In the immortal words of Chris Mauritz (chrism@raremedium.com):
If Karl's latest windmill attack adversely affects anyone (via leaking cancels), I suspect folks will quickly find out who's feeding him and make it stop. This will be about as effective as his empty threat to somehow get Playboy to punish folks who posted copyrighted images.
Although Karl's involvement is highly debatable, Playboy Enterprises International has and continues to send Cease and Desist letters and file actual lawsuits against people posting their images on both Usenet and the web. Ditto Penthouse Productions, Flynt Publishing, IEG Entertainment and pretty much everybody else in the business. The pissing and moaning about the CleanNews cancels getting leaked strikes me as a non-issue. Most major news transit sites use Highwind's Cyclone, which can filter out the CleanNews cancels before they get sent to your site, often without you having to even contact your provider if they're using the CGI interface. And if things leak regardless, well, the leaks will get plugged. ClariNet has gotten used as an example of the supposed impossibility of doing this, but last I checked they were still in business... If there is any actual operational relevance to this discussion, it is this: does accepting a CleanNews feed actually, as Karl suggest, provide any legal protection to the subscriber site when dealing with accusations of transiting illegal or copyrighted material? I strongly suspect that the answer is "Not even slightly", and urge that ISP news administrators talk long and hard with their corporate counsel before implementing this. It is possible, depending on whether you present yourself as a carrier service, that this could even increase your liability. (IANAL, and really all I'm sayin here is that neither is Karl, and you should talk to somebody who is.) -n ------------------------------------------------------<memory@blank.org> Like an exterminator running low on dust, I'm / bug-powder itchin' and I can't be trusted. (--Bomb The Bass) <http://www.blank.org/memory/>------------------------------------------