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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!ihnp4!ihnss!warren
From: warren@ihnss.UUCP (Warren Montgomery)
Newsgroups: net.news.b
Subject: articles that show up in strange places
Message-ID: <1863@ihnss.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 4-Jan-84 13:01:55 EST
Article-I.D.: ihnss.1863
Posted: Wed Jan  4 13:01:55 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 6-Jan-84 01:04:41 EST
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, Il
Lines: 35

I have noticed for some time that articles posted to multiple
newsgroups either directly or through followups can sometimes end up
in strange places.  For example, if someone posts to "general", and
"net.lan", indicating some event of local interest and general
interest only to local area network fans, the article shows up in
"general" in every machine that it visits.  This behavior has caused
concerns over netnews security in the past when followups to
articles that were posted to both company private and net categories
show up in the company private category later on.  I think that this
behavior is confusing and not intended.  I would suggest the
following be considered as a fix:

Filter the newsgroups list of a recieved article by some appropriate
list.  The sys file entry for the system from which the article is
received is probably appropriate in most cases, though it may be
appropriate to filter by the list of allowed local newsgroups, or by
some new list.  The disallowed newsgroups would be removed from the
article before any forwarding or local display.  This means that If
I were to post an article to "general", "ih.general", "btl.general",
and "net.general", it would lose the general category as soon as it
left my machine, the ih.general category when it left my company
location, and the btl.general category when it left my company.  If
someone from outside were to post a followup, it would come back
only in "net.general".  This behavior seems much more consistent
than the current behavior when compared to what happens to articles
posted to individual groups.  I am not volunteering to implement it,
as I have been out of the netnews programming game for too long, but
would appreciate any reactions from users or netnews implementers.

-- 

	Warren Montgomery
	ihnss!warren
	IH x2494