Re: [9fans] Usenet Gateway and Mailing List Archive Woes.

[Ralph Corderoy <ralph@inputplus.demon.co.uk>]

Hi Scott,

> > Jon Snader made me aware that Rob had posted -mpm-related material.
> > I read comp.os.plan9 and didn't see the post.  Google Groups has it
> > without the attachments.
> 
> The funny thing about the message rob sent was that the attachment
> was labeled as being of type message/rfc822, when in fact it was not.
> This confused mh, and I wouldn't be surprised if other things were
> confused too.

Yes, you're right.  That could well be what made some things drop the
attachment and others, perhaps, the whole post.

nmh here has problems, and I heard from Dennis Davis that trn+metamail
doesn't like it either.

It did reach Bakul Shah successfully on Usenet so it looks like the
mail-to-Usenet gateway isn't the problem.  His Path header was

    Path: typhoon.sonic.net!feed.news.sonic.net!unlnews.unl.edu!headwall
    .stanford.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!nntp.cs.ubc.ca!logbridge.uoregon
    .edu!server3.netnews.ja.net!south.jnrs.ja.net!server2.netnews.ja.net
    !bath.ac.uk!ccsis

I'll ask my ISP if they got any sign of it and if so, why they didn't
accept.

> Because of that, I mirror the archives at
>       http://bio.cse.psu.edu/~schwartz/9fans/

Fantastic!  I've made a note for future use.  I see it's also in the
FAQ along with the https site.  (I already got the post privately from
Jon Snader.)

> >     I suspect that the web server at lists.cse.psu.edu has been
> >     configured to not accept export-grade cryptography.
> 
> It's configured to be retarded, that's all.
> 
> See, like all broken software, Mailman relies on sending cleartext
> passwords across the net.  So you have to hide the cleartext in
> cryptographic tunnels.  

But you don't *have* to because, in Mailman's case, it makes perfectly
clear the password isn't meant to give any security, just stop a very
casual attack.  To re-inforce this it emails you your password, in
plain text, once a month.  So they've no good reason to hide it for web
accesses AFAICS.

Thanks for the reply,


Ralph.