Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!cis.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: Re: Message-ID: <1991May30.160550.1531@mp.cs.niu.edu> Date: 30 May 91 16:05:50 GMT References: <5944.2843b113@nuhub.acs.northeastern.edu> Organization: Northern Illinois University Lines: 41 In article mathew@mantis.co.uk (CNEWS MUST DIE!) writes: >| From: ** Sender Unknown ** >... >| Subject: >... >How did they get past C News with a From: field like that? I believe C News is only checking that it is a valid header (begins 'Word: ') and isn't checking whether a valid email address is present. To validate addresses is quite complex. In a way, this validates the Cnews philosophy of not modifying headers. Presumably the original article was corrupted somewhere, and some news system (not using Cnews) attempted to repair the damage by creating the missing 'From:' and 'Subject:' headers with meaningless contents on them. If the Cnews philosophy had been followed these headers would not have be created and the article would have been dropped. >Once we've fixed C News to report errors, I think we ought to make it reject >articles with the Subject: line "", since we're unlikely to be able to >hunt and kill the program which is producing said subject lines. This is pointless. If you ban "" people will use "(None)". If you ban that too, people will use "(Nothing)". This is a loser's game. It comes from software preferring to create a meaningless subject header rather than dropping the article. I admit to doing that here when I gateway a mailing list to news (purely local - not redistributed). Bouncing mail due to missing 'Subject:' is inappropriate, since the email standards do not require it. Denying my local users convenient access to the mailing list is also inappropriate. Therefore the subject line is fudged. Note, however, that when a local article is submitted by a user without a subject line, the Cnews version of inews will reject it, with a message to the local submitter. -- =*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*= Neil W. Rickert, Computer Science Northern Illinois Univ. DeKalb, IL 60115 +1-815-753-6940