HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: mal3p@faraday.clas.Virginia.EDU (Michael A. Lefsky)
Subject: HAMMER-AITOFF -> LAT LON
Organization: University of Virginia
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 21:19:28 GMT

I am looking for a program that can convert a raster file
from a modified Hammer-Aitoff (Aspect Ratio=0.75, Meridian
"blowup" = 3) to lat/lon. I can write the pixel resampling
routines if neccessary. Thanks in advance!

Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.gis
Date:         Wed, 12 Aug 1992 09:24:35 PDT
              <GIS-L@UBVM.BITNET>
From:         "Kathleen Bertrand" <esri!tasha!kathleen@UUNET.UU.NET>
Subject:      Re: Sorry, an ARC/INFO question ....
X-To:         uunet!UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu!GIS-L@uunet.UU.NET

Peter,

I am not sure where you received your earlier information on the 6.1 release of
ARC/INFO for the Silicon Graphics platforms.  The shipping of ARC/INFO 6.1 is
in progess as of 8/10/92.

Thank you,

Kathleen Bertrand (ESRI)

>
> Has anyone, anywhere, yet seen a release 6 of ARC/INFO for the Silicon
> Graphics platforms?  I was told to 'expect it any day' in early June, nowt
> has turned up and ESRI(UK) can / will give no dates.  I do not see any point
> in wasting telephone calls if the product has slipped way down the release
> tree - but if the problem is in the UK ...
>
> Thanks,
>
> Peter Halls
> University of York
>
> PJH1@UK.AC.YORK
>
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.gis
Date:         Wed, 19 Aug 1992 11:06:55 +1000
              <GIS-L@UBVM.BITNET>
From:         R.J.Driessen@CENSIS.UTAS.EDU.AU
Subject:      RE GIS interfaces
X-To:         gis-l@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu

I think Bob's comments on interfaces in relation to GIS are perhaps true.
Judging by the lack of response and the interfaces on most GIS one could
assume that very little is being done in this area. Some of the comments
indicated that improvements to interfaces involved better command line
editing. This seems like the sort of response you would get from a cowboy a
century ago, who  might suggest a quick release hitching rail as a
futuristic breakthrough in transport. I think perhaps some more imagination
is required when considering where GIS interfaces can go.

Most GIS vendors seem to have a "write your own" attitude to the interface
problem where the responsibility of their development is passed on to the
purchaser. Organisations who buy GIS would not have the appropriate skills
to develop worthwhile interfaces and if they did, the tools provided by the
vendors are still very primitive.

I think it is important to do a lot more work in this area. For good
reasons most of the efforts in reducing the cost of GIS has concetrated on
improving data collection and maintenance.
Thats fine but another valid way to reduce costs is to break down the
interface barriers
of GIS and make it more available so that more people can start using it.
This will have to happen eventually but the GIS community seems to be
dragging its heels (perhaps for good reason because there are still other
more  pressing problems?)

The human computer interface is potentially the last frontier in computer
design. It is apparently a lost frontier in GIS.
Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.gis
From: dmarble@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Duane F Marble)
Subject: Re: GIS Interfaces
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 13:50:56 GMT

They might also want to examine some of the 3300 articles included
in Gary Pearlman's bibliography on human-computer interaction. This
is available without charge via FTP. I will find the access details
and post them here in the next day or so.
-- 
Duane F. Marble			       E-mail: dmarble@magnus.acs.osu.edu
Department of Geography                Telephone: (614) 292-2250
The Ohio State University
Columbus, Ohio 43210                   Fax: (614) 292-6213
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail v2.3 (R1).
Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.gis
Date:         Fri, 21 Aug 1992 11:21:17 EDT
              <GIS-L@UBVM.BITNET>
From:         KOLEDA_K@MSB.FLINT.UMICH.EDU
Subject:      Intergraph MGE for the PC?
X-To:         GIS-L@UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu

Someone suggested to me recently that the Intergraph MGE (Modular GIS
Environment?) has been, or will be ported to the PC, similar to the
port of Microstation.  Does anyone know if this is true or false?

Does anyone have an E-mail address at Intergraph for such information?
It was suggested that there would be very steep educational discounts
on this package and I'm very interested.

Thanks in advance.


