From: nate@psygate.psych.indiana.edu (Nathan Engle)
Subject: Re: Kicked out of a.f.d-q?  I don't think so
Organization: Psych Department, Indiana University
Distribution: na
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 17:20:29 GMT

dsh@eceyv.ncsu.edu (Doug Holtsinger) writes:
>nate@psygate.psych.indiana.edu (Nathan Engle) writes:
>>dsh@eceyv.ncsu.edu (Doug Holtsinger) writes:
>>> I wonder, does Susan Garvin's idea of 'free speech' mean
>>> that people can send e-mail to Steve Chaney's system
>>> administrators accusing Mr. Chaney of 'forgery', when
>>> in fact the 'forgery' was merely a harmless joke?  

>> I can't speak for Susan, but your example definitely falls in the 
>> category of free speech. 

>Perhaps in the legal sense it does, but Ms. Garvin's 
>hair-trigger response to an innocent joke seemed to 
>indicate her desire to see Steve Chaney's net access
>restricted. 

    Maybe so. I don't know Susan very well but I would venture that she 
takes her reputation pretty seriously (to the extent that she doesn't 
appreciate it when somebody forges an NNTP header).

    If you think that Susan is the only person who would have a "hair-
trigger" response in notifying system administrators then have Steve play 
his "innocent joke" with my user ID.

>How could such a harmless joke breach "network security"?

    Well, when a jillion people read the "joke" post and hit the 'r' key 
the email address they're going to 'r' to is Susan's, the result being 
that Susan gets a bunch of unsolicited flames in her mailbox. Not the end 
of the world, I admit, however it does constitute a case in which the 
mechanism of Usenet isn't working as intended. Furthermore the "malfunction" 
occurred as a result of deliberate human intervention. What would *you* 
call such a malfunction? Is Steve supposed to beable to do that whenever 
he wants?

>I have a feeling that's merely an excuse to justify 
>ill-deserved punishment.  

    I'm not interested in what happens to Steve. Maybe Susan is, that's 
her business. When I see posts with apparently screwed up NNTP headers 
I do the exact same thing that Susan did - notify the system administrators.
There might actually be some problem causing it that they should know about.
In Susan's case she was able to advance a theory concerning a likely cause, 
which is completely reasonable to include in a report of that nature.

    I don't know anything about Susan's motivations, but I don't think 
I would've handled it differently than she did. If I spot a glitch I 
report it to the interested system administrator.

>> remember, Robert Morris's internet worm started as a 
>> "harmless joke".

>Oh please, this doesn't even begin to compare.  No harm
>was intended, and no harm could have resulted, except
>possibly for some harm to Ms. Garvin's already inflated 
>ego. 

    Susan's ego is her business, not mine. As far as the comparison between 
Morris and Chaney, I would certainly agree that Morris's "harmless joke" 
was more prolific than anything I would expect from Steve. Yet I don't 
think that Steve has any legitimate grounds for complaint that Susan 
reported ("tattled on") his actions. Steve is perfectly free to write to 
Susan's administrators to tell them that she follows the rules, just as 
she's free to write to his to tell them when he doesn't.

--
Nathan Engle                        Software Juggler
Psychology Department               Indiana University
nate@psygate.psych.indiana.edu      nengle@copper.ucs.indiana.edu