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