-----------------------------------------------------------------
Ken Koleda, Geo-processing Specialist        Sorry, no pictures.
Regional Groundwater Center
Room 518-MSB, UM-Flint
303 E. Kearsley                                 313-766-6608
Flint, MI 48052-2186       internet: koleda_k@msb.flint.umich.edu
-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: adoyle@bbn.com (Allan Doyle)
Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.gis
Subject: Data Formats
Date: 21 Aug 92 13:18:06 GMT
Reply-To: adoyle@bbn.com
Organization: Bolt Beranek & Newman, Incorporated
NNTP-Posting-Host: bbn.com

The discussion on user interfaces has been interesting so far. What
about the other end of the GIS systems, so to speak. There seem to be
tens or hundreds of different data formats in use. What is happening
in the GIS world to try to converge on data interchange standards?

Does anyone have a list of all the data formats, what they are used for,
why they are perceived to be good or bad, whether there exists public
domain conversion code for them, etc?

And I suppose while I'm at it, what about data sources? Commercial,
and publicly available, current and historic, real-time feeds and
archival access, distribution media, etc.

I realize that there are many, many terabytes of data out there. How
do I find data once I decide what I want to see?

I'm new to the GIS scene but am working on a system that has to pull
together a lot of spatial and non-spatial data and want to understand
the issues of data formats before I dig a hole for myself that I can't
get out of again.

If there is sufficient interest, I'll summarize in a couple of weeks.

Thanks,

	Allan Doyle

PS, this is a big question so I suspect I may get inundated, in which
case you may not hear from me for a few years :-)


Allan Doyle                                        adoyle@bbn.com
Bolt Beranek and Newman,  Incorporated             +1 (617) 873-3398
10 Moulton Street, Cambridge, MA 02138             USA
Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.gis
From: cyberoid@milton.u.washington.edu (Robert Jacobson)
Subject: Re: What do you think about GIS interfaces? Input to vendor!
Organization: WORLDESIGN, Seattle
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 05:54:01 GMT


You guys are so creative, lots of good ideas, but we won't get there
until we have a sound critique of current systems!  What I told you
about the vendor's feeling that interface issues are at the bottom
of the pile means that unless you convince them otherwise, your good
ideas won't have much of an audience.  But thanks, I'll pass along
any concepts.

Bob Jacobson
From: kling@ics.uci.edu (Rob Kling)
Subject: Re: Article - Behind the Terminal
Newsgroups: comp.infosystems
Date: 14 Aug 92 03:59:11 GMT

Dear Paul,

Thanks for your very speedy reading and comments on my long article.

I agree with your comment re. talk in organizations between
peers. However, I'm discussing
writings/theories of systems analysis  and
the talk between computer profesionals and end usersi as much as
the practice/talk of systems analysts with their peers.

Few of the books that I know about systems analysis take infrastructure
into account -- and this is especially true of the texts which are
used in university courses. I cite the better books, which I know of,
in my article.

I am very interested in any pointers which you can give to
books and articles about how to do systems analysis which
examine infrastructure and context  as key features
of a systems environment.

/Rob



------- End of Forwarded Message

Newsgroups: comp.infosystems,comp.groupware
From: rschmidt@copper.ucs.indiana.edu (roy schmidt)
Subject: Re: Clarification re. Behind the Terminal
Organization: The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology 
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 01:34:26 GMT

David remarked that Rob could make a contribution by providing a
*framework* for integrating his ideas into the "traditional" approach.
I believe this misses the point.  As Rob's paper (and previous works)
pointed out, one of the shortcomings of the discrete entity modelling
approach is the assumption that various elements of the model are
separable.  When a framework is built, the usual objective is to give
researchers and practitioners a tool whereby the separable elements can
be identified and then systematically isolated for study.

But a point made repeatedly in Rob's paper is that these elements are
*not* separable, and cannot be broken down into subsystems, etc., for
study.  The analyst must learn to cope with real life, where all the
dynamic factors are constantly interacting and creating new situations.

The introduction of a new procedure into an organisation is very
disruptive.  The discrete entity approach tackles this problem by
considering each element of the system piecemeal.  The web model
encourages the analyst to think of the system as interacting with all
the other "parts" of the organization simultaneously.  Consider that
*any* change in any "part" immediately affects all other  elements.  We
cannot isolate subsystems of a living organisation.

In his case,  Rob is describing how changes in computing support can
impact the functioning of a workgroup, and how the infrastructure is
dragged into the mess, like it or not.  The concept of web models is not
something that can be tacked onto discrete entity thinking, because it
is an entirely different way of thinking.  Take the time to read over
the two tables of contrasting assumptions, then reflect on the case.
This is not an idea which can be considered summary-style.




-- 
Roy Schmidt   SCHMIDT@USTHK.bitnet  after 7/15 | #include <disclaimer.h>     
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology | /* I didn't say it,
School of Business and Management              | nobody saw me say it,
**Presently disguised as a Hoosier**           | you can't prove it! */
From: dg1v+@andrew.cmu.edu (David Greene)
Newsgroups: comp.infosystems,comp.groupware
Subject: Re: Clarification re. Behind the Terminal
Date: 16 Aug 92 13:56:10 GMT
Organization: Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

I think there are valid points in Paul's criticism... specifically, the
presentation of the "traditional approach" is so limited as to
constitute a strawman.  In both course work as well as practice, most
instructors and professionals emphasize a larger perspective than the
physical computing system itself.  Most descriptions of the "existing
system analysis phase" would examine environmental characterstics,
reporting roles and other contextual issues.  So, *in practice*,
traditional approaches are far richer and more socially flexible than
describeded in Rob Klings paper.... For this reason, his presentation is
likely to cast a contentious shadow on the contributions of the paper.

As to those contributions, I believe providing a practical, formal
framework for integrating  interpersonal organizational issues as well
as systems issues would be an important *addition* to traditional
approaches.  While we might currently address organizational power and
interpresonal relations when we teach traditional approaches, having a
more consistant formalization (perhaps the web model) would be welcome.

With regard to the paper, while I found the empirical examples
interesting and the background details relevant, I believe it will be
more challenging to provide consistent guidelines in operationalizing
social models for practical use.  I think this is where Rob Klings
research could be most beneficial.

-David
-----------------------------------------------------------
 David Perry Greene         ||  Carnegie Mellon University
 Robotics Institute 3308 DH ||  Pittsburgh, PA 15213      
 dg1v@andrew.cmu.edu        ||  dpg@isl1.ri.cmu.edu
------------------------------------------------------------
From: kling@ics.uci.edu (Rob Kling)
Subject: Re: More on Article - Behind the Terminal
Newsgroups: comp.infosystems
Date: 14 Aug 92 04:00:50 GMT

Dear Paul,

However, one of several of your comments that I differ with is this:

>Kling presents no evidence that his models are better than other ad hoc
>frameworks for describing the social context of computing.

The paper provides some evidence through the  detailed analysis of one case
study.  The main contrast in the paper is between web models and dicrete entity
models. I'd be interested in knowing whihc other empirically grounded
frameworks for describing the social context of computing you think are
comparabley good .... and why ...

/R
From: jonathan@san-andreas.think.com (Jonathan Goldman)
Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.wais
Subject: Re: wais-8-b5 Mac waisstation0.6.2 problem
Date: 12 Aug 92 13:39:34
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge MA, USA
NNTP-Posting-Host: san-andreas.quake.think.com
In-reply-to: schafers@cps.msu.edu.cps.msu.edu's message of 31 Jul 92 18:33:00 GMT

In article <1992Jul31.183300.9554@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu> schafers@cps.msu.edu.cps.msu.edu (Steven R Schafer) writes:

   From: schafers@cps.msu.edu.cps.msu.edu (Steven R Schafer)
   Date: 31 Jul 92 18:33:00 GMT

   Has anyone experienced a problem of there waisserver crashing when it
   is accessed by a Mac waisstation0.6.2 client?  I have wais-8-b5 running
   on a sun4.  I can successfully access it through waissearch and gopher
   running on the same machine and waissearch running on a different sun4
   machine.  I have not tried from xwais yet.  But when I try to access it
   from a Mac IIsi running 0.6.2 it kills the server.  The log file says
   there is a segmentation fault and the server crashes.  Any ideas?

There is a bug in the b5 server that causes a core dump if the client's
name cannot be found by the resolver.

The fix is a simple one.  In server.c, line 442, replace 

      if(peer != NULL)
	sprintf(host_name, "%s", peer->h_name);

      sprintf(host_address, "%s",
#if defined(sparc) && defined(__GNUC__)
	      inet_ntoa(&source.sin_addr)
#else
	      inet_ntoa(source.sin_addr)
#endif /* sparc */
	      );

with

      if(peer != NULL)
       { sprintf(host_name, "%s", peer->h_name);

	 sprintf(host_address, "%s",
#if defined(sparc) && defined(__GNUC__)
		 inet_ntoa(&source.sin_addr)
#else
		 inet_ntoa(source.sin_addr)
#endif /* sparc */
		 );
       }
--
Jonny Goldman					Thinking Machines Corporation
jonathan@Think.com				1010 El Camino Real Suite 310
Plebe						Menlo Park, CA 94025
Wide Area Information Servers			415-329-9300x229
Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.wais,comp.lang.postscript,alt.security
From: newsham@wiliki.eng.hawaii.edu (Timothy Newsham)
Subject: Re: WAISified PostScript would constitute a security hole
Organization: University of Engineering, College of Engineering
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 06:59:33 GMT

In article <1992Aug17.154954.5869@crd.ge.com> davidsen@crd.ge.com (bill davidsen) writes:
>In article <skyhawk.713832721@milton>,
> skyhawk@milton.u.washington.edu (Scott Northrop) writes:
>
>| Is a setuid-root executable that setuid()s to a safe user (like nobody) a
>| reasonable way to "start up a subprocess with limited privileges without having
>| to have super-user authority"?  I hope so, it's what I've always done.  This is
>| what Mr. da Silva was saying, though he wasn't being explicit about the setuid
>| bit.  (Of course, it's also good practice to toast the environment variables
>| that aren't needed -- no telling what holes you might open up otherwise.)
>| 
>| If necessary, a chroot() could also be done, but I have my doubts about how
>| much this would impede the functionality of the previewer, and how necessary it
>| would be in the first place.
>
>  I see no benefit to having the program setuid root so it can setuid
>user, when you can make it owned by user and set the setuid bit in the
>first place. Maybe you're doing something as superuser first, but in
>general I don't see any benefit to going through a two step process.
>
>-- 
>bill davidsen, GE Corp. R&D Center; Box 8; Schenectady NY 12345
>    I admit that when I was in school I wrote COBOL. But I didn't compile.

How about something like this... 
if the program is owned by 'nobody' and suid,  then when
the program runs, any nasty program can alter the program itself
and its mode (ie replace 'wrapper' and take off suid bit) then
anyone who runs the program will be caught by this trojan and
an suid shell, rhosts (if home is in the chroot) or whatever can
be made...
I think it would be nice if some other protection mode was
available which would cripple the scope of system calls or commands
that could be executed, like someone else already proposed.

Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.wais
From: ron@rivm.nl (Ron Roozendaal)
Subject: Re: Adapting to post-boolean searching
Summary: WAIS 1992
Reply-To: ron@rivm.nl
Organization: RIVM
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 07:54:55 GMT

In article <8eY1st70BwxIB2AnYW@transarc.com> Joseph_Jackson@transarc.com
writes:
>Folks,
> (STUFF DELETED>

>Wonderful concept, and I'd really like to believe it, but so far I've
>been amazed at how little I can use WAIS without some way of
>specifying simple conjunctions.  Is there another approach that I
>should be taking that WAIS will satisfy?
>
>Joe Jackson.
>

As far as I know, Z39.50 1992 contains boolean searches. Rumour has it, that
sometime this year WAIS will be Z39.50 1992 compliant. Anyone knowing more?

Ron

____________
Ron Roozendaal
National Institute on Public Health and Environmental Protection
Postbox 1
3720 BA Bilthoven
the Netherlands
Tel. ++31 30 742790
Fax. ++31 30 282 316
ron@rivm.nl

Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.wais,comp.lang.postscript,alt.security
From: nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle)
Subject: Re: WAISified PostScript would constitute a security hole
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 92 19:01:18 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 

peter@taronga.com (Peter da Silva) writes:

>In article <cx4mcgb.nagle@netcom.com> nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle) writes:
>>      What's needed is the ability to start up a process with limited
>>privileges.  UNIX doesn't have this.

