From: jms@tennis.opus1.com (It's like a network, only different)
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 95 23:29:27 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: FORGED CANCELS of posts on n.a.n-a.m
In-Reply-To: <modemacDFr0qB.IyK@netcom.com>
Message-ID: <1995Oct5.200410.306@tennis.opus1.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


In article <V0BgcD4w165w@bwalk.dm.com>, dlv@bwalk.dm.com (Dr. Dimitri
Vulis) writes:

> I'd like to remind everyone of the well-thought-out scheme for authenticating
> cancels proposed some time ago by Taneli Hujskonen and Benjamin Franz, that can
> also be integrated into a Lazarus-like system for tracing forged cancels.

Maybe.  On the other hand, there's nothing to keep certain well-connected
news administrators from removing the appropriate header line, or, even
more interestingly, substituting values such that the cancel equation
is well known.

Fundamentally, though, what I've discovered is that any significant change
to the news system is impossible to do, because installed base restricts
what people are willing to change.  Look at the dozens of extensions to
NNTP which all conflict, are non-standard or ill-described, yet are
demanded by moronic software such as Netscape's news reader.  When will
we see NNTP v3?  Never...

jms

Joel M Snyder, PhD, 1404 E Lind Rd, Tucson, AZ, 85719
Phone: +1 520 324 0494 (voice)  +1 520 324 0495 (FAX)  
jms@Opus1.COM    http://www.opus1.com/jms    Opus One

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