iiitsh@cybaswan.UUCP (Steve Hosgood) (07/31/90)
In article <632@texas.dk> storm@texas.dk (Kim F. Storm) writes: >>I fully agree that we need an 8-bit news system (as well as 8-bit E-mail), >>as this would make life a lot easier for those of us not using English. > >>Modifying the news software to permit the transmission of 8-bit data is >>trivial - the real problem is the charcter set issue. > Even if you *do* use English you may well want more than the ASCII set of characters. It's a real pain having to use '$' to mean 'pounds', and some people use 'L' instead. But what about personal names of net- landers who live in Iceland and Scandinavia or Mid Europe? Ditto the names of towns in those countries. ---------------------------------------------- However - this isn't what I want to talk about. The *real* issue is how to update the transport and presentation software around the world so that enhancements can actually be made. Kim continues: >Changing any software is just *so easy*. But it is *impossible* to get >people to install the changes unless they have a personal interest in >doing so. > >I speak from experience: More than one year has gone since the initial >release on nn worldwide (rel. 6.3.0). Since then, about 20 patches >including a new release has been posted, but there are still some sites >out there running 6.3.0 (or .1 or .2) which you can recognize from the >RFC violating Re^2: prefixes in the Subject: lines on some postings. > >I still get complaints about how stupid nn is, although this problem is >fixed (oh yes, it was *trivial*). But getting people to update.... > So - how about this for an idea? Release Robert Morris from Death Row (or wherever he's languishing) and give him a train ticket to Canada. Lock him and H*nry Sp*nc*r into a room somewhere and give them lots of money to develop the worlds first 'worming news' software. :-) The basic idea is to design a system that sends "version #" information with a news batch to say what 'level' the sending software is at. If a news receiver sees that there's a newer version of itself sending the news then it would automatically request a copy of that newer program and replace itself. Similarly, it could replace any part of the news system with a new copy. Now of course, there are a *lot* of non-trivial problems here. 1) If the receiver site isn't the same hardware as the sender then it can't just copy the sender's binary, it must get a different one (but how?) - can several 'well known' binaries be send around to deal with 80% of cases, plus source code for the last 20%? 2) How can a receiver authenticate the incoming replacement for itself? Presumably some of these 'one way trapdoor' functions could be used, but I guess that this issue is fairly well known by cryptography folk. After all, the last thing you want is for some bright spark to crash the entire newsnet by releasing a fake 'new' newsreader (i.e a super worm). I imagine that it has to work along the lines of there being a few trusted software releasers who know how to encode a new release of the system, yet all sites know how to decode it. But - the worst immediate problem is: 3) How do you get all the current news sites to upgrade to the new system. Admittedly, they'll only have to do it once ever - from then on it will look after itself, but some sites will need coaxing. System managers rarely seem to *use* the features of the machines they look after. I suppose the only way to deal with this is to deliberately break the current system in a slow methodical way (:-)). For instance, would this work?: The first site ever with the new News changes overnight. New News can send news in Bnews or Cnews format as well as the new format. However, it reads its send-to list and mails to 'postmaster@site1' and 'postmaster@site2' etc to warn that old news will quietly dry up over the next month or so. If the postmasters wish to continue getting any news they request new software from an automatic server on the New News site. Once they've become New News sites themselves of course the process repeats with mail being sent to the postmasters at *their* leaf sites etc etc. It will only need to be done once. Comments anyone? (constructive please - don't flame needlessly). Thanks, Steve | WALES: "Land of Song iiitsh@pyr.swan.ac.uk | and Rugby^H^H^H^H^H ..or in Britain, where we drive on the other side:| Ice Hockey" iiitsh@uk.ac.swan.pyr |
henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) (08/01/90)
In article <1933@cybaswan.UUCP> iiitsh@cybaswan.UUCP (Steve Hosgood) writes: >So - how about this for an idea? Release Robert Morris from Death Row (or >wherever he's languishing) and give him a train ticket to Canada. Lock him >and H*nry Sp*nc*r into a room somewhere and give them lots of money to >develop the worlds first 'worming news' software. :-) Sorry, I don't work with criminals. :-) :-) :-) (Actually, you really want Geoff, not me, and I think he'd like the idea even less...) -- The 486 is to a modern CPU as a Jules | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology Verne reprint is to a modern SF novel. | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry