HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: 1st (?) senduuname bomb, and a fast fix
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1992 20:38:55 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <1992Apr7.013459.4901@pcthree.com> scum@pcthree.com (Steve Monroe) writes:
>>We'd much rather have something that works even if the news admin is on
>>vacation, sick, or simply not paying attention.
>
>Since cnews is taking over the world, and uunet has become the repository
>of the universe, why don't, in the next release of course, just have cnews
>mail a copy to uunet on the first of every month.... ;-)

Apart from what the uunet folks might think of this :-), this won't do
anything for regional map-makers, who are the real legitimate users of
sendsys.  Sendsys has long since gotten far too unwieldy for mapping
the whole network; it makes sense only for small regions.
-- 
GCC 2.0 is to C as SVR4 is to Unix.     | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
                             -Dick Dunn |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry
Newsgroups: news.admin
From: chip@tct.com (Chip Salzenberg)
Subject: Re: Sendsys police
Date: Wed, 08 Apr 1992 15:10:52 GMT
Organization: TC Telemanagement, Clearwater, FL

According to vnend@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (D. W. James):
>Set up a robot mailer on uunet.

I believe that it would be a mistake to base sendsys protection, or
any other present or future Usenet feature, on one site's cooperation.
-- 
Chip Salzenberg at Teltronics/TCT  <chip@tct.com>, <73717.366@compuserve.com>
      "Informix 4GL is not a 4G, and it's barely an L."  -- John Tombs
Newsgroups: news.admin
From: sef@kithrup.COM (Sean Eric Fagan)
Subject: Re: Automatic disclaimers on outbound postings from a corporation
Organization: Kithrup Enterprises, Ltd.
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 22:16:23 GMT

In article <1992Apr16.163531.47@sdg.dra.com> sean@sdg.dra.com writes:
>Every time I mail a letter I put a U.S. postage stamp on it, but nobody seems
>to think that stamp implies the letter represents the position of the U.S.
>post office.

Wrong analogy.  The correct analogy is:

everytime I send a message on my company letterhead, people seem to think
that my doing so represents an act of the company, not me-the-person.

-- 
Sean Eric Fagan  | "One form to rule them all, one form to find them, one
sef@kithrup.COM  |  form to bring them all and in the darkness rewrite the
-----------------+  hell out of them" -- sendmail ruleset 3 comment from DEC.
Any opinions expressed are my own, and generally unpopular with others.
Newsgroups: news.admin
From: sef@kithrup.COM (Sean Eric Fagan)
Subject: Re: Tracking Anything on the net.
Organization: Kithrup Enterprises, Ltd.
Date: Tue, 07 Apr 1992 23:56:15 GMT

Your From: line is broken.  It is an illegal address.  Please either fix it,
or get your news administrator to fix it.

In article <1992Apr7.194033.22452@cattnts> craig@cattnts (Craig Campbell) writes:
>With resect to tracking fake postings on the net,
>with co-operation from various sysadmins, you should (in theory) be
>able to back track an article to the source machine by the time stamps
>and communications logs for that article's file. Whoever's system has the
>oldest version of the file in question, should be the original.

I am trying to do this; I suspect others are, as well.  Not all system
administrators keep the same level of logs; not all of them are as helpful
as one would hope (frankly, a lot of them, I'm sure, don't feel it's really
worth the effort and time to help track it down).

Since I've never done this before, I'm not sure if I'm going about it
correctly.  Geoff Collyer has been helpful, despite his busy schedule, and
most of the sysadmin's I've talked to have also been helpful.  (Some haven't
replied yet, but most of them are busy, I'm sure.)

I've got a possible site, but I need some confirmation before I say
anything.

-- 
Sean Eric Fagan  | "One form to rule them all, one form to find them, one
sef@kithrup.COM  |  form to bring them all and in the darkness rewrite the
-----------------+  hell out of them" -- sendmail ruleset 3 comment from DEC.
Any opinions expressed are my own, and generally unpopular with others.
Newsgroups: news.admin
From: fitz@wang.com (Tom Fitzgerald)
Subject: Re: Any rational reason for sendsys?
Organization: Wang Labs, Lowell MA, USA
Date: Mon, 06 Apr 92 07:08:45 GMT

> fitz@wang.com (Tom Fitzgerald) writes:
> - If we're talking about modifying software, a better trick would be to have
> - sendsys take a list of system names, either on the Control: line or within
> - the body of the article.  This decentralizes control, doesn't force
> - responses to go out of their way, and still makes the message worthless as
> - an attack mechanism.

schnoebe@convex.com (Eric Schnoebelen) writes:

> 	Requiring a list of system names makes sendsys useless for
> mapping purposes, and remember that is/was the original purpose of
> sendsys, mapping and connectivity.

No it doesn't, but it does mean you may have to make a few passes to
get the full list.  Pass N will tell you what sites are N+1 hops away
from you, whereupon you can do another sendsys for the subset of those
sites that you're interested to get the sites N+2 hops away, etc.

---
Tom Fitzgerald   Wang Labs        fitz@wang.com
1-508-967-5278   Lowell MA, USA   ...!uunet!wang!fitz
From: pcc@kadima.s1.gov (Philip C. Cox)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: News feed wanted - Livermore, CA
Date: 9 Apr 92 17:20:01 GMT
Reply-To: pcc@s1.gov
Organization: LLNL
Originator: pcc@kadima.s1.gov



I would like to arrange for a full feed for the domain s1.gov . I am
currently running NNTP 1.5.11 and C-news patch 22-Dec-91, on a sun IPC.
I am getting a partial feed from llnl.gov.

Phil

-- 
***********************************************************************
* Philip C. Cox          |  L.L.N.L.                                  *
* E-Mail: pcc@s1.gov     |  P.O. Box 808 L-542                        *
* VOICE: (415) 423-8316  |  Livermore, CA 94550                       *
*=====================================================================*
*                     Quote of the week :                             *
*                                                                     *
* "A Christian is evident by his walk, not just his talk."            *
*                                                   - Me              *
***********************************************************************
From: davehieb@magi.rootgroup.com (David Hieb)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re:  Automatic disclaimers on outbound postings from a corporation
Date: 17 Apr 92 15:40:59 GMT
Reply-To: davehieb@magi.rootgroup.com (David Hieb)
Organization: The Root Group Inc.
Originator: davehieb@rootgroup.com
X-Disclaimer: The views expressed in this message are those of an
	individual at The Root Group Inc., and do not necessarily
	reflect those of the company.


In article <1992Apr16.032526.17951@rootgroup.com>, davehieb@magi.rootgroup.com (David Hieb) writes:
|> 
|> i'm looking for the best way to automatically incorporate a corporate
|> disclaimer into all news articles that are posted from within an
|> organization. i've seen the following disclaimer from CONVEX and
|> really like the header concept.
|> 
|> ====================================================================
|> X-Disclaimer: This message was written by a user at CONVEX Computer
|>               Corp. The opinions expressed are those of the user and
|>               not necessarily those of CONVEX.
|> ====================================================================
|> 
|> can anyone recommend a good procedure?
|> 
|> thanks, davehieb...
|> -- 
|> 
|> David R. Hieb, davehieb@magi.RootGroup.COM
|> Network Applications Consultant, The Root Group Inc.

i thought i'd post a solution that i found quite acceptable, since this
topic seems very interesting...

this solution includes the contents of the following file with each
posting that is generated at a site:

	mailhost:/usr/lib/news/disclaimer

merlin<news> cat disclaimer
X-Disclaimer: The views expressed in this message are those of an
        individual at The Root Group Inc., and do not necessarily
        reflect those of the company.


here are the results from a two line change to the C-news shell script
version of inews (non-nntp). the solution seems correct for (at least) the
following 3 reasons:

