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Path: utzoo!lsuc!dave
From: dave@lsuc.UUCP
Newsgroups: news.admin,news.software.b
Subject: Re: Using "local" as a newsgroup name considered harmful
Message-ID: <2007@lsuc.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 26-Aug-87 01:50:40 EDT
Article-I.D.: lsuc.2007
Posted: Wed Aug 26 01:50:40 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 27-Aug-87 03:36:49 EDT
References: <434@acornrc.UUCP> <8481@utzoo.UUCP>
Reply-To: dave@lsuc.UUCP (David Sherman)
Organization: Law Society of Upper Canada, Toronto
Lines: 44
Summary: why not check the newsgroup against the From: line domain?

Henry Spencer (utzoo!henry) writes:
>Unfortunately, it is difficult to devise another solution that really
>works without unfortunate side effects.  Stripping inappropriate groups
>out of the Newsgroups line causes trouble when news can loop out of a
>"local newsgroup area" and back in...  Leaving the
>inappropriate groups in the header but not posting the article to them
>is fine for the sites at the border of the local area, who know that the
>article came in from outside, but doesn't work for sites farther in...
>Any other ideas?

Yeah. What about looking at the domain of the poster in the From:
line when you receive the article, and making a decision based
on that as to whether to post to the local group a cross-posted article
which includes a locallish-distribution group? (For sanity protection,
don't invoke this test at all unless the article is cross-posted to
both a wide and a narrow distribution.)

To keep this information current, have a file with "known"
problems. For example, U of Toronto sites would have, in the "zap this"
file,
ut	.texas.edu
meaning, "if something comes in cross-posted to ut.anything,
and it was posted from anyone@anything.texas.edu, then don't post
it to ut.anything because they meant a different ut."
Similarly, the people at Kentucky would have
uk	.uk
while those in Britain would have
uk	.uky.edu

The file would be updated by the sysadmins every time
a new duplication problem surfaced.

The only problem I see is that if joe@texas.edu posts to
ut.general,comp.misc, and fred@toronto.edu reads the article
in comp.misc, the header will still mention ut.general (thus
preserving the article in case it goes back into the Texas
distribution, in theory), but fred will not be able to find
it there if he goes looking. Not a serious problem, in my view.

David Sherman
The Law Society of Upper Canada
Toronto
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