From: utzoo!decvax!ittvax!swatt Newsgroups: net.news Title: Re: Beware the coming of NET WARS Article-I.D.: ittvax.610 Posted: Mon Feb 7 17:35:38 1983 Received: Wed Feb 9 02:23:59 1983 References: sask.208 Clearly, Derek is right that something has to be done; random people anywhere in the net should not have the ability to destroy news in machines not under their control. There is also the issue of those systems who pay the costs to store and forward news having some control over how and how much their resources are used. Various proposed solutions have been kicking around the net for well over a year. There are two basic camps: 1) Administrative solutions. These advocate new policies, USENET boards to make decisions, etc. Derek's ideas are of this type. There was considerable discussion about a month ago about a proposed "USENET, Inc." organization to take over administration chores. 2) Technical solutions. Change the news software to allow each site better control. Both types of solutions have their problems, which have been fairly well discussed already. I personally fall into those who favor technical solutions, not becuase I unconditionally reject central control, but because I believe any central control will have to manifest itself in technical fixes anyway just to be effective. Our site doesn't (yet) have the problem of management objecting to net.jokes, but I do worry about "erewhon!usenet" doing some random damage to an important newsgroup just for fun. So, my desires for technical changes are: 1) There ought to be a distinction between what a site is willing to accept for itself and what it is willing to forward to others. 2) The principle ought to be embodied that only the local news administrator can do something irrevocable, unless by special pre-arrangement for the convenience of people who adminsiter several sites (this of course requires either massive UUCP changes, or a layer of encryption). 3) The cost of running USENET ought to be more visible so the local administrator can make informed decisions about which newsgroups to support and which to drop. Curently you have to go to a fair amount of work to dig this out, and if your site is like ours, news is EXPENSIVE. Now one problem both administrative and technical solutions (mine included) have in common is they all represent volunteering of someone else's time. Most people I talk to already maintain news in their "spare" time, so there isn't a lot left over. Doesn't someone out there want to do a thesis on "Means of Distributed Control Over A Public News Network?" - Alan S. Watt