JM9W@TE.CC.CMU.EDU.UUCP (02/09/87)
Back on January 27th, I posted the following message to Info-Vax: > Subject: A question of policy vs. security > To: Info-Vax@SRI-KL.ARPA > > The non-Vax-using management at Carnegie Mellon University has > decided to let the entire campus community (all students, faculty, > and staff - anyone who uses computers here) have read access to the > Info-Vax mailing list. Of course, this means that anyone who wishes > to read it can do so, and while a lot of general interest discussions > occur on this list, a fair amount of security issues are discussed. > I know that in the past this issue has been discussed on this list, > but I don't seem to recall any situation where an entire university > was allowed to read Info-Vax. For those of you that have any > comments on what Carnegie Mellon has decided to do, send me mail > [JM9W@TE.CC.CMU.EDU - Internet, R021JM9W@CMCCVB - Bitnet], and I > will summarize your replies to the non-Vax-using management who > have made this decision. Thank you. > -Jim Murawski > -Computing Center Software > -Carnegie Mellon University > -Pittsburgh, PA Between January 27th and February 8th, I received 27 responses to that message. These responses covered the whole spectrum of possible responses, ranging from telling me that under no circumstances should students be allowed to read Info-Vax to calling me a fascist. As can be seen from my original post, and from many of the replies that I received, many of us were unaware that Info-Vax is made available to anyone who wishes to read it at many sites, primarily Usenet sites. A bit of background...... Those of here at Carnegie Mellon's non-Computer-Science-Department machines read Info-Vax via a small, re-distributed list on a DEC-20. The Info-Vax moderator has one and only one address for us. On the other hand, the Computer Science department receives Info-Vax as a "public" bboard (public in the sense that it is available to the whole Computer Science community). However, this has never bothered us, since people using the Computer Science machines are considered responsible, and most of the researchers probably don't read it anyway. The new twist that prompted my message of January 27th is that the Computer Science department forwards all mailing lists and bboards to the new Andrew network of distributed workstations that CMU has, and thousands of users have access to Andrew, with thousands more expected. So, anyone on the Andrew network can read Info-Vax if he/she wishes. Independent what other sites choose to do with Info-Vax, the Carnegie Mellon Computing Center Software Staff intends to stop the re-distribution of Info-Vax to the Andrew network. Thank you for your time. -Jim Murawski -Carnegie Mellon Computing Center P.S. I sent a separate note of thanks to each of the persons who replied to my original message, but some of the addresses were unrecognized by our mailer, so thanks to all of you who did not get my other message! -------