>Oh, I don't know about that. "chroot" seems pretty comprehensive. An
>advantage of putting everything in the file system. If you're REALLY
>paranoid you can setuid to a user-id with no files of its own.

      "chroot" is a step in the right direction, but it itself has enough
security implications that it can only be used by the super-user, and even
then, some systems (with auditing turned on) disallow it.

      Users can't be allowed "chroot" because it could be used to fool
set-UID programs into permitting Trojan-horse attacks.  

      Setting the user id to "nobody" is promising, but depends on how
the system does that feature.  And that's still a privileged operation.

      You want the ability to start up a subprocess with limited privileges
without having to have super-user authority to do it.

					John Nagle

					John Nagle
Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.wais
From: ckd@eff.org (Christopher Davis)
Subject: Re: Comments? (Re: Adapting to post-boolean searching)
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation Tech Central
	<1992Aug18.142525.12588@cs.joensuu.fi>
	<QeYJSFW00VR58V2t9j@andrew.cmu.edu>
	<1992Aug19.155848.4430@cunews.carleton.ca>
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 20:16:05 GMT

RJK>  == Robert Joseph Kuszewski <lizard+@CMU.EDU> writes:
Neal> == Neal Holtz <nholtz@cascade.carleton.ca> 

 RJK> The current standards folk have agreed that ADJ (adjacency) should
 RJK> really be the natural/logical default operator.

 Neal> In almost all of my queries so far, I have wanted the AND operator
 Neal> (and certainly not adjacency -- there are too many permuations to
 Neal> try).  For example, I was trying to search the nsf-awards database
 Neal> for all abstracts containing the words "civil", "engineering" and
 Neal> "standards".  There may have been one or two relevant documents
 Neal> but I couldn't tell -- there are approximately 300 documents in
 Neal> the result set.  Adding more common keywords simply doesn't help.

How about a mix of ADJ, AND, and relevance feedback?  This scheme would
run as follows:

Score 10 for the first hit on a word.  Double for each additional
different word hit in that document.  (i.e. 10 for "civil" alone, 40 if
all three words show up).  This gives a strong bias for completeness,
but not as strong as a pure AND.

Score a base 1 for each additional use of any of the words found.
Triple this for every other word hit within the same syntactic unit
(paragraph, say).  That way "Standards for Civil Engineering" would be
worth 9 points per word per hit, as would "civil engineering standards".
If they both were in the same paragraph, as here, it'd still be only 9
points per hit, due to the lack of additional *different* words.  This
paragraph therefore scores 63 points.

Even paragraphs like this one, which might deal with new standards for
document retrieval weightings, might find some civil debate...but even
with false hits like this paragraph it'll only bias it lightly, as the
exponential nature emphasizes multiple different words.  This paragraph
only scores six points.

Comments?


--
Christopher Davis * ckd@eff.org * System Administrator, EFF * +1 617 864 0665
            ``Ed Gruberman, you fail to grasp Ti Kwan Leep.
            Approach me that you might see.'' -- The Master
Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.wais,comp.lang.postscript,alt.security
From: john@iastate.edu (John Hascall)
Subject: Re: WAISified PostScript would constitute a security hole
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, IA
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 20:13:04 GMT

In article <cx4mcgb.nagle@netcom.com> nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle) writes:
}      You don't want to trust some big interpreter that executes 
}foreign programs.  That's a big piece of code to trust.  It might have
}security holes.  It probably does.  You want to be able to execute such 
}programs in an environment where they can't do any harm.
}
}      What's needed is the ability to start up a process with limited
}privileges.  UNIX doesn't have this.  Anything a UNIX user runs can do anything
}that user can do.  And that's no good.

Oh?   What about:

---s--s--x  1 nobody   nobody          0 Aug 12 15:04 psnewsrdr


Also a ``chroot("/tmp/psnewsroot");'' in the code or a wrapper program
would restrict the actions of the program even more.

John
-- 
John Hascall                                       ``Live with it pink-boy!''
Project Vincent                                                              
Iowa State University Computation Center                     john@iastate.edu
Ames, IA  50011                                      515/294-9551 [fax -1717]