> Making the bionet groups moderated won't help. I assume you're
> referring to the recent cowabunga plague. Note that it appeared on various
> moderated groups, with forged Approved: headers.
I have been told that our friend BIFF, who plastered a large number of
USENET newsgroups besides bionet with his garbage, is being actively
sought out 8-)! However over the last four years I can only recall
about two other remotely similar incidents, so I am not that
concerned.
We may not be able to protect the system from determined hackers, but
we can filter out stuff like SUBSCRIBE/UNSUBSCRIBE messages that are
sent to the wrong place as well as other inappropriate stuff. The
question is whether or not these are SO annoying that they are worth
making the groups moderated. This would entail an additional
committment of time on our part at BIOSCI and also result in some
delays in the posting of bulletins while they awaited approval. My
time is already very strapped (BIOSCI is just a fractional time
committment for me among several other items) and, personally, I have
always favored the role of friendly traffic cop on these groups versus
that of a censor.
--
Sincerely,
Dave Kristofferson
GenBank On-line Service Manager
kristoff at genbank.bio.net
