Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site l5.uucp Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ulysses!gamma!epsilon!zeta!sabre!petrus!bellcore!decvax!decwrl!pyramid!pesnta!amd!amdcad!lll-crg!l5!gnu From: gnu@l5.uucp (John Gilmore) Newsgroups: net.news.b Subject: Re: Bogus software (from net.comics) Message-ID: <337@l5.uucp> Date: Sun, 15-Dec-85 03:32:00 EST Article-I.D.: l5.337 Posted: Sun Dec 15 03:32:00 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 17-Dec-85 03:53:32 EST References: <1557@rayssd.UUCP> <36000078@uiucdcs> <270@ius2.cs.cmu.edu> Organization: Nebula Consultants in San Francisco Lines: 34 Summary: The latest release of vnews has the same problem In article <270@ius2.cs.cmu.edu>, ralphw@ius2.cs.cmu.edu (Ralph Hyre) writes: > In article <36000078@uiucdcs> mcewan@uiucdcs.CS.UIUC.EDU writes: > > > >>> Obviously, since the name was on the article under the From > >>> heading... > ... > >> ... I couldn't find your name anywhere > >> in the heading or in the article... > > > >Also, please be aware that notesfiles users can NOT see the "From" line, > >unless some turkey with a religious objection to using > >an editor posts all 17 zillion garbage lines that their news interface > >shows them in a response . > Seems like the 'turkey' here is either the author of notesfiles (for not > updating the software) or those who keep using it when better and more robust > tools are available. The problem is that the netnews software was unprepared for a change made by the netnews administrators (hmm, this seems to be a recurring problem). The change was that the Path: line in some moderated groups no longer reflects who the message came from; instead, it gets a bogus address reminiscent of the newsgroup name. The From: line still exists and would be fine except that vnews (and apparently notes) do not use it. Vnews would show it if you compiled it with the option that assumes you have a uucp router running -- but we don't, and a lot of other people don't too, from the mail paths I receive things by. The reason the administrators don't use the Path: line for what God :-) intended is obscure; since these articles were actually *mailed* to the moderator, the news article has not propagated thru all the sites in the return address. But if you put these sites in the Path:, netnews will not forward the message to those sites. Catch-22. It would be nice if somebody fixed this cleanly sometime and released some netnews software but I haven't heard anybody responsible who thinks it's a bug. (They tell me to run a uucp router -- thanks guys.)