reid@glacier.ARPA (Brian Reid) (12/01/85)
I'm beginning to see why moderated groups often fail. Everybody loses the articles. Mod.recipes was created recently, and I have sent out 12 articles to it. Many sites report having received only 3 of those 12 (but not the first 3). Another site reports having received only the 7th of them. I'm investigating. -- Brian Reid decwrl!glacier!reid Stanford reid@SU-Glacier.ARPA
phil@amdcad.UUCP (Phil Ngai) (12/02/85)
In article <1862@glacier.ARPA> reid@glacier.UUCP (Brian Reid) writes: > >I'm beginning to see why moderated groups often fail. Everybody loses the >articles. Mod.recipes was created recently,... On this site, we got the first few (7?) and because we have MANUALLY turned on they automatically got junked. Since I read junk, I noticed it and created mod.recipes and the following articles were treated correctly, but any sites downstream of me won't receive the junked ones. I'm not going to turn MANUALLY off so there is a chance of this happening every time a new group is created. I do read net.news.group but it's not always easy to tell when a consensus has been reached with the low signal to noise ratio in there. But this problem is not peculiar to mod groups. -- There's nothing I hate more than sorting socks. Phil Ngai +1 408 749-5720 UUCP: {ucbvax,decwrl,ihnp4,allegra}!amdcad!phil ARPA: amdcad!phil@decwrl.dec.com
ln63fkn@sdcc7.UUCP (Paul van de Graaf) (12/03/85)
Many users in my recent survey on why net.sources.mac doesn't want to go mod also brought up this point. Most others gave variations on the same arguments I posted with the survey. The argument list :-) now stands at: [whining mode] It's too much trouble to post to moderated groups. [sensible mode] Moderation introduces a lag in the posting process. [silly blather mode] Censorship is bad. Moderation is censorship. Ergo, moderation is bad. [irrate mode] The mailers are too blasted unreliable. Only 1/2 of what's mailed to the moderator gets through. I'd say this the most serious problem with moderated groups. In fact I'd guess this is what generates paranoia in some people and causes them to write Moderation = Censorship flames. Any ideas on how to tackle this problem? Perhaps the news/mail software could periodically check the paths to the moderators by trying to send them mail and waiting for a reply [hopefully automated]. If this fails an alternate path might be arranged or the news administrator could intervene. Do any members of "The Mod Squad" (ie. Lauren etc.) have any ideas? I'm still looking for more arguments against moderation. Mail 'em to me! Paul van de Graaf sdcsvax!sdcc7!ln63fkn U. C. San Diego
reid@glacier.ARPA (Brian Reid) (12/04/85)
Mr. De Graaf misunderstood my message about missing mod groups. I am the moderator of mod.recipes. Mail from me to myself was certainly not lost. However, 9 of the 12 messages that I posted to ordinary netnews were lost somewhere in nsc-->ihnp4-->qantel. [I haven't been able to raise any response from people on those machines to help me diagnose what went wrong]. The 3 messages that got through were not even contiguous. The mod-group distribution problem has nothing to do with lost mail. It has to do with lost news articles. I have seen this a lot in mod.sources, and I have now seen it in spades in mod.recipes. I actually believe that the very future of usenet depends on moderated groups, which is one of the reasons I am willing to work at setting up a new one that will (I hope) be of high quality and significant usefulness. Rather than using this as an argument against moderated groups, let's use it as a war-cry against buggy software. Hello nsc? Hello inhp4? Hello qantel? Can anybody there do a little poking in your news directories for me? -- Brian Reid decwrl!glacier!reid Stanford reid@SU-Glacier.ARPA
ln63fkn@sdcc7.UUCP (Paul van de Graaf) (12/05/85)
In article <1959@glacier.ARPA> reid@glacier.UUCP (Brian Reid) writes: >Mr. [van] de Graaf misunderstood my message about missing mod groups. Yes, I did. I noticed my error right after posting, but didn't take the trouble to cancel the article. Even so, four net.sources.mac users complained that in using moderated groups in the past, articles they sent to moderators have been returned and down-right lost by the mailers. I thought this was significant enough to warrant a post. In my brevity, I forgot to mention that I am a supporter of moderation of newsgroups. In past article I asked net.sources.mac users why they object to moderation. This is the origin of the list of arguments. My intent was to gain information on why some people dislike moderated groups, and try to find ways to mend their dislikes. Moderation done properly might save Usenet. Paul van de Graaf sdcsvax!sdcc7!ln63fkn U. C. San Diego
caf@omen.UUCP (Chuck Forsberg WA7KGX) (12/06/85)
Why not have all moderators post a DIRECT UUCP LOGIN such as the one included in the signature below? Considering the unreliability of uucp mail, we should insist that the list of moderators include UUCP direct login information. We have the solution. Let's use it. -- Chuck Forsberg WA7KGX ...!tektronix!reed!omen!caf CIS:70715,131 Omen Technology Inc 17505-V NW Sauvie Island Road Portland OR 97231 Home of Professional-YAM, the most powerful COMM program for the IBM PC Voice: 503-621-3406 Modem: 503-621-3746 (Hit CR's for speed detect) omen Any ACU 1200 1-503-621-3746 se:--se: link ord: Giznoid in:--in: uucp
lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) (12/09/85)
Chuck's idea of having the moderators provide direct UUCP logins is not a very desirable one (see the second part of this message). It is also unnecessary. First of all, uucp mail is generally NOT unreliable. The problem with moderated groups is that there is no generally available central repository of addresses to reach the moderators, so many people tend to guess about addresses. Rather than try insist that people run the "latest and greatest" (and probably buggy) netnews software at any given time, it might be far better to assign FIXED addresses at certain well-placed nodes for moderated traffic. If the nodes were in major backbone positions, additional delay would be negligible or total delay might even be reduced. So if people knew to post to mod.foo they ALWAYS sent mail to: majorsite!mod-foo and knew that site would forward that message on to the moderator of record for that group, things would be greatly simplified. So long as total moderated traffic stays within some limits, additional load on the sites providing this service might be pretty low, since such backbones are already carrying so much netnews traffic anyway. In other words, the relative increase in traffic for those sites might be quite small (they'd only have to forward one particular copy of the message onward, after all). If this encouraged more use of moderated groups, then overall netnews traffic would drop and the sites providing the service would be winners in the longer run, with overall REDUCED load. ---- Regarding the publication of direct UUCP login info: I have long spoken out against the use of "multiple-access" UUCP login accounts. While some sites feel that having one open account for everyone to call simplifies administration, it also provides an easy gateway for forged messages, misuse of resources, and just generally is a poor idea from a security standpoint. Sites with a real interest in security have separate accounts for each site calling, so that they have some chance to track down problems and keep their site secure. --Lauren--
csg@pyramid.UUCP (Carl S. Gutekunst) (12/09/85)
In article <267@omen.UUCP> caf@omen.UUCP (Chuck Forsberg WA7KGX) writes: >Why not have all moderators post a DIRECT UUCP LOGIN such as the one included >in the signature below? Considering the unreliability of uucp mail, we should >insist that the list of moderators include UUCP direct login information. > >We have the solution. Let's use it. Unfortunately, this won't work universally unless the moderator is using old UUCP software or has sources. System V.2 UUCP requires all remote system names and logins to be listed in USERFILE; 4.3bsd requires all names in L.sys. At least with 4.3bsd, you can turn the check on and off at compile time. With V.2, you have to hack the code to turn it off. (If I'm wrong on this, I'd sure like to hear about it!) These changes have been quite a shock to some sites, who never bothered to make L.sys or USERFILE entries for sites that polled them. It also makes it impossible to have "anonymous" UUCP logins, as Chuck is proposing. An entirely different issue is whether large, heavily trafficked sites want to broadcast this kind of information. Hey, Peter, can HoneyDanber still do this? -- -m------- Pyramid Technology Carl S. Gutekunst, Software R&D ---mmm----- 1295 Charleston Rd {cmcl2,topaz}!pyrnj! -----mmmmm--- Mt. View, CA 94039 {ihnp4,uwvax}!pyrchi!pyramid!csg -------mmmmmmm- +1 415 965 7200 {allegra,decwrl,hplabs,sun}!
honey@down.FUN (Peter Honeyman) (12/09/85)
honey danber permits "anonymous" uucp logins, and so do bsd and svr2. the bsd/svr2 USERFILE wants an enumeration of uucp logins, but host name validation is optional; the same is true of honey danber's Permissions file. the "i don't know you" feature in honey danber can be turned on or off on the fly by chmod-ing a shell script. i concur with those who advocate making the uucp login data public (although i ruined allegra that way). i put my uucp data in the #R field of my mod.map data. peter
sanand@aquila.UUCP (Sanand Patel) (12/09/85)
In article <267@omen.UUCP> caf@omen.UUCP (Chuck Forsberg WA7KGX) writes: >Why not have all moderators post a DIRECT UUCP LOGIN such as the one included >in the signature below? Considering the unreliability of uucp mail, we should Now there's an interesting idea. (In regards to reducing costs, noise etc.) Have several "mod" sites (maybe current backbone sites). Have all news posted directly to the mod site, payed for by the poster. From the mod sites it would be distributed as normal. *If* mod groups are the way of the future (I don't know for sure), then the above would do several things: 1) Make the poster pay some of the costs. 2) Provide a minor barrier against net garbage. 3) Give a "good" line to the net moderators. 4) Not introduce too much bureaucracy (sp?). 5) Superior mod groups ==> Superior information exchange. 6) Good prosepects for "transitional" change". (I.E try a few mod groups at a time). Some disadvantages: 1) Valuable "posters" would be penalized for contributing positively to the net (maybe their company would'nt mind this). 2) Mod sites would have their incoming modems ringing all day. 3) (Some thing along the lines of ..) A shift of authority to fewer centers (away from the "anarchy"/"equalness" we now have). -- Sanand {linus,ihnp4,uw-beaver,floyd}!utcsri! dciem!aquila!sanand {allegra ,ihnp4 ,linus ,decvax}!utzoo!
