On Sunday, February 14, 1999, Paula Ford wrote:

> So, I'd like to know, first of all, if all WebTV users are affected,
> and, secondly, if anyone has found a solution other than disabling
> authentification?

Further searching in SJUOWNERS archives turned up a forwarded message
from Ben Parker, explaining the problem and, basically, saying there is
no solution. However, in this message, Ben mentioned that Yahoo is also
afflicted. I tested the access from a Yahoo account and had no problem.

I'd like to know which services may have this problem - it's also seems
to have come up with @home.com and perhaps cable modems, in general -
and whether the access denial would be intermittent or not. If it's not
possible to identify specific services, can categories of services be
identified, for example, web mail, cable modem?

Since we heavily promote the use of the list archives in the Welcome
message and on the list, I'd like to have a better idea of which
subscribers can use the Web interface, so that I could note such in our
messages and on our list's Web page.

Finally, a general question about the authentification: Why doesn't
ListServ simply allow access upon a user correctly entering the user
name and the password? If a user knows the password, this would seem
like sufficient security to me. This account verification causes quite a
bit of confusion among users, who increasingly have more than one
Internet account, and now also with the increasingly popular web mail
services, and perhaps the cable modem services, it appears that
subscribers may not be able to use the Web interface at all.

---
Paula Ford