Path: utzoo!attcan!sobmips!uunet!samsung!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!coolidge
From: coolidge@brutus.cs.uiuc.edu (John Coolidge)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: Anyone interested in end-to-end checksums in news?
Summary: No, checksum most of the headers.
Message-ID: <1989Nov16.173546.6101@brutus.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: 16 Nov 89 17:35:46 GMT
References: <14594@well.UUCP> <14922@bfmny0.UU.NET>
Sender: news@brutus.cs.uiuc.edu
Reply-To: coolidge@cs.uiuc.edu
Organization: U of Illinois, CS Dept., Systems Research Group
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tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff) writes:
>Checksumming could work if the following rules apply:

> * Start with the first nonblank line of the article body; do not
>   include headers.  (Think about the "Path" field.)

I agree with the original proposal here. Checksum all of the standard
headers except Path: (and Xref:). Message-id's seem to be the most
common thing to get mashed in transmission. They're also the most
_important_ thing that gets mashed most of the time. Checksumming
should start with the headers.

>A new field like Checksum is only worth adding if practically everyone
>can get some use out of it.  The above suggestions would allow lots
>of different machines both to generate and check the field.

That's true. On the other hand, I don't see anything in Checksum:
that would imply that headers not get checksummed. The most important
reason for me to want Checksum: is to protect against bogus
message-ids. Of course, there _is_ the side benefit that it would
stop gratuitous header re-writing (hurrah!).

--John

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John L. Coolidge     Internet:coolidge@cs.uiuc.edu   UUCP:uiucdcs!coolidge
Of course I don't speak for the U of I (or anyone else except myself)
Copyright 1989 John L. Coolidge. Copying allowed if (and only if) attributed.
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