Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!mp.cs.niu.edu!rickert
From: rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: The anomolous handling of bad dates in cnews.
Message-ID: <1991Apr25.181041.6023@mp.cs.niu.edu>
Date: 25 Apr 91 18:10:41 GMT
Organization: Northern Illinois University
Lines: 27


 It seems that when a batch of news is received from afar, cnews rejects
any articles with bad dates.

 However, when a news article is received locally any sort of date gets the
article into the local news stream.  (Basically inews does not use the '-o'
option when calling relaynews).

 This means that a site can your feed, which is running the latest cnews,
can still pump bad news into your system for you to see, without your feed
ever getting a message to say something is wrong.

 The cases I have seen (or more accurately I haven't seen, since relaynews
drops them on the floor) are being gatewayed into news from mail at my
feed, and probably have strange time zone names that getdate does not
comprehend.  I presume a similar problem could happen with a moderated
group if the moderator took a long vacation, allowed a large backlog to
develop, but didn't update the 'Date:' header.

 Shouldn't anne.jones make sure dates are understood, or even insist that the
date means the posting date so just recreate these headers?

-- 
=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=
  Neil W. Rickert, Computer Science               <rickert@cs.niu.edu>
  Northern Illinois Univ.
  DeKalb, IL 60115                                   +1-815-753-6940