Date: Thu, 17 Apr 1997 10:23:42 -0700 (PDT) From: Michael Dillon <michael@memra.com> To: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Subject: Re: News... Message-ID: <Pine.BSI.3.93.970417101106.26558p-100000@sidhe.memra.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.91.970417112955.11608B-100000@house.multinet.net>
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On Thu, 17 Apr 1997, Graydon Hoare () wrote: > > IMHO the solution is to clean up binaries from USENET and force people to > > use file transfer protocols (FTP, HTTP, DCC, FSP) to transfer files. > even though there isn't really a difference between a message and a file, There are two clear differences. A message consists of legible text in some language or other but a file does not. For instance Compare the two following lines. Which is a message and which is a file? Rira bien qui rira le dernier MPPS"$Q//$P?##,D#Q0P'PA,&!Q(3`A$"$P,.`@[#$Q(3#Q,/PQ(#`@,"!P," This is readily discernible by both humans and by automated programs. The second difference is size. A message is much shorter than a file. Even a long message on USENET is far less bytes than the average small file. So if you apply those two criteria together, i.e. have an auto-recognizer that will delete UUencode and Base64 messages as well as delete any message larger than a certain threshold, all you will have left is relatively plain text messages. They may be ASCII or ISO8859-2 or HTML but they are messages. > who knows? maybe usenet will someday calm down and become useful again. I think it can happen. Michael Dillon - Internet & ISP Consulting Memra Software Inc. - Fax: +1-250-546-3049 http://www.memra.com - E-mail: michael@memra.com
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