Johan Helsingius

Who is Johan Helsingius?

Johan "Julf" Helsingius, born in 1961 in Helsinki, Finland, started and ran the Anon.penet.fi internet remailer.

Anon.penet.fi was one of the most popular Internet remailers, handling 10,000 messages a day. The server was the first of its kind to use a password-protected PO box system for sending and receiving e-mails. In the 1980s, he was the system administrator for the central Finnish news node as well as one of the founding members of the Finnish UNIX User Group.

In February 1995, the Church of Scientology called in Interpol and Finnish prosecutors in order to learn the real identity of Penet user an144108 -- an online critic of Scientology. Pressured by possible police measures which would have meant disclosing not one but all of the registered names in the database, Helsingius revealed the identity of the person Scientology was looking for. One year later, on August 30, 1996, he announced his remailer would shut down.

The American Electronic Frontier Foundation, an Internet civil rights initiative, reported continuously on the incidents concerning anon.penet.fi. The EFF collected donations to cover legal costs should Helsingius be involved in a court case to settle whether Finnish law could force him to reveal the identity of anon.penet.fi users.