inei@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Nick Nei) (05/25/90)
>> our Computing Science Department. It worries me that any person >> can post news. While I can trust members of staff, I cannot trust >> students not to abuse this privilege. > >Gavin_Eadie@um.cc.umich.ed replies: >Huh? Judging by the content of NetNews (90% dross) I'd assume the >majority of posters were students. And why stop them anyway? Someone (maybe not even one of our students) can post something offensive and give our dept/University a bad name. Mail: Nick Nei, Computing Science Dept., Glasgow Univ., 17 Lilybank Gardens, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK. Tel: (041) 339 8855 x 5457 ARPA: inei%cs.glasgow.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk USENET: inei@cs.glasgow.uucp
inei@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Nick Nei) (05/25/90)
In article <3012.9005241522@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> inei@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Nick Nei) writes: > our Computing Science Department. It worries me that any person > can post news. While I can trust members of staff, I cannot trust > students not to abuse this privilege. Chris 'Face' Janton <face%arizona.edu%amethyst@noao.edu> replies: >>At least at our site... The ability to post news can be controlled on a >>per system basis, meaning that unless the nntp server allows my Mac to >>post I can't do a news post. I can send mail, with responses going into >>the bitbucket if I don't have an account on the sending system. >> >>Simply put you should be able to prohibit posting on a system by system >>basis. Only allow those systems that you want to post news. >> >>Am I confused? This is not satisfactory when you have over 300 Macintoshes and there is nothing to stop a bozo coming up with an IP number that is not in your prohibition list! Besides, I DO want to allow people to postnews - just not allow them to post anonymously (so that they can get away with posting offensive stuff and giving the Dept/University a BAD name!). A satisfactory solution: NetNews stack must ask for user-name and password before posting news. Modify nntpd so that it will validate these against /etc/passwd (or equivalent) before calling inews (or whatever). I was wondering if someone has already done this. Mail: Nick Nei, Computing Science Dept., Glasgow Univ., 17 Lilybank Gardens, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK. Tel: (041) 339 8855 x 5457 ARPA: inei%cs.glasgow.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk USENET: inei@cs.glasgow.uucp
escher@Apple.COM (Michael Crawford) (05/26/90)
In article <1624@amethyst.math.arizona.edu> face@arizona.edu (Chris 'Face' Janton) writes: >In article <3012.9005241522@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> inei@cs.glasgow.ac.uk >(Nick Nei) writes: >> our Computing Science Department. It worries me that any person >> can post news. While I can trust members of staff, I cannot trust >> students not to abuse this privilege. >At least at our site... The ability to post news can be controlled on a >per system basis, meaning that unless the nntp server allows my Mac to >post I can't do a news post. I can send mail, with responses going into >the bitbucket if I don't have an account on the sending system. > >Simply put you should be able to prohibit posting on a system by system >basis. Only allow those systems that you want to post news. > >Am I confused? Yes. Anyone who can send mail to the Internet can post news. I understand the way you would post to this group would be to send mail to: comp-protocols-appletalk@uunet.uu.net or any other Usenet/Internet backbone site. I believe this mechanism is provided to allow those without newsfeeds to post questions that can be replied to via normal mail -- it works via UUCP gateways into the Internet, like my link with ucscc mentioned below. There are also a number of mailing lists that are repeated to the news. I don't see any reason why you should go to much trouble to prevent people from posting. A more reasonable thing to do would be to have pnews (which does the actual posting) examine a list of approved posters. The way to get on that list would be to attend a one or two hour course at your computer center on how to use the news readers, Usenet etiquette, and so on. Those too lazy to attend the course can figure out how to post via the mail gateways. Make faculty and staff take this course too, unless they have been posting for a long time. Either they observe the etiquette, or they are immune to having it taught them. -- Michael D. Crawford Oddball Enterprises Consulting for Apple Computer Inc. 606 Modesto Avenue escher@apple.com Santa Cruz, CA 95060 Applelink: escher@apple.com@INTERNET# oddball!mike@ucscc.ucsc.edu The opinions expressed here are solely my own. alias make '/bin/make & rn'
acmjojo@accucx.cc.ruu.nl (Jo van Bilsen) (05/27/90)
Well I must admit I'am not a unix wizz or network wizz. But the discussion not let students post is wrong. Most students do not abuse there priveliges if you kindly ask them. But there is a way to control (I think) You can use a RARP server to distribute IP adresses, I think you can also use it with MacTCP. Disclaimer : Sorry for my english.