Acbosgd.120 net.news utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!ihnss!cbosg!cbosgd!mark Tue Oct 13 20:56:30 1981 whether the sys and uuname files are public I've gotten a good deal of feedback to the effect that everyone agrees that the sys (.sys in version A, NOT L.sys) is public, but there are several qualms about uuname: (1) A site may not want to admit it exists, yet will be in the uuname of a usenet site (2) The uuname output often include funny names or out of date ones that don't exist any more. (3) The uuname outputs imply that certain links exist which turn out to cost real money and are lightly used. Making these links public could cause freeloaders to start spending somebody elses money. The intent of making sys files public was to make generating a usenet map easier. The intent of making uuname public was to both help making a uucp net map, and to help the automatic routing of mail. Neither of these two functions is part of usenet, but there is no way to do it in bare uucp. I now propose the following policy for USENET. USENET is a public access network. Any user is allowed to post to any newsgroup (unless abuses start to be a problem). All users are to be given access to all newsgroups, except that private newsgroups can be created which are protected. In particular, all users must have access to the net and fa newsgroups, and to local public newsgroups such as general. The USENET map is also public at all times, and so any site which is on USENET is expected to make public the fact that they are on USENET, their USENET connections (e.g. their sys file), and the name, address, phone number, and electronic address of the contact for that site, for the USENET directory. At some future date, there will be a version of netnews which will include code to respond to control messages, including the two following messages: send me your sys file send me your uuname output Once this version of netnews is released (it probably won't be in the initial B release) all sites are expected to respond to such messages in one of two ways: either install the code to automatically send back a response, or manually mail back the requested information. (Initially I expect that such queries might occur once a month.) It is a requirement of being on USENET that requests for the sys file must be responded to with the sys file. It is NOT a requirement that requests for uuname output must be answered, but rather a request. Sites are free to edit their output or ignore this request completely. The system will at that point be distributed with this code turned ON, and if your site must, for security or other reasons, not respond to this, you should take out that code. (How to do this will be documented and made very simple, probably just a compile time ifdef.) If anyone objects to this policy, please let me know. ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.