Newsgroups: news.software.b
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Restricting article posting with C News...
Message-ID: <1991Jan9.201748.4682@zoo.toronto.edu>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <1991Jan9.182948.5855@ucunix.san.uc.edu>
Date: Wed, 9 Jan 1991 20:17:48 GMT

In article <1991Jan9.182948.5855@ucunix.san.uc.edu> rainwatr@ucunix.san.uc.edu (Don Rainwater) writes:
>... I just switched to C News, and I like most of it.  However,
>there is one important thing that is missing (from my point of view) -
>there appears to be no way of restricting postnews (et al) to a
>specified list of people, ala Bnews' authorized file.
>
>	Before I go hacking around, I'd like to know what (if anything)
>anyone else has done about this.  Did you modify inews, Pnews, or what?

It would be easy enough to diddle inews to enforce such a restriction,
since it already has to determine the user's login name (*NOT* easy to
do in a portable way) and it could just grep for it in a file.  All the
various posting programs ought to be going through inews.

However... it's still relatively easy to make your own copy of inews
and delete the restriction code, or just compose a complete article
and feed it to relaynews in any of several ways.  B News has similar
vulnerabilities, actually.  Posting restrictions may help prevent
accidents but they won't stop a determined pest.
-- 
If the Space Shuttle was the answer,   | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
what was the question?                 |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry