Re: permitted cross-posting for genuine FAQs

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Simon Lyall (simon@darkmere.gen.nz)
Thu, 12 Mar 1998 08:58:00 +1300 (NZDT)

On 11 Mar 1998, Andrew Gierth wrote:
> Marty> 1) tighten up the meaning of "approved" so that the approval
> Marty> header amounts to a crypto signature of the article by the
> Marty> moderator. This would dramatically reduce the likelyhood of
> Marty> forged approvals.
>
> This is already available (PGPMoose). Unfortunately, it doesn't fit
> the *.answers pre-approval model; it works for conventional moderated
> groups because the secret keys can be held at a central location by
> the moderator, but *.answers posts are not injected by the *.answers
> moderators.

There could be ways to do this with an authentication header (you could
have a signed token that covers only the headers that are "fixed" by the
*.answers team, similar to the format of sign-control) , however then
general consensis in the usefor group is that "Approved: " is pretty much
going to be unfixable and any changes will have to be a new header rather
than a straight change in Approved.

Either way this isn't going to happen in the next few weeks although
people are welcome to contribute to the usefor group if they have ideas.

One other thing I should mention is that it is very easy and perfectly
legit for a spammer to create their own *.answers group and even moderate
it. Making anything that is crossposted to alt.spammers.answers exempt
from removal isn't going to do much good..

-- 
Simon Lyall. |  Looking for Work  |  Mail: simon@darkmere.gen.nz
"To stay awake all night adds a day to your life" - Stilgar | MT.