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From: ar@mcdd1 (Alastair Rae)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.d,news.admin
Subject: shar corruption on TRN posting
Keywords: shar, corruption, hacking?
Message-ID: <140@mx-1>
Date: 5 Dec 90 16:01:44 GMT
Organization: McDonnell Douglas,Hemel Hempstead,UK
Lines: 23


I've just downloaded TRN from comp.sources.unix.  13 of its 14 parts
were coherent shell-archives but part 9's tail-end was wrong. This
was different to all the other parts which output a sequence number to
a temp file so as to keep the shars in order.

OK, I can get round that but it got me thinking. I wondered what
happened to corrupt the shar? Maybe the posting was corrupt in the
first place but my main worry is this:

    How can I be certain that a shar archive is what it claims to be?

    How do I know that it hasn't been interfered with along the net?

    When some tempting piece of software lands up at my end of the net,
    how do I know that it's safe to unpack, never mind compile & run?

Am I just being paranoid?

-- 
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Alastair Rae  uunet!ukc!mcdd1!ar  (+44 442 272071)
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