Xref: utzoo comp.sys.ibm.pc:13153 news.groups:2873 comp.binaries.ibm.pc:558 Path: utzoo!yunexus!spectrix!lsuc!ncrcan!ontenv!soley From: soley@ontenv.UUCP (Norman S. Soley) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc,news.groups,comp.binaries.ibm.pc Subject: Re: Moderation... on comp.binaries.ibm.pc Summary: Moderate, now before it gets worse!!! Message-ID: <409@ontenv.UUCP> Date: 14 Mar 88 17:57:53 GMT Article-I.D.: ontenv.409 Posted: Mon Mar 14 12:57:53 1988 References: <2054@ho95e.ATT.COM> <2908@slovax.UUCP> Organization: Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Toronto Lines: 54 In article <2908@slovax.UUCP>, steve@slovax.UUCP (Steve Cook) writes: > in article <2054@ho95e.ATT.COM>, wcs@ho95e.ATT.COM (Bill.Stewart.) says > > Please leave it unmoderated!! The ratio of binaries to discussion has been > > acceptably low, and the discussion has been evenly balanced between > > bug fixes and requests for stuff. While moderated groups may have slightly > > better-quality stuff (more man pages), there's a delay involved, and > > moderation seems to inhibit posting. > > If you want to be a "quasi-official archiver", great! but not a moderator. > I agree... it seems like bit of an overreaction to me. MEAN18 is > the only pirated thing I've seen on here in the 4 months I've > suscribed (one too many though) and 1 virus infected program that > I've heard of (FLUSHOT2). If the problem was rampant I'd agree to > a moderator - as is i agree with Bill's posting. The great majority > of people on this particular net seem to be a little more responsible > than found on an open BBS. The reaction to MEAN18 was a good example > of this. Well, thats my two cents worth... Oh I see, One virus program and one illegal (even though not intentionally so) posting in four months is acceptable! I think not. Please remember we're not talking about 1 BBS run by an individual who is ultimately responsible for what is on the board. If he gets in trouble his BBS goes away, he pays the piper and the buck stops there. Any SYSOP who does not pre-screen postings and gets caught with pirate software on line deserves what he gets. Were dealing with a much bigger system. There are probably 10,000 illegal copies of MEAN18 out there (I never got a cancel on them) even if 1% of the net is irresponsible that's 100 pirate copies from one original much more than the 1:9 ratio most companies say they expect. If the owner of the software found out about that 10,000 number you bet they'd sit up and take notice. One more incident like this has the potential to destroy the entire network and land a LOT of people in court. And just how many people did the FLUSHOT2 virus get? 10, 100, 1000 or more? Just think if the Lehigh virus had been distributed on the net how many dead hard disks would be out there now? We cannot afford this dangerous situation. Moderate now before it's too late!! Truly responsible site admins should either be prepared to look at everything that is posted to unmoderated binary and source groups or stop propogating them. Sure there is still the problem that we'll have to rely on the responsibility of the moderator and there will no doubt be forgeries but I'd be more willing to take that chance than deal with the current danger. Those more interested in getting scads of free software as fast as possible protecting themselves from hackers and pirates should get out of the regular distributions and form an alternate distribution. I'll suggest a top level name of fools or suemenowavoidtherush -- Norman Soley - Data Communications Analyst - Ontario Ministry of the Environment UUCP: utzoo!lsuc!ncrcan!---\ VOICE: +1 416 323 2623 {utzoo,utgpu}!sickkids!ontenv!norm ENVOY: N.SOLEY {mnetor,utgpu}!ontmoh/