Checksum: 49814
Lines: 32
Path: utzoo!sq!msb
From: msb@sq.uucp (Mark Brader)
Date: Sat, 14-Jan-89 01:54:54 EST
Message-ID: <1989Jan14.015454.2767@sq.uucp>
Newsgroups: tor.news
Subject: Corruption of local news
Summary: Binary garbage inserted, apparently along attcan!utzoo!mnetor!geac!sq
References: <34476@bbn.COM>
Reply-To: msb@sq.com (Mark Brader)
Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Toronto

In the past, oh I don't know, maybe a week or maybe more like 3 weeks,
I've seen a fair number of mildly corrupted articles on the net.  As nobody
else has complained, I have finally realized must be local in scope.

Well, now I have just checked one such article on a nearby site and
found it to be okay, which not only confirms the guess that the problem
is local, but comes close to pinpointing it.  Maybe I should have sent
mail, but I don't think it's terribly wrong to post this to tor.news.
If others have seen these articles, they may be wondering.

The article I checked has Message-Id "<34476@bbn.COM>" and Subject "CALL
FOR VOTES: proposed newsgroup soc.couples".  It was posted to the following
8 (!) newsgroups: news.groups, news.misc, soc.misc, soc.motss, soc.singles, 
soc.men, soc.women, misc.kids, and alt.sex.

The corruption consists of the insertion of a few bytes of binary garbage
just below the last header line and before the beginning of the article
body.  This displays in a harmless fashion in rn, but it is a nuisance.
On the message in question, the added bytes are (in octal):

	001 131 271 012 015 016 066 036 327 006 077 173 017 360 376 266 

This doesn't ring any bells with me [no 007's in there, you see :-)].

Now, the article was okay on lsuc, which got it direct from attcan.
This machine, sq, got it through the path attcan!utzoo!mnetor!geac!sq.
Our news transport software has been unchanged for months.  So could the
admins at those sites see what they can see, please?


Mark Brader, SoftQuad Inc., Toronto	      "Suspicion breeds confidence."
utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com					  -- BRAZIL