Xref: utzoo news.admin:3402 alt.flame:2663 Path: utzoo!hoptoad!pacbell!att!cbnews!wbt From: wbt@cbnews.ATT.COM (William B. Thacker) Newsgroups: news.admin,alt.flame Subject: A SERIOUS DILEMMA FOR THE NET Keywords: handles, Portal, problem Message-ID: <1219@cbnews.ATT.COM> Date: 19 Sep 88 02:29:46 GMT Reply-To: wbt@cbnews.ATT.COM (William B. Thacker) Followup-To: alt.flame Distribution: na Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Columbus Lines: 39 To the Powers that Be on Usenet; Recently, there has occurred on the net what I feel to be the beginnings of a big problem. For several weeks, postings from several individuals at the Portal System have been plaguing the net. The posters use "anonymous" logins such as "Hijacker", "Spartan", "Ankh" etc. It is my opinion that the Portal Administrator's decision to let subscribers use these "handles" has encouraged some of them to post irresponsibly, I offer as a "for instance" the fairly recent incident of "jj@cup.portal.com" who posted a plea for money across the entire net, cross-posting to most of the newsgroups. Many of the posters from Portal do not seem to realize the tremendous expense this sort of "prank" causes. This problem might be solved if the management at the Portal System would simply force users to use their real names. This would perhaps force these posters to use more discretion. It is my opinion that the Portal System itself is not really at fault; this problem could not easily have been forseen by them. I do hope, however, that they take some action to correct what could be a tremendous problem for the net. If, however, the Portal administrators are reluctant to do so, perhaps those of us who feel strongly about the issue could help them out by assembling as complete a portfolio of these postings as possible, then mailing them to 'root@cup.portal.com' along with comments as to why we feel the postings are inappropriate. This will, no doubt, aid their staff in resolving the problem by presenting them with a body of first-hand data. My thanks, and wishes that we can resolve this issue quickly to everyone's satisfaction. ------------------------------ valuable coupon ------------------------------- Bill Thacker cbosgd!cbema!wbt "C" combines the power of assembly language with the flexibility of assembly language. Disclaimer: Farg 'em if they can't take a joke ! ------------------------------- clip and save --------------------------------