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From: dormitzer@h-sc1.UUCP (paul dormitzer)
Newsgroups: net.news.sa
Subject: Re: phoney addresses, can they be tracked?
Message-ID: <1040@h-sc1.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 9-Apr-86 02:20:15 EST
Article-I.D.: h-sc1.1040
Posted: Wed Apr  9 02:20:15 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 10-Apr-86 08:29:38 EST
References: <134@gilbbs.UUCP> <66@comp.lancs.ac.uk> <6567@utzoo.UUCP> <20557@styx.UUCP>
Reply-To: dormitzer@h-sc1.UUCP (paul dormitzer)
Organization: Harvard University Science Center
Lines: 25
Keywords: unnecessary

Before going into a long discussion about the practicality of tracking news
articles, one should ask "Do we really care?".  It seems to me that if someone
wants to go to the trouble of forging news paths, they'll probably find a way
to do it no matter how paranoid we are, and furthermore it hurts no-one if
they do.  (Unless, of course, they claim to be another member of the network
community, effectively slandering the person they claim to be.)  Last year
there was a note from ``yuri!kremvax!kgbvax!...'' on net.jokes and people
spent the next month screaming about how they thought security on the net
was broken.  By virtue of the fact that this is in effect a public discussion
forum (netnews, that is), the concept of security is basically nil, since
any site that can find a host to pass news to it gets full access.
Furthermore, on many university sites computer accounts are available to all 
members of the university, so if "they" want to "infiltrate" our network,
"they" have probably already done so, and the only way to stop "unwanted access"
is to completely shut down the news system.  If security is not an issue, then
the only worry is that of who sent which article.  In a forum such as we have,
the important point is to exchange information and ideas, not to find out
who said what.  (Unless, of course, you just want to flame people... which
is not only childish but also detracts from the exchange of ideas.)
--
The above ideas do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Harvard University,
its faculty or staff, or the Harvard University Science Center.

	Paul Dormitzer
	...!harvard!h-sc1!dormitzer