1)	the disclaimer is in a dynamically update-able system file.
2)	only one news system file had to be changed.
3)	it works for lots of posting agents (rn, Pnews, inews itself, xrn, etc).


and a diff shows:

merlin<news> diff inews inews-orig
34d33
< disclaim=/usr/lib/news/disclaimer       # system wide disclaimer
164d162
<  cat $disclaim >>$inhdrs


where the original inews has these attributes:

merlin<c-news> ll relay/sh/inews
-rwxr-xr-x  1 davehieb staff       10990 Aug 25  1991 relay/sh/inews


and typical postings have disclaimers that look, well, just like this
posting (see above :-)

davehieb...
-- 

David R. Hieb, davehieb@magi.RootGroup.COM
Network Applications Consultant, The Root Group Inc.
Newsgroups: news.admin
From: tal@Warren.MENTORG.COM (Tom Limoncelli)
Subject: Re: Another thought for fixing sendsys
Organization: Mentor Graphics, Silicon Design Division
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1992 18:50:08 GMT

How about something like the UUCP Mapping Project?

Everyone posts their sys file (or a cannonized version, or maybe one
that fits some new standard notation) periodically to a newsgroup
called news.maps.sys (or news.maps.news and rename comp.mail.maps to
news.maps.uucp).  Someone can write a program that would read in the
data, parse it, and be able to tell you which sites make which
distributions.

The news software could detect changes to your sys file and
automatically post the info, or everyone could use a random number (or
hash on the host name to determine when in the month do they post.

This would result in a newsgroup that would have about 2000 posts per
day.  So, maybe that isn't the way to go about things but maybe it's a
start.

Tom
-- 
Tom Limoncelli -- tal@warren.mentorg.com (work) -- tal@plts.uucp (play)
                  It's not what ya got, it's what ya give.
Newsgroups: news.admin
From: schnoebe@convex.com (Eric Schnoebelen)
Subject: Re: Automatic disclaimers on outbound postings from a corporation
Followup-To: news.admin
Organization: USENET news support, CONVEX Computer Corp, Richardson, Tx. USA
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 18:01:20 GMT
X-Disclaimer: This message was written by a user at CONVEX Computer
              Corp. The opinions expressed are those of the user and
              not necessarily those of CONVEX.

davehieb@magi.rootgroup.com (David Hieb) writes:
- i'm looking for the best way to automatically incorporate a corporate
- disclaimer into all news articles that are posted from within an
- organization. i've seen the following disclaimer from CONVEX and
- really like the header concept.

	[disclaimer removed.  If you really want to look at it, check
		above.. :-) ]

- can anyone recommend a good procedure?

	Well, asking the source is always a good method.. :-)

	Seriously, we made a small change to the C-news inews shell
script. It now puts the X-Disclaimer header on while doing the final
posting of the article, after all of the header validation is done. I
believe that I added just after the code to insert the Lines: header.

	This is one ability that I am going to miss in the C re-write
of inews for C news..

	As to the disclaimer, talk to the corporate legal counsel.
What you see above is what ours saw as sufficent for legal
disclaimation.. (is that a word?)

-- 
Eric Schnoebelen		eric@cirr.com		schnoebe@convex.com
    "Science is to computer science as hydrodynamics is to plumbing."
	    - Stan Kelly-Bootle, _Computer Language_, Oct 90
From: dylan@ibmpcug.co.uk (Matthew Farwell)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: sendsys bombers: you can run, but you can't hide
Date: 7 Apr 92 09:37:47 GMT
Organization: The IBM PC User Group, UK.

In article <1992Apr4.215522.8267@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> tinsel@uiuc.edu writes:
>david@Bogus.COM (David Grant) writes:
>>How about a group, control.sendsys?  Moderate THAT.  Also, a delay of 24 hours
>>before acting on the messages might be okay too..   Would give the other
>>sysadmins a chance to cancel a fake one.
>
>Moderation is useless.  If you can forge a sendsys, you can get past 
>moderation without thinking twice.

