On Thu, 12 Jan 1995, Chris Barnes wrote:
 
> On Wed, 11 Jan 1995 17:28:09 EST Ben Chi said:
> >a WWW-compliant interface that allows a list owner to bring up a window
> >full of little boxes he can click at, e.g.:
> ...
> Yow!  I'm guessing that this would be very difficult to achive, but
> my oh my, it would be nice.
 
Actually, I doubt the implementation of the basics *would* be that hard (at
least under Unix, which is all I know about here).  A little script tied to
your site's Web server could process  the form, then  send mail to LISTSERV
on your behalf.  If  the  daemon were  an  owner for  each of the  involved
lists,  it could even  accept LISTSERV's reply  message and reformat it for
display at the  remote Web browser (i.e.   no changes to  LISTSERV required
for this, just a couple of local scripts).
 
The biggest problems I  see are in authentication.   Of course, the current
scheme used by LISTSERV and competitors is  not so sophisticated (match the
From: address with a password), and it *could* be done just as well using a
browser.  I'd still  like to see something  better, though, because putting
list maintenance   on  the Web  will increase    its visibility  to wannabe
crackers.  Perhaps one-time passwords  (like S/Key)?  Or even  the Netscape
proprietary schemes.
 
People have done  similar things (but not  for  *managing* lists,  just for
subscribing and so   on) in other   systems.  Several people  have  written
scripts to interface with Majordomo, for  example -- one you  can try is at
<http://www.internic.net/internic/lists/majordomo.html>.  Of   course,  for
subscribing, getting archives, and so on, security isn't as important as it
would be for options that change a list header.
 
Does anyone want to try it? :-) I know *I* won't be doing  it any time soon
(but I would love to test someone else's attempt).
 
Norm
--
"Life's like a movie / Write your own ending"   -- Kermit