Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!sdd.hp.com!spool.mu.edu!rex!ukma!widener!brendan From: brendan@cs.widener.edu (Brendan Kehoe) Newsgroups: news.software.b Subject: Re: CNEWS MUST DIE! Message-ID: Date: 20 May 91 20:54:07 GMT References: <1991May18.041319.29490@zoo.toronto.edu> Organization: Widener CS Dept Lines: 38 mathew@mantis.co.uk wrote: >If a system falls over because of errors in its input, then that system >should be fixed. Right ... but CNews doesn't have that problem. It does *exactly* what the code intends it to do. You can throw anything at it, and it will react accordingly, and not "blow up". It dropping articles that have illegal headers is *NOT* a case of the system "falling over"; rather it's policing exactly what it's intended to. >Right. It is entirely correct that *C News* should allow posting only of >conformant articles. It is *not* correct to make it throw away non-conforming >articles posted from other systems, especially if it does not tell them about >it. > [...] >I'll say it again. If *any* program falls over unsafely as a result of *any* >sort of bad input, then that program is *faulty* and should be fixed. But if a good number of those articles get dropped, the sysadmin at the receiving site will notice and (hopefully) tell the other site of the problem. >If the input to relaynews is *really* unparseable (lacking *essential* >information and containing *uncorrectable* errors) then it is reasonable to >drop the input. The sorts of errors C News drops articles for are neither >uncorrectable, nor are they errors which cause the article to lack essential >information. They are correctable only when the system can attempt to make an 'educated' guess -- but what if it's wrong? To use that argument is to say that sending mail to foo!bar.com is LEGAL under RFC822 because sendmail should be "intelligent" enough to replace the ! with a @, since the local site's not connected to a system called foo, and therefore it's a typo. Right? Wrong. -- Brendan Kehoe - Widener Sun Network Manager - brendan@cs.widener.edu Widener University in Chester, PA A Bloody Sun-Dec War Zone