In fact you have to approve it anyway, so it doesn't help in the
least...

Dylan.
-- 
'If there is a hung parliament, and John Major and Neil Kinnock have
both been hung, then I am willing to take over.  Vote Insanity - you
know it makes sense' - Screaming Lord Sutch
From: sean@sdg.dra.com
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: Automatic disclaimers on outbound postings from a corporation
Date: 16 Apr 92 16:35:31 CDT
Organization: Data Research Associates, St. Louis MO

In article <1992Apr16.194013.14062@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>, tinsel@uiuc.edu (Thomas Aaron Insel) writes:
> Yes, but most sites do exactly the opposite, and include an Organization:
> header that seems to imply that the poster is representing the organization
> in some capacity.

Every time I mail a letter I put a U.S. postage stamp on it, but nobody seems
to think that stamp implies the letter represents the position of the U.S.
post office.

-- 
Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO
Domain: sean@sdg.dra.com, Voice: (Work) +1 314-432-1100
Newsgroups: news.admin
From: craig@cattnts (Craig Campbell)
Subject: Re: Possible suspect for forged sendsys messages
Organization: AT&T / NCR Canada Ltd., Toronto, Canada
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 12:12:59 GMT
Summary: Not likely....

In article <1992Apr11.203925.8153@kithrup.COM> sef@kithrup.COM (Sean Eric Fagan) writes:
>I'd email this, but, quite frankly, I have NO CLUE as to where I should mail
>it, other than postmaster@att.com
>
>In article <1992Apr9.161739.8861@cattnts> craig@cattnts (Craig Campbell) writes:
>
>An article with an utterly broken header.
>
>	Newsgroups: news.admin
>	Path: kithrup!stanford.edu!agate!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!
>		magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!
>		qt.cs.utexas.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!
>		news-server.csri.toronto.edu!torsqnt!geac!gjetor!herboid!
>		cattnts!craig
>	From: craig@cattnts (Craig Campbell)
>	Subject: Re: Possible suspect for forged sendsys messages
>	Organization: AT&T / NCR Canada Ltd., Toronto, Canada
>	Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 16:17:39 GMT
>	Message-ID: <1992Apr9.161739.8861@cattnts>
>	References: <1992Mar31.231922.25413@reed.edu> <1992Apr03.020258.10633@gozer.mv.com>
>	Lines: 33
>
>"craig@cattnts" is not a legal address.  Even your message-id wants to hide
>your proper site name.
>
>*PLEASE* fix your software!
>
>-- 
>Sean Eric Fagan  | "One form to rule them all, one form to find them, one
>sef@kithrup.COM  |  form to bring them all and in the darkness rewrite the
>-----------------+  hell out of them" -- sendmail ruleset 3 comment from DEC.
>Any opinions expressed are my own, and generally unpopular with others.

Please don't confuse an ongoing sendmail battle with intended forgeries.
(Got any info on sendmail.cf??)

What information were you trying to send me that you discovered this bug?
I would have expected the bang path to work.  Is this a real posting from you?

Amazingly, e-mailing to you as well failed utterly....any idea why?

Feel free to contact anyone at AT&T or NCR you wish.  I really do exist, and
have broken no corporate policies.

Why is it that the combination of this posting and a previous one leave me 
with the feeling of having had a narrow escape?  Paranoia?  I wonder....

Here is a copy of that posting, please note the Xref: and
Follow-up: lines...


