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: Re: LET'S NAME THE GUILTY POSTING SOFTWARE!!! Message-ID: <1991Jun21.162641.900@mp.cs.niu.edu> Date: 21 Jun 91 16:26:41 GMT References: <6102@gazette.bcm.tmc.edu> <1991Jun20.145913.28280@mp.cs.niu.edu> <6106@gazette.bcm.tmc.edu> Organization: Northern Illinois University Lines: 42 In article <6106@gazette.bcm.tmc.edu> sob@tmc.edu (Stan Barber) writes: >I reject the idea that the PATH: header does anything more that help >news determine if an article has been seen by a particular machine. Stan, I hope you will reconsider this. In theory you are right. But in practice there are many systems which do reply to the 'Path:' header. Even the news2mail program in the newsgate package posted a few months ago uses the 'Path:' to generate the email 'From:', although I admit to not understanding why they made that choice. It is easy to dismiss this by saying that somebody else's misconfigured system is their problem, not yours. But please give a little thought to the implications. Suppose I run a site reading news via nntp, and use your mini-inews which generates a bad address on the 'Path:'. Here are some of the implications. 1. A user as a site which replies to the 'Path:' cannot reply to a poster on my system. 2. The poster on my system will get less replies. 3. My news server host will have to bounce mail addressed to 'Path:'. 4. Some poor user on the news server host, whose login id happens to be the same as that of the post on my site, may finish up being the unintended victim of a flame fest intended for the poster at my site. Now I am quite willing to dismiss 1 and 2. But I will not dismiss 3 and 4 as unimportant. I have an obligation to not cause unnecessary problems for my news server. Saying that the fault is at the site using 'Path:' for replies does not answer the fact that I can avoid it with a different path on postings generated here. -- =*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*= Neil W. Rickert, Computer Science Northern Illinois Univ. DeKalb, IL 60115 +1-815-753-6940