On Wed, 6 Jan 1993 23:07:00 EST Peter Graham, Rutgers U., (908) 932-2741 said: >Jim Jones of JHUVM says, >For those who would like to prevent anonymous > postings, please note > that it's virtually impossible to do so.< > >Why do you say that? let us distinguish between an "anonymous" posting and a >"forged" posting. True, that is a meaningful distinction. So I will address myself to your original question only. I believe that it's impossible to prevent anonymous postings in practice for a number of reasons. First and foremost, there is no overwhelming consensus that such a facility is wrong and should be stopped on the network. At least if there is, I haven't heard it expressed anywhere. Without strong support in the network community for such a "ban", any attempt to keep sites from offering anonymous mail servers is doomed to failure. Even if some determined group of people vigilantly watched for and attempted to shutdown servers as they were discovered, the anarchistic nature of the current network structures would make that process close to impossible. By that I mean, if site XXX decides that offering such a server is a valid use of their network resources, I don't think they are under any obligation as a member of the Internet, Bitnet or Usenet to refrain from doing so should someone ask them to. I'll leave comments about other networks to people that know them better. Add to that the fact that there are probaly a number of such servers available for anonymous FTP around the network, and I tend to agree with Eric. New servers can (and probably would) be set-up faster than the existing ones could be shutdown, assuming that it's even possible to shutdown the working ones. And let me add in anticipation of one possible reaction, yes my opinions on the subject assume that the network communities are decentralized, factional, loosely coordinated and violently autonomous. I think that's where we are now, and I don't think things will change all that much in the near future. And even with strong centralized coordination, trying to stop a service that is so simple to implement is like trying to keep people frm exceeding the speed limit while driving. The public will just doesn't believe in the restrictions and the enforcement effort becomes a big, relatively ineffective game. >--Peter Graham, Rutgers University Libraries -jj