Acbosgd.120
net.news
utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!ihnss!cbosg!cbosgd!mark
Tue Oct 13 20:56:30 1981
whether the sys and uuname files are public
I've gotten a good deal of feedback to the effect that everyone
agrees that the sys (.sys in version A, NOT L.sys) is public,
but there are several qualms about uuname:

(1) A site may not want to admit it exists, yet will be in the uuname
    of a usenet site

(2) The uuname output often include funny names or out of date ones
    that don't exist any more.

(3) The uuname outputs imply that certain links exist which turn out to
    cost real money and are lightly used.  Making these links public
    could cause freeloaders to start spending somebody elses money.

The intent of making sys files public was to make generating a usenet
map easier.  The intent of making uuname public was to both help making
a uucp net map, and to help the automatic routing of mail.  Neither of
these two functions is part of usenet, but there is no way to do it in
bare uucp.

I now propose the following policy for USENET.

USENET is a public access network.  Any user is allowed to post to
any newsgroup (unless abuses start to be a problem).  All users are
to be given access to all newsgroups, except that private newsgroups
can be created which are protected.  In particular, all users must
have access to the net and fa newsgroups, and to local public newsgroups
such as general.

The USENET map is also public at all times, and so any site which is on
USENET is expected to make public the fact that they are on USENET,
their USENET connections (e.g. their sys file), and the name, address,
phone number, and electronic address of the contact for that site, for
the USENET directory.

At some future date, there will be a version of netnews which will
include code to respond to control messages, including the two
following messages:
	send me your sys file
	send me your uuname output
Once this version of netnews is released (it probably won't be in the
initial B release) all sites are expected to respond to such messages
in one of two ways:  either install the code to automatically send
back a response, or manually mail back the requested information.
(Initially I expect that such queries might occur once a month.)

It is a requirement of being on USENET that requests for the sys file
must be responded to with the sys file.  It is NOT a requirement that
requests for uuname output must be answered, but rather a request.
Sites are free to edit their output or ignore this request completely.
The system will at that point be distributed with this code turned ON,
and if your site must, for security or other reasons, not respond to
this, you should take out that code.  (How to do this will be documented
and made very simple, probably just a compile time ifdef.)

If anyone objects to this policy, please let me know.

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 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.