Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,comp.org.eff.talk,comp.admin.policy,alt.censorship,soc.college
From: mfriedma@uucp (Michael Friedman)
Subject: Re: Banned Computer Material 1992
Organization: Oracle Corporation
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 21:52:17 GMT
X-Disclaimer: This message was written by an unauthenticated user
              at Oracle Corporation.  The opinions expressed are those
              of the user and not necessarily those of Oracle.

In article <1992Oct5.95517.6873@ms.uky.edu> morgan@ms.uky.edu (Wes Morgan) writes:
>mfriedma@uucp (Michael Friedman) writes:

>By the way, you need to fix your news software; it doesn't give a proper
>return address......8)

>>morgan@ms.uky.edu (Wes Morgan) writes:

>>>If the source code were available in hardcopy only, would you be satisfied?

>>No.  

>Why not?  If you're interested in the approach, why wouldn't the
>program (and its documentation) be enough?  

Well, if nothing else, sometime you have to run it or pieces of it to
understand it.  

>>>If you were a system admin, how would *you* handle it?

>>Well, first off, I wouldn't look arround in people's accounts unless
>>they were readable.

>Whoa!  There are those who argue that a sysadmin shouldn't look ANYWHERE,
>whether or not the user has left their files readable......

Well, I think that's silly.  I'm not one of the absolutists.  If the
user leaves a file readable he no longer has an expectation of privacy
and anyone can read it.

>>Secondly, if I found a possibly offensive program I would ask the
>>owner why he had it and inform him that running it, except under
>>limited and controlled circumstances is prohibited.  

>OK, my "limited and controlled circumstances" are "not on our systems".
>If he wants to port it to a PC, or if he has access to other systems on
>campus, I'm not going to stop them; in fact, I couldn't!

Seems a bit unreasonable.  If he is running IRC but no one else can
log in what's the problem?

>>Then, depending on the difficulty, I might write a watchdog program or
>>two to look for the programs being run.

>Oh, but I've also been told that such "watchdogs" are improper.

By who?  Again, I think that's ridiculous.  After all, it's not like
you are looking at info that there is an expectation of privacy one.

>>After all, do you really object if someone is fooling arround with
>>IRC, debugging it and enhancing it as long as a lot of people aren't
>>using it?  

>With our resources, we don't have that luxury.  I'd also point out
>that inexperienced "tweaking" of network code (such as IRC) can wreak
>havoc on one's network (that happened at this site, although IRC was
>not involved).

So then don't let people tweak network code and explain why.

>>Or if someone is going through the Crack source code to
>>learn more about security?

>You infer here that the user is only "going through the ... code"; why
>can't they do it with hardcopy?

Depends how well it is written.  Some code can't be understood without
going through it with a debugger.

OR say they are enhancing it?

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Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk