On Wed, May 20, 1998 at 08:26:28AM -0700, Dalvenjah FoxFire wrote:
I hate to break it to you, but not everyone runs Win95 or a Niftee NT Box where people can forge ident to be whatever they please. Some of us actually run REAL multiuser operating systems where the ident can be trusted. [ ... ] I don't want to hear any BS about how 'ident is unreliable' and 'ident can't be trusted'. If it's been properly set up such that the ISP controls what is returned rather than the user, or if the protocol is properly redesigned to guarantee this, it *WILL* be trustworthy. And a particular ISP can't be trusted to run a proper ident, then they get their entire network blocked.
I hate to point this out, Dal, but what is being asserted is that "the operator of the ident daemon is not under the same administrative span of control as I am". _That_ is why we say that it "cannot be trusted". Trust has a _very specific_ meaning there. It _might_ be reliable... but then again, it might not. Unless _you_ have a _contract_ with the _guy at the other end_, specifying that he'll run an authenticated ident server, and guarantee on pain of indemnity that it's accurate, you can't call it _trustworthy_. There _is_ a difference between that and _useful_, however. Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth jra@baylink.com Member of the Technical Staff Unsolicited Commercial Emailers Sued The Suncoast Freenet "Two words: Darth Doogie." -- Jason Colby, Tampa Bay, Florida on alt.fan.heinlein +1 813 790 7592 Managing Editor, Top Of The Key sports e-zine ------------ http://www.totk.com