Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!nbires!hao!woods
From: woods@hao.ucar.edu (Greg Woods)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: Forgeries: a suggestion for bringing them under control
Message-ID: <1141@hao.ucar.edu>
Date: 2 Feb 88 19:11:13 GMT
References: <1861@epimass.EPI.COM> <317@dsinc.UUCP> <1988Feb1.130753.20144@utzoo.uucp> <21986@tis.llnl.gov>
Reply-To: woods@hao.UUCP (Greg Woods)
Organization: High Altitude Obs./NCAR, Boulder CO
Lines: 19

In article <21986@tis.llnl.gov> mcb@tis.llnl.gov (Michael C. Berch) writes:
>With the exception of the annual April Fool's articles, forgery seems
>to be limited to a few groups like alt.flame and some of the talk or
>soc groups.  Is there any reason to believe that more widespread
>forgery will occur? 

   Hard to say. For the most part, you are right, but since it is becoming
more and more common knowledge that forgeries are possible, the problem
is getting worse, culminating in the recent forged "newgroup" control
message claiming to be from Gene Spafford. This is a lot more serious
than forging your "opponent's" name to an article during a flame war
in alt.flame . So far, we've only had one incident like this, but it's
only a matter of time before there are more. If we don't do SOMETHING
to prevent it, the net will degenerate into pure anarchy (Yes, I know
it is technically an anarchy now, but most sites seem willing to follow
the decisions of the backbone). I'm just not sure what the right thing to do
is. Henry Spencer already pointed out some of the technical problems involved.

--Greg