KARP@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA (Peter Karp) (11/15/85)
Given VMS' extremely lousy mail system it seems quite likely that people will read their mail on another operating system if possible. Thus (and in general) one cannot assume that all INFO-VAX readers are on VMS systems. On some (all?) 4.2BSD systems, it is possible for unprivileged users to create mail aliases/lists with arbitrary names. No doubt this is true for some other operating systems or mail systems as well. Thus this simple hack at making this mailing list secure is doomed to failure. In general I do not think it is possible to make such a large list secure, particularly since it spans so many networks and people. Peter -------