Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!rutgers!clyde!cbatt!ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!shor
From: shor@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (Melinda Shore)
Newsgroups: news.misc
Subject: Re: The 50% rule is in--now what?
Message-ID: <820@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 18-Nov-86 22:35:03 EST
Article-I.D.: sphinx.820
Posted: Tue Nov 18 22:35:03 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 21-Nov-86 22:19:15 EST
References: <212@cartan.Berkeley.EDU> <751@chinet.UUCP> <4283@ut-ngp.UUCP> <3943@jhunix.UUCP>
Reply-To: shor@sphinx.UUCP (Melinda Shore)
Organization: University of Chicago Consternation Center
Lines: 25

In article <3943@jhunix.UUCP> ins_akaa@jhunix.UUCP (Ken Arromdee) writes:
>So all that has to be done is for the posters to use their text editor to
>substitute another character for the > character.  (and if inews is modified
>to check for any repeating character, it's not too hard to write a filter
>that would replace each > with a random character from the set >,],),}, etc...)
>
>Flat limits: Sure... then you could modify Pnews to post articles in pieces if
>they are over 24 lines long....
>
>Number of levels: if someone writes a filter to put in random characters, this
>could be defeated simply by an extension of the same program.

The 50% rule is there, it seems to me, to catch the careless, not the
malicious.  If it's going to take as much energy to beat inews as it
would to edit the article, I think most users would opt for editing.
We have a *lot* of accounts on sphinx (over 2500), and if people were
inclined to entertain themselves by playing games with inews we'd be
seeing some evidence of it.

I think, though, that the front ends to inews should also check
included lines so that the user will know that there's a problem before
the text is passed off to inews.
-- 
Melinda Shore                               ..!ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!shor
University of Chicago Computation Center    XASSHOR@UCHIMVS1.Bitnet