From: rishab@dxm.ernet.in (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh)
Date: Mon, 16 May 94 04:08:26 PDT
To: Mikolaj Habryn <dichro@tartarus.uwa.edu.au>
Subject: Re: Auto moderation
In-Reply-To: <199405160118.JAA16479@tartarus.uwa.edu.au>
Message-ID: <eD0JNc2w165w@dxm.ernet.in>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Mikolaj Habryn <dichro@tartarus.uwa.edu.au> writes:

> 	Actually, it's not quite that easy. [to fake addresses through telnet 25]
> You can mail from any 
> username at your site, but if you put in a different site without using 
> helo protocol, it gives an X-Authorization-Warning in the header, which 
> contains your home site.

Many sites don't do put in an X-Authorization-Warning. At least one site
I know allows you to fake a sitename with helo.

> 	Alternately, if you do use helo, someone can just have a look at 
> the headers of the message, and work out wherethe message was posted 
> from. Then, it's just a question of consulting SMTP and system logs, and 
> the sysadmin has a fair chance of tracing you back. Perhaps you heard of 
> some guy who sent a death threat to the president using this method? They 
> traced him back REAL fast.

Right. But "they" were not an auto moderation script. Remember the context 
we're discussing this issue...

> > Digitally signed voting? Only works if you restrict yourself to 'known' vot
> > Net identities are very easy to fake or create.
> 
> 	This i agree with. Any half competent cracker can create and 
> remove hundreds of identities (or more, depending on when some sysadmin 
> notices the suspicious batch job running in bground). There's lots of 
> ways to fake this, so i agree, you'd have to work from a list of 
> registered voters - and hope that no one person is represented on that 
> list too many times.

Again, the context is auto-moderation of _open_ mailing lists (such as this 
one). I doubt that you'd want to restrict posts, approving or disapproving 
replies to "registered" members. The point is not to censor Nalbandian or
Detweiler. There may be some fans out there, and IAC the _reader_ should decide
what to look at. The point is to make this decision easier, with friendly 
advice from the poor souls who actually _read_ all the crap.
 
> *       *       Mikolaj J. Habryn
>                 dichro@tartarus.uwa.edu.au


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Rishab Aiyer Ghosh                                          rishab@dxm.ernet.in

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