Xref: cattnts alt.politics.homosexuality:1081 alt.flame:34775 news.admin:17462 soc.motss:58295 soc.bi:421
From: addinall@stallion.oz.au (Mark Addinall)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.homosexuality,alt.flame,news.admin,soc.motss,soc.bi
Subject: Re: Tracking Anything on the net.
Date: 10 Apr 92 05:09:09 GMT
Followup-To: alt.politics.homosexuality


In <1992Apr7.194033.22452@cattnts> craig@cattnts (Craig Campbell) writes:

>With resect to tracking fake postings on the net,
>with co-operation from various sysadmins, you should (in theory) be
>able to back track an article to the source machine by the time stamps
>and communications logs for that article's file. Whoever's system has the
>oldest version of the file in question, should be the original.

>Is this too simple? Stupid?
>-- 
>Craig Campbell		|	These opinions are entirely the result of a 
>Systems Engineer	|	small butterfly crashing into the far side
>NCR Canada,		|	of the planet.  Chaos Rules.
>an AT&T Company	|	I speak for no one, except, possibly, myself.

Not always as simple as it seems ;-)
How many new friends do you get per year with such a winning manner ?-)

Later...


------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark Addinall             |programmer /prougraema/, n. 1.one who prepares data
Software manager          |  etc., for a computer. 2.a person who spends his
Stallion Technologies     |  his time trying to explain to a computer the
Brisbane, QLD, Australia. |  imaginative fantasies of the Marketing department.
TEL 61 7 870 4999         |  this involves translating from one unintelligible
FAX 61 7 371 8881         |  series of hieroglyphics to another. see /lunacy/
...!uunet!mark@staltec    |----------------------------------------------------
mark@stallion.oz.au       |Opinions, not Onions, belong to me, and only me. 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I tend to doubt this is for real, sorry Mark if is was a serious (but very
strange) post.
-- 
Craig Campbell		|	These opinions are entirely the result of a 
Systems Engineer	|	small butterfly crashing into the far side
NCR Canada,		|	of the planet.  Chaos Rules.
an AT&T Company		|	I speak for no one, except, possibly, myself.
Newsgroups: news.admin
From: rdippold@cancun.qualcomm.com (Ron Dippold)
Subject: Re: Automatic disclaimers on outbound postings from a corporation
Organization: Qualcomm, Inc., San Diego, CA
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 22:28:43 GMT

sean@sdg.dra.com writes:
>In article <1992Apr16.194013.14062@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>, tinsel@uiuc.edu (Thomas Aaron Insel) writes:
>> Yes, but most sites do exactly the opposite, and include an Organization:
>> header that seems to imply that the poster is representing the organization
>> in some capacity.

>Every time I mail a letter I put a U.S. postage stamp on it, but nobody seems
>to think that stamp implies the letter represents the position of the U.S.
>post office.

Nobody files complaints against the delivery system (UseNet itself)
for offensive postings.  What if you wrote that letter on company
letterhead and sent it in a company envelope?
-- 
Systems programmers are the high priests of a low cult.
Newsgroups: news.admin
From: chip@tct.com (Chip Salzenberg)
Subject: Re: Another thought for fixing sendsys
Date: Mon, 06 Apr 1992 21:35:49 GMT
Organization: TC Telemanagement, Clearwater, FL

According to ltf@ncmicro.lonestar.org (Lance Franklin):
>Now, when the sendsys is received, it is ONLY responded to if the
>sendsys-req is still on the system.

I'd give the new control message a more descriptive name -- like, say,
"sucker".  ;-)

>A few added checks... comparing reception dates with message dates to ensure
>that the bomber hasn't forged an earlier date to bypasss the 4 day check,
>for instance, should be added for extra protection.

 1. Let's try a week instead of four days.  Remember holidays.
 2. C News already performs a too-old check.  The only change
    required would be an explicitly smaller window for "sucker"
    control messages.

>Comments?

This proposal is the neatest I've seen so far.

