Stacy:

> Your authentication ticket was obtained from another computer and is
> only valid when used on that machine. Please log in again to continue.
>
> I can't seem to proceed. Can you assist me?
> --------- End forwarded message ----------
>
> This is the second subscriber to contact me about this
> particular problem.  The site we run this list on has web
> archives for the list.  When the first person presented this
> problem, I had her cc: me on every step while she
> changed the password.  Every message seeemed correct
> in syntax, and the listserv gave her confirmation messages
> that looked appropriate.  When I went in to the web archives
> using her address and password, I had no problem - but she
> would still get the "Your authentication ticket" error message
> when using that same address and password.
>
> I'm completely baffled by this.  The first subscriber to get this
> problem used WEBTV, and I chalked it up to some peculiarity
> specific to that system.  But this new problem comes from a
> subscriber on home.com, which isn't an ISP I know much about.
>
> Does anyone know how these subscribers can avoid getting
> this message?

I believe someone at L-Soft will have a more accurate answer, but I believe
the basic issue is the use of a Proxy Server by WebTV and @Home. I believe
both these services are cable modem services.  However, I have also had
complaints from AOL users about the same kind of error message.  I cut down
on the problem by changing one of the site configuration settings:

WWW_AUTHINFO_DISABLE=1

Eric says this "obviously this reduces security,"but I have a tough time
imagining why that level of security would be needed as a default setting
(if someone is THAT concerned about the security of their archives, a fully
encrypted VPN might be a more appropriate means of participation).

We still see it from time to time, and I even got an error like that one
day for no reason I could think of, but it's not been a huge problem since
I made the above change.

Mark Hunnibell
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