woods@hao.UUCP (Greg Woods) (12/09/85)
> Why not have all moderators post a DIRECT UUCP LOGIN such as the one included > in the signature below? Considering the unreliability of uucp mail, we should > insist that the list of moderators include UUCP direct login information. The problem with this is that it would prevent many people (such as myself) who don't have the authority to give out that information from volunteering to be moderators. --Greg
jpn@teddy.UUCP (12/09/85)
In article <267@omen.UUCP> caf@omen.UUCP (Chuck Forsberg WA7KGX) writes: >Why not have all moderators post a DIRECT UUCP LOGIN such as the one included >in the signature below? Considering the unreliability of uucp mail, we should >insist that the list of moderators include UUCP direct login information. > >We have the solution. Let's use it. I work at a site where such a DIRECT UUCP LOGIN would not be allowed for various security reasons. I guess this means I can stop moderating mod.sources <<PHEW!>> I wonder who my replacement is going to be :-) John P. Nelson, Moderator, mod.sources (decvax!genrad!panda!jpn seismo!harvard!wjh12!panda!jpn)
lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) (12/09/85)
I can't help but consider sites that insist all sitenames be entered in L.sys and/or USERFILE and/or have separate login accounts to be anything but "good guys." Sites that allow "anonymous" access to uucp are not only affecting their own security, but the security of the entire net by providing "easy" anonymous and unverifiable entry points. With the vast number of people gaining access to PC's with appropriate capabilities, anonymous access points are just trouble waiting to happen. ALL sites can provide appropriate security, regardless of what software versions they run, by simply providing access accounts on a one per site basis. It doesn't seem too much to ask that people send a mail message to the site administrator asking for an account before access is given. Such access accounts don't have to be kept around indefinitely--maybe only for a week or so. If nothing else, this provides a way to contact the calling site if things go wrong (like calling you every 5 minutes and tying up your dialup lines!) Getting anonymous calls from some unknown point is a MESS if they start giving you trouble! For people who MUST have TOTALLY anonymous file transfer access, I'd recommend providing a conventional login account (into a restricted shell) and let people use kermit or umodem for their occasional file transfers from your machine. This gives them the occasional file xfer capability they "need," while avoiding giving some joker who gets his or her jollies from masquerading as other sites anonymous uucp entry points. Yes, it's more work to keep track of separate accounts. Yes, it's too bad we can't be one big happy family and not worry about security. But we're growing very fast, and the time to start taking some simple actions toward providing at least a reasonable level of security is now. And everyone can do it, regardless of what software they run. --Lauren--
warren@pluto.UUCP (Warren Burstein) (12/10/85)
Lauren Weinstein writes: > it might be far better to assign FIXED addresses > at certain well-placed nodes for moderated traffic. ... So if people > knew to post to mod.foo they ALWAYS sent mail to: > > majorsite!mod-foo > > and knew that site would forward that message on to the moderator > of record for that group, things would be greatly simplified. I think this is a very good idea and should be implemented asap.
tanner@ki4pv.UUCP (Tanner Andrews) (12/11/85)
] proposed solution: moderators publish public UUCP login; example given This has several problems with it. The first of these is that the moderator may not be the system administrator, who passes out such information. The potential joke submittor may also not be a system administrator, and thus might not be able to add the moderator's system to the list of sites called. It is also possible that the submittor is on a site which does not have dial-out abilities, or that the moderator (in some ARPA cases) is on a site that does not offer dial-in uucp capabilities. On many sites (this one included) uucp login information is not posted for the general world, but is made available upon application by respon- sible parties. This may be done for several reasons, the most common of which are security and shortage of dial-in ports. -- <std dsclm, copies upon request> Tanner Andrews, KI4PV uucp: ...!decvax!ucf-cs!ki4pv!tanner