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From: levy@ttrdc.UUCP (Daniel R. Levy)
Newsgroups: net.news
Subject: Re: Are we all victims of prankster-hackers?  (Taking back one's words)
Message-ID: <976@ttrdc.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 14-Jun-86 21:31:29 EDT
Article-I.D.: ttrdc.976
Posted: Sat Jun 14 21:31:29 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 17-Jun-86 21:14:18 EDT
References: <3344@amdahl.UUCP> <460@pyramid.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T, Computer Systems Division, Skokie, IL
Lines: 50

In article <460@pyramid.UUCP>, csg@pyramid.UUCP writes:
>
>At the time it was suggested that rnews be changed to ignore cancel messages.
>After some thought (and a recent experience with an employee who was abusing
>the net) I disagree. While anyone could conceivably cancel the entire net, I
>still feel the ability to take back one's words is worth the risk.
>
>I'm open to other opinions....
>
><csg>

Would someone please tell me how I would invoke 'inews' (what arguments,
and what stdin) if I wished to send out more than one cancel message on
an article of my own which I wished to retract for some reason?  I have
attempted to send out multiple cancel messages at one time (from readnews,
NOT by invoking inews bare) but as soon as one succeeds in deleting the
local copy of the message, the others exit with a diagnostic "Can't open
[filename which contained my article] (r)."  (I once captured the arguments
that inews was using by doing a quick 'ps -f' after doing such a cancel and
getting out of readnews at once, but my attempt to repeat the same invocation
of inews bare drew the same diagnostic of "Can't open...", though I was able
to use that invocation on a net.test article which I had not canceled, with
/dev/null as stdin.  E.g.:

#this works:
$ inews -t cmsg cancel '<970@ttrdc.UUCP>' -n net.test < /dev/null
#do it again later, it bombs:
$ inews -t cmsg cancel '<970@ttrdc.UUCP>' -n net.test < /dev/null
inews: Cannot open /netnews/spool/net/test/909 (r).

I am not a sys admin on the system I get netnews on
(cannot log in as root or as netnews) and do not have easy access/influence
:-) over those who do.  I do __NOT!!!!!__ have the inews source code so
please don't tell me to look at the source unless you mail it to me in its
entirety.  I have heard of people sending out multiple cancel messages
but my feeble attempt at doing so never seems to get out more than one such
message, which might be ignored because a system hasn't yet gotten my article
before it gets my cancel (and if that happens, is the cancel passed along
anyway, or is it killed at that point?  I was never quite sure).

Please assist.  Sometimes in spite of my better intentions my fingers develop
a mind of their own, it seems :-).  TIA, adTHANKSvance, muchos gracias.
-- 
 -------------------------------    Disclaimer:  The views contained herein are
|       dan levy | yvel nad      |  my own and are not at all those of my em-
|         an engihacker @        |  ployer or the administrator of any computer
| at&t computer systems division |  upon which I may hack.
|        skokie, illinois        |
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