[talk.bizarre] Somebody said that they could find a bogus poster

richard@gryphon.COM (Richard Sexton) (10/17/89)

In article <1989Oct16.093122.3942@twwells.com> bill@twwells.com (T. William Wells) writes some really incredible stuff:
>In article <none> fred@flinstones.com writes:
>
>Here are the interesting things from your headers. These first are
>bogus but anyone can change them:
>
>	Path: twwells!novavax!uflorida!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!ginosko!usc\
>			!merlin.usc.edu!flinstones.com!fred
>	From: fred@flinstones.com
>	Message-ID: <none>
>
>You also screwed up the References: line, it should have been blank.
>But this is the giveaway:
>
>	Sender: news@merlin.usc.edu
>
>You were logged in as news at merlin.usc.edu. We can't figure out
>exactly who you are without asking the news admin who likely has
>access to the news account.

Wrong. Just because ``news@merlin'' posted it, does not mean a person
was logged in as news@merlin. The person did not even have to be on
merlin.

>Of course, since you were on the news account, you could also modify
>the news software to not put in the Sender: line. Or you could have
>edited it out in the spool directory before the system sent it out
>(supposing that your news is batched).

I'll bet $1 the person was not the news account.

>If one has access to the news account, or to uucp, or root, it isn't
>too hard to forge an article.

You don't have to be news, uucp, or root.

>Yes, I can think of several ways to pretty much undetectably forge an
>article on a Unix system. At least one of them does not require any
>special privileges or even much knowledge of Unix.

Undetectible forgeries are another matter. But they are quite 
possible.

In reality though, anybody anywhere can do a pretty good job
of forging a posting.

>No. Please don't show us that you have figured a way. If you really
>want to prove it to me, just tell me about it via e-mail, OK? I'll
>happily confirm whether it will work or not. No, you won't be giving
>away any important secrets: I own this machine; I can forge a message
>any time I want.

Heh heh. This is just a clever ruse. The Real T.W.W knows better than 
this and would never have posted the above misinformation. Besides,
he's out of the country and won't be back until 11/4/89. Any postings
you see from him until then are bogus.

In other words, it was a forgery. 

As is this posting.

Speaking for the soft underbelly of the net.

-- 
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