[news.software.b] <None>

bh@eng.auburn.edu (Brian Hartsfield) (01/17/91)

I have a couple of qusestions about the news service.   am accessing it through 
a sun workstation from an IB PC Compatabl.

1) Is there a wa to call up and the new news articles downloaded to my machine
so I can read them offline and then send the replies back?

2) How do you quote an article?

YThanks in advance.

Brian Hartsfield

jona@iscp.Bellcore.COM (Jon Alperin) (05/09/91)

Subject:101 uses for an RS/6000 (Was: IBM RS/6000 unsuitable for news)
Organization: Bell Communications Research (Bellcore)
References: <BGLENDEN.91May6130729@colobus.cv.nrao.edu> <1991May7.015756.9432@ims.alaska.edu> <1991May07.191244.3849@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu> <1991May8.001239.28869@agate.berkeley.edu>
Date: Wed, 8 May 91 15:29:22 GMT

|> >>But they make wonderful doorstops.
|> >       Nahhh, they're too big...use a mac for that!    ;-)

  Yeah, but those big 900 units make great space heaters, and those 
disk drawers are just the right size for a couple of pizza boxes...



-- 
Jon Alperin
Bell Communications Research

---> Internet: jona@iscp.bellcore.com
---> Voicenet: (908) 699-8674
---> UUNET: uunet!bcr!jona

* All opinions and stupid questions are my own *

) (05/30/91)

Alt.atheism has been hit by a number of the following monstrosities:

| Path: mantis!ibmpcug!slxsys!ukc!mcsun!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!news.cs.indiana.edu!nstn.ns.ca!ac.dal.ca!newsmgr
| From: ** Sender Unknown **
| Newsgroups: talk.origins,alt.atheism
| Subject: <None>
| Message-ID: <1991May29.131450.415@ac.dal.ca>
| Date: 29 May 91 16:14:50 GMT
| Lines: 12
| 
| 
|  Myself being a Christian I have always wondered if atheists believe in 
| Path: nstn.ns.ca!usenet
| From: jeffd@fox.nstn.ns.ca (Naomi Matthews)
| Subject: Re: From A Believer
| Message-ID: <1991May29.154109.5972@nstn.ns.ca>
| Sender: usenet@nstn.ns.ca (NNTP Entity)
| Organization: NSTN Network Operations Centre, Nova Scotia, Canada
| Date: Wed, 29 May 91 15:41:09 GMT
| 
| 
|                                  Naomi Matthews
| 

How did they get past C News with a From: field like that?

Once we've fixed C News to report errors, I think we ought to make it reject
articles with the Subject: line "<None>", since we're unlikely to be able to
hunt and kill the program which is producing said subject lines.


mathew

 

rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) (05/30/91)

In article <mLgR317w164w@mantis.co.uk> mathew@mantis.co.uk (CNEWS MUST DIE!) writes:
>| From: ** Sender Unknown **
>...
>| Subject: <None>
>...
>How did they get past C News with a From: field like that?

  I believe C News is only checking that it is a valid header (begins 'Word: ')
and isn't checking whether a valid email address is present.  To validate
addresses is quite complex.

  In a way, this validates the Cnews philosophy of not modifying headers.
Presumably the original article was corrupted somewhere, and some news
system (not using Cnews) attempted to repair the damage by creating the
missing 'From:' and 'Subject:' headers with meaningless contents on them.
If the Cnews philosophy had been followed these headers would not have
be created and the article would have been dropped.

>Once we've fixed C News to report errors, I think we ought to make it reject
>articles with the Subject: line "<None>", since we're unlikely to be able to
>hunt and kill the program which is producing said subject lines.

 This is pointless.  If you ban "<None>" people will use "(None)".  If you
ban that too, people will use "(Nothing)".  This is a loser's game.  It
comes from software preferring to create a meaningless subject header
rather than dropping the article.  I admit to doing that here when I gateway
a mailing list to news (purely local - not redistributed).  Bouncing
mail due to missing 'Subject:' is inappropriate, since the email standards do
not require it.  Denying my local users convenient access to the mailing list
is also inappropriate.  Therefore the subject line is fudged.

 Note, however, that when a local article is submitted by a user without a
subject line, the Cnews version of inews will reject it, with a message to
the local submitter.


-- 
=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=
  Neil W. Rickert, Computer Science               <rickert@cs.niu.edu>
  Northern Illinois Univ.
  DeKalb, IL 60115                                   +1-815-753-6940