Re: Library Substitute Skills HIT posting due you this

["Mary H. Kraft" <mkraft.nosc@ASH.PALNI.EDU>]

I had sent a reply to Barbara's message to all of you & Dean Riddlebarger,
a friend who is General Manager of I-Quest (in Indy)...you might be
interested in his reply, which follows.

Mary
mkraft.nosc@ash.palni.edu

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 2 Nov 95 15:01 EST
From: Dean Riddlebarger <rdr@iquest.net>
To: "Mary H. Kraft" <mkraft.nosc@ash.palni.edu>
Subject: Re: Library Substitute Skills HIT posting due you this month--GARBAGE 
ATTACHED TO MY COAT TAILS!!

Without knowing what Barbara's definition of "a trail of grossness"
actually is, my short answer is, "Of course it can happen.  Welcome
to the Net."

As the various transport and application protocols that make up the
Net evolve, it is certainly possible for someone with an adequate
amount of knowledge to do things like spoofing email or listserv
messages when they are in transit.  The "Why?" of the matter is generally
simple- some people get their kicks (social, political, or otherwise)
from this sort of behavior.  And like the Wild West, the Net is still
largely a frontier environment.  The "How?" of the matter is a bit more
complex- lax security on a listserv machine, email gateway, or just
plain interception and reinsertion of an altered text stream could
all be reasons for the appended "garbage".

In all, I wouldn't worry about it.  These incidents are usually quite
infrequent and isolated.  If it continues the victim should contact the
System Administrator on his or her "home" machine, and they can take
action to trace the problem.  Typically, if some bozo starts to make a
habit of this type of spoofing they can be traced and shut down, or
the target system can be audited and locked down to prevent
repetitions.

Feel free to forward this.

--dean

<*>  Dean Riddlebarger                          The bus came by           <*>
<*>  IQuest Internet                             And I got on,            <*>
<*>  rdr@iquest.net                             That's when it all began  <*>
<*>  317-259-5050 x610                                                    <*>