Forged posting of the Linux FAQ to comp.os.linux.announce

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Robert Sanders: please *don't* do this again ! With hindsight it's
obvious that distributing the /bin/sh script which I used to post the
FAQ (generated automatically, and containing the body of the FAQ as
here documents for two invocations of inews) as linux-faq.ascii was a
very silly thing to do. However, that doesn't make your having fed it
to sh any more sensible. Also, I'm surprised that all the news
systems from here to Botswana and back didn't junk the article because
of the duplicate Message-ID.

Ian Jackson.

[... top half of posting to c.o.l.a deleted ...]

Now, for the not-so-nice bit. The article just posted to
comp.os.linux.announce with
Subject: Linux Frequently Asked Questions with Answers (FAQ: 1/2)
Message-ID: <ijackson-linux-faq2-6-1994@nyx.cs.du.edu>
Date: 26 Aug 1994 05:05:06 -0400
Last-Modified: 13 Jul 1994
(which are the Subject, Message-ID and Last-Modified from last month's
FAQ, but a different Date) was not posted by me and is a forgery.

I have not checked whether any of the content has been maliciously
changed, but I doubt it. It looks like the forgery was an error by
`gt2364a@prism.gatech.edu' (the email address of Robert Sanders),
which is what appears in the Sender line.

A real version of the FAQ should now have appeared, dated the 28th of
August in both the Date: and Last-Modified lines. It will be
PGP-signed by my public key, which is available on all standard
keyservers and in my fingerable .plan files at iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk,
ijackson@nyx.cs.du.edu and iwj@cam-orl.co.uk.

To make sure noone makes the same mistake again the ASCII version of
the FAQ on the FTP sites is no longer simply a copy of the USENET
posting, and the USENET posting script generated by my bfnnconv script
and linux-faq.bfnn will check that the user is `ian@chiark' before
posting.

Here are the complete headers of the forgery:

Path: lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk!warwick!slxsys!pipex!howland.reston.ans.net!gatech!gt-news!prism!prism!not-for-mail
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.announce,comp.os.linux.help,comp.answers,news.answers
Supersedes: <ijackson-linux-faq2-5-1994@nyx.cs.du.edu>
Followup-To: poster
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology
Lines: 1077
Approved: *.answers moderation team <news-answers-request@mit.edu>,
Matt Welsh <linux-announce-request@tc.cornell.edu>
Expires: 17 Aug 1994 09:01:12 GMT
Message-ID: <ijackson-linux-faq2-6-1994@nyx.cs.du.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: acmex.gatech.edu
Summary: Please read the whole FAQ before posting to comp.os.linux.help.
Keywords: FAQ, Linux, part1
Xref: lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk comp.os.linux.announce:2704 comp.os.linux.help:54153 comp.answers:6943 news.answers:25363
From: ijackson@nyx.cs.du.edu (Ian Jackson)
Sender: gt2364a@prism.gatech.edu
Subject: Linux Frequently Asked Questions with Answers (FAQ: 1/2)
Date: 26 Aug 1994 05:05:06 -0400

Archive-Name: linux/faq/part1
Last-Modified: 13 Jul 1994

[ body deleted - iwj ]

--
Ian Jackson, at home.         ijackson@nyx.cs.du.edu or iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk
+44 1223 575512    Escoerea on IRC.   http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/iwj10/
2 Lexington Close, Cambridge, CB4 3LS, England.   Urgent: iwj@cam-orl.co.uk

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