information on placing
   Kiwi-enabled email addresses on your web pages.
   
   The file Spec.html describes the binary format that Kiwi uses.
   
   The file Faq.html answers some frequently asked questions about the
   Kiwi program.
   
   The file Lists.html explains how to generate permanent Kiwi cookies
   for mailing lists, web forms, and other places where a unique
   permanrnt Kiwi cookie is desired.
   
   The file Bouncemail.html explains how to set up Kiwi to send bounce
   messages to people who email an address with an invalid Kiwi cookie.
   
   The file Kiwirc.html describes all of the parameters that can be set
   in the .kiwirc file.
   
   The file Env.html describes all of the environmental variables that
   the Kiwi software suite sets.
   
   If you have any comments or suggestions about Kiwi, you can mail me
   from this web page:
   
     http://www.samiam.org/ssi/mailme.shtml