Its main disadvantage is that those sites without the mods will reply
immediately.  But I have a fix for this problem: If a "sendsys" is
received and the "sucker" message is gone (or never arrived), then the
"sendsys" is not only ignored -- it's _dropped_on_the_floor_.  Once
UUNET is running such a mod, "sendsys" will be _much_ safer.
-- 
Chip Salzenberg at Teltronics/TCT  <chip@tct.com>, <73717.366@compuserve.com>
      "Informix 4GL is not a 4G, and it's barely an L."  -- John Tombs
From: amdunn@mongrel.uucp (Andrew M. Dunn)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: Another thought for fixing sendsys
Date: 10 Apr 92 14:16:41 GMT
Organization: A. Dunn Systems Corporation, Kitchener, Canada

In article <1992Apr7.185008.3414@Warren.MENTORG.COM> tal@Warren.MENTORG.COM (Tom Limoncelli) writes:
>How about something like the UUCP Mapping Project?
>
>Everyone posts their sys file (or a cannonized version, or maybe one
>that fits some new standard notation) periodically to a newsgroup
>called news.maps.sys (or news.maps.news and rename comp.mail.maps to
>news.maps.uucp).

>The news software could detect changes to your sys file and
>automatically post the info, or everyone could use a random number (or
>hash on the host name to determine when in the month do they post.

It should be automatic.  Otherwise it'll wind up just as out-of-date
as some of the UUCP maps currently are (ie. Northern California!)

But the problem is upgrading all the old sites.  It could take years
to get this new software installed everywhere.  And until it _is_
installed, there'd be no reliable way to do sys mapping at all.

(I'm assuming that, concurrently with implementing this new method,
 we'd set something up to clobber all sendsys requests)


>This would result in a newsgroup that would have about 2000 posts per
>day.  So, maybe that isn't the way to go about things but maybe it's a
>start.

Yeah, it would be a bit large.  Smaller than a sendsys bomb, but
then how often does a site get hit?

-- 
:-------------------------------------------------------------------------:
:  Andy Dunn (amdunn@mongrel.uucp)  ({uunet...}!xenitec!mongrel!amdunn)   :
:  "AT&T thinks Usenet is an Underground organization" - are we really?   :
:-------------------------------------------------------------------------:
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: Followup/Results of the FAQ Experiment
From: kilroy@freddy.acme.gen.nz (earthbound misfit, I)
Date: Sat, 11 Apr 92 06:04:55 GMT
Reply-To: kilroy@freddy.acme.gen.nz (earthbound misfit)
Organization: The Blue Danube Waltzers

clewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca (Chris Lewis) writes:

> [...about imaginary *.answers newsgroups...]
>
> Secondly, I think we should discuss the naming.  Is <heirarchy>.answers
> what we want to use?  Something else?

It appears to be the best solution to me. If a site subscribes to just "comp",
they'll get comp.answers but they won't get faq.comp. I'm not sure if I see
any advantage to a non-existant faq heirarchy instead.

						- k
-- 
Craig Harding         kilroy@freddy.acme.gen.nz         ACME BBS: +64 6 3551342
"Jub'f Xvob?"
Newsgroups: news.admin
From: gritton@alaska.caedm.byu.edu (Jamie Gritton)
Subject: Time for an RFD for usa.*
Lines: 16
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 92 11:40:34 MDT
Organization: Brigham Young University, Provo UT USA
Reply-To: gritton@byu.edu

It's about time to start an "official" RFD for the usa.* hierachy for those
who want something more official than just creating it.

I got mail frome someone regarding, among other things, a list of proposed
"starter groups" for the hiearchy. I can't for the life of me remember who
that was; I've gotten mail from so many different people about this, and I
haven't been keeping my old mail like I should have. Whoever it was: could
you please post the list and/or contact me again. This time I'll keep the
message.

Also to mathew@mantis.co.uk: You volunteered to run the vote... What do
you think of having an initial list of groups on the proposal. I'd rather
just use usa.config to discuss any other groups, but I've received mail
from those for and against the hiearchy suggesting the idea.
--
James Gritton - gritton@byu.edu - I disclaim
Newsgroups: news.admin