gjm@packard.UUCP (Gary J. Murakami) (04/18/86)
In article <692@hoptoad.uucp> gnu@hoptoad.UUCP writes: >mistakes that give me information or market share... (I can see the >scramble as companies implement mail-checkers to look for info in their >uucp traffic. Maybe that's why AT&T is sponsoring ihnp4...) I set up ihnp4 to support electronic mail for AT&T and friends since there is a lot of communication between AT&T and other companies, universities, consultants, suppliers, clients, and friends. There is also a significant amount of traffic that ihnp4 forwards which is totally unrelated to AT&T. However I consider this to be some of the best PR that AT&T could ever support (I'm not sure how much longer it will last). Back on the subject: years ago before HDB UUCP, I used to try to read the dead mail in the UUCP spool in often futile attempts to return the failures to the sender with suggestions for retrying (silly me for trying to be too nice). Needless to say, that was a long time ago. Automated tools and finally HDB UUCP :-) took over this tedious task to provide friendly and nice service to the general public. He who looketh for the needle in the haystack will find the straw that broke the camel's back. -Gary
clarke@utcsri.UUCP (Jim Clarke) (04/21/86)
In article <463@packard.UUCP> gjm@packard.UUCP (59455-GJ Murakami) writes: > ... years ago before HDB UUCP, I used to try to read >the dead mail in the UUCP spool in often futile attempts to return the >failures to the sender with suggestions for retrying (silly me for >trying to be too nice). Needless to say, that was a long time ago. >Automated tools and finally HDB UUCP :-) took over this tedious task to >provide friendly and nice service to the general public. I myself was recently the "victim" of a (presumably overworked) system administrator who returned to me a message I'd sent through his machine, attaching to it the explanation that his machine didn't talk to the next one on the route I'd used. Actually, I knew that and had made a mistake, but had also thought the correct route might fail too, so his action saved me at least a couple of days in getting a mildly important message through. Although he may very well have read only the header and not the body of the message, and although he presumably wouldn't have read any of it if it hadn't been trying a nonexistent routing, still this is an example of a benefit received from administrative snooping. (Thanks, Henry!) People can write some very nice messages for mail-answering programs to use automatically. This may have happened in my case. But as I looked at it from various angles*, it *seemed* human. Even if it was automatic, one might claim that it violated my privacy. You won't get a complaint from me, though. * Of course, I'd never heard of "HDB UUCP" until I read gjm's message. -- Jim Clarke -- Dept. of Computer Science, Univ. of Toronto, Canada M5S 1A4 (416) 978-4058 {allegra,cornell,decvax,ihnp4,linus,utzoo}!utcsri!clarke
gadfly@ihuxn.UUCP (Gadfly) (04/22/86)
-- > Even if csuh only connects to lll-crg, you have no right to tell other > sites what to do with your mail. I don't make a practice of reading > mail going through my site but that's no promise I won't. UUCP is > always leaving little turds around for me to clean up. Sometimes I > look at them to figure out what they are. And my users have access > also. (I run uucp 777 mode, to keep things simple.) > > If you don't like it, set up your own connection. I have no > responsibility for your traffic. > -- > Phil Ngai +1 408 749 5720 You have a moral responsibility, Phil. The very concept of mail assumes privacy between sender and receiver. You know that. I can't stop you from reading my mail (if it happens to blow by in the night), but if you do snoop you are doing something wrong. I'm glad you "don't make a practice" of reading mail. You should, as a generic upstanding human being, promise that you won't. I'm flabbergasted at how many system administrators feel it's permissible to snoop simply because they own or maintain the computer resource. It's sad what happens when people are well trained but poorly educated. Get your heads out of your respective tty's and into some Maimonides, Aquinas, Aristotle, or Kant. Or even Mill. -- *** *** JE MAINTIENDRAI ***** ***** ****** ****** 22 Apr 86 [3 Floreal An CXCIV] ken perlow ***** ***** (312)979-7753 ** ** ** ** ..ihnp4!iwsl8!ken *** ***
gadfly@ihuxn.UUCP (Gadfly) (04/22/86)
