pst@comdesign.uucp (Paul Traina) (05/18/88)
No one has commented (positive or negative) to my ideas on hacking a 'squelch' control message into news 2.11. Either my message did not get out, or no one cares if someone intentionally or accidentally creates a pseudo-virus on the net? To re-hash my suggestion: The implementors of the cancel control message wanted to avoid unnecessary traffic, so they designed several features into it: If a cancel message arrives before the original message, it goes into the bit-bucket. (a) it is not propigated (b) no action is taken I am in favor of a second form of cancel, more powerful than the original cancel message (with the drawback of creating more net traffic). If the squelch message makes it to a site that already has the "target" message to be killed, it behaves just like "cancel". However, if the target message is not yet there, it will: (a) place a fake entry into the history log (so when the new message *does* arrive, it will be dumped into the bit-bucket. (b) propigate to all usenet neighbors (c) the originating inews should put a 2 week expiration date on the cancel message (I'm paranoid about having "squelch" turn into a problem itself -- this is probably not necessary). Why is this important? It would have been *much* easier to kill the recent misc.test and alt.test postings that caused havoc on a number of systems. We could have called a couple of backbone sites and placed a squelch message on them, and they in turn would have propigated the squelch message before the original message got to 99% of the net. As is, with the 'cancel' system, all one could do is send a pitiful (and late) cancel message out to follow (but never quite catch up) with the original posting. When is squelch to be used? It's not a cancel -- it's to stamp out messages when it's urgent. It generates more net traffic than a cancel, so it should *only* be creatable by news administrators. Well, what do you think? I'm trying to shed some light on the subject so we have some tools to combat USENET terrorism (especially when it's accidental). I'd appreciate suggestions & comments either pro-or-con. Paul -- Paul Traina, Systems Software Architect suddenly my feet are feet of mud, ComDesign | Network Equipment Technologies it all goes slow-mo. pst!comdesign@pyramid.com i don't know why i'm crying, ucbvax!pyramid!comdesign!psti am i suspended in gaffa? --kate