-- > Even if csuh only connects to lll-crg, you have no right to tell other > sites what to do with your mail. I don't make a practice of reading > mail going through my site but that's no promise I won't. UUCP is > always leaving little turds around for me to clean up. Sometimes I > look at them to figure out what they are. And my users have access > also. (I run uucp 777 mode, to keep things simple.) > > If you don't like it, set up your own connection. I have no > responsibility for your traffic. > -- > Phil Ngai +1 408 749 5720 You have a moral responsibility, Phil. The very concept of mail assumes privacy between sender and receiver. You know that. I can't stop you from reading my mail (if it happens to blow by in the night), but if you do snoop you are doing something wrong. I'm glad you "don't make a practice" of reading mail. You should, as a generic upstanding human being, promise that you won't. I'm flabbergasted at how many system administrators feel it's permissible to snoop simply because they own or maintain the computer resource. It's sad what happens when people are well trained but poorly educated. Get your heads out of your respective tty's and into some Maimonides, Aquinas, Aristotle, or Kant. Or even Mill. -- *** *** JE MAINTIENDRAI ***** ***** ****** ****** 22 Apr 86 [3 Floreal An CXCIV] ken perlow ***** ***** (312)979-7753 ** ** ** ** ..ihnp4!iwsl8!ken *** ***
henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (04/23/86)
> [Important message was returned as undeliverable due to addressing error.] > Although he may very well have read only the header and not the body of > the message, and although he presumably wouldn't have read any of it if > it hadn't been trying a nonexistent routing, still this is an example of > a benefit received from administrative snooping. (Thanks, Henry!) (You're welcome, Jim.) Policy here is that mail is private, and is not read by non-addressees without good cause, system administrators or not. Apart from uncommon occurrences, like well-founded suspicion of serious wrongdoing justifying official investigation, exercising sysadmin powers to read private mail is appropriate only when the alternative is loss of the mail. In the absence of a standard flag specifying whether privacy or delivery is more important, we assume that opening a letter is better than throwing it in the garbage. Since utzoo runs old and dumb mail software, the software isn't up to doing automatic bouncing of undeliverable mail: such mail gets dumped in the sysadmin's lap. [Why the old and dumb software? Partly because doing the right thing automatically appears to be an unsolved AI problem, what with stupid gateways and brain-damaged "smart" mailers making horrid messes of what used to be a simple, standard postmark scheme. A good fraction of the dead-letter volume is messages that "smart" mailers have bounced in stupid and incorrect ways!] I read as much of the letter as necessary to infer addressee and/or originator; which one I need depends on the nature of the problem. Usually I only need to read the header, but sometimes the whole text of the message isn't enough. If a judgement call is needed on whether to forward or bounce, I will often take a look at the body to determine whether it appears to be important and time-critical. In any case, the contents are officially forgotten as soon as the letter leaves my hands. > People can write some very nice messages for mail-answering programs to > use automatically. This may have happened in my case. But as I looked > at it from various angles*, it *seemed* human. Half and half, in this case, actually. Certain situations happen often enough that I have stock replies on hand to save time. Although I don't remember the particular message, you probably got one of them. -- Support the International League For The Derision Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology Of User-Friendliness! {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry
phil@amdcad.UUCP (Phil Ngai) (04/23/86)
In article <1416@ihuxn.UUCP> gadfly@ihuxn.UUCP (Gadfly) writes: > >You have a moral responsibility, Phil. The very concept of mail >assumes privacy between sender and receiver. You know that. Nonsense. UUCP mail has always been unreliable and insecure. Don't go comparing UUCP mail with USmail. If you don't like the (free) service my site provides, don't use it. I didn't ask you to send mail through my site. I didn't set it up as a relay site. Relaying happens by default and it would be an effort to turn it off. >I'm glad you "don't make a practice" of reading mail. You should, >as a generic upstanding human being, promise that you won't. You missed my point that as a system admin one can not promise not to. But then, you probably don't know anything about running a system anyway. -- Cats are alien beings sent here to sit on our cars. Phil Ngai +1 408 749 5720 UUCP: {ucbvax,decwrl,ihnp4,allegra}!amdcad!phil ARPA: amdcad!phil@decwrl.dec.com
gadfly@ihuxn.UUCP (Gadfly) (04/24/86)
-- [A discussion between Phil Ngai & me on privacy of e-mail] > >You have a moral responsibility, Phil. The very concept of mail > >assumes privacy between sender and receiver. You know that. > > Nonsense. UUCP mail has always been unreliable and insecure. Don't go > comparing UUCP mail with USmail. If you don't like the (free) service > my site provides, don't use it. I didn't ask you to send mail through > my site. I didn't set it up as a relay site. Relaying happens by default > and it would be an effort to turn it off. The comparison is valid. The contents of UUCP mail, like US mail, are assumed to be confidential. The mail may get lost or munged--it often does--but it is not written for public dissemination. > >I'm glad you "don't make a practice" of reading mail. You should, > >as a generic upstanding human being, promise that you won't. > > You missed my point that as a system admin one can not promise not to. > But then, you probably don't know anything about running a system > anyway. > > Phil Ngai +1 408 749 5720 I was vague in my use of the word "promise". Having been a system administrator a few years back, I'm well aware of the lengths you go to in putting broken files and file systems back together. Analogously, postal workers certainly have to read pieces of letters that were inadvertently shredded in order to put them back together as best they can. I do not consider this a violation of privacy. When these accidents happen, what you are reading is not exactly mail. Also by analogy, letters fall out of envelopes, addresses get erased or smeared, etc. The promise refers to an intention to maintain the sender-receiver privacy. Aiding in the delivery or return of the mail, or examining parts of it during the recovery of your system's resources, clearly does not violate that intention. It's a promise not to be knowingly malicious. I didn't think there'd be much debate about that. You are correct that you didn't ask for this headache, that you never told anyone they could send mail through your site, and that they are not paying for the service. I maintain, however, that you have moral obligations beyond the sum total of those things you have entered into contracts for, moral obligations to people you don't even know. I'm sure you feel that way too, or haven't you ever given to charities? -- *** *** JE MAINTIENDRAI ***** ***** ****** ****** 24 Apr 86 [5 Floreal An CXCIV] ken perlow ***** ***** (312)979-7753 ** ** ** ** ..ihnp4!iwsl8!ken *** ***
good@pixar ("Pravda nyet isvetsia, Isvetsia nyet pravda") (04/30/86)
Assuming that uucp mail is private seems extremely naive to me. Not
that I, as a sysadmin, go deliberately poking through mail. I don't think
that administrators *should* read mail unless they have to (for any of the
reasons already mentioned in this debate). But I never send anything
confidential via uucp, and I hope nobody else does. It's got to be just
asking for trouble.
Someone said that e-mail should be treated like US Mail. In the case
of uucp I think the more correct analogy is CB radio, as mentioned by another
author. Uucp uses a "free", decidedly anarchistic network to disseminate the
mail. There is no mechanism to guarantee privacy nor delivery. In contrast,
for example, Pixar rents an electronic "mail box" from MCI Mail. We pay for
the service, and use MCI's organized network to send and receive e-mail and
telexes, etc. In that case I feel we can reasonably expect and insist on
privacy in our communications.
The lesson for usenet users should be that confidential material should
not be sent via uucp -- unless you are hoping it will leak. But that is yet
another discussion...
--
--Craig
...{ucbvax,sun}!pixar!goodmrl@oddjob.UUCP (05/01/86)
In article <2744@pixar.pixar> good@pixar.UUCP ("Pravda nyet isvetsia, Isvetsia nyet pravda") writes: > > Assuming that uucp mail is private seems extremely naive to me. Not >that I, as a sysadmin, go deliberately poking through mail. I don't think >that administrators *should* read mail unless they have to (for any of the >reasons already mentioned in this debate). But I never send anything >confidential via uucp, and I hope nobody else does. It's got to be just >asking for trouble. I just came across this fortune which seems unusually appropriate for this discussion, and exhibits a useful analogy: Mencken and Nathan's Second Law of The Average American: All the postmasters in small towns read all the postcards. -- * * * * * * * Scott Anderson * * ** ihnp4!oddjob!kaos!sra * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *