Subject:
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Re: Brad Justus is real
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.dear-lego
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Date:
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Mon, 13 Dec 1999 08:39:06 GMT
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Viewed:
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2555 times
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Jasper Janssen wrote:
>
> On Sun, 12 Dec 1999 04:00:56 GMT, John Neal <johnneal@uswest.net>
> wrote:
>
> > I thought the same thing, until someone showed how it could be done
> > here as well. But your point is well taken. People here in LUGNET
> > are on the whole mature adults who are responsible people. It is our
> > little utopia (8 wide, of course;) based on bricks. But you are
> > right. This little incident is a perfect example of why RTL is a
> > vast wasteland.
>
> Actually, no, it's not possible to effectively forge messages here.
> Yes, you can post messages using someone else's name (easily, even).
>
> But it is _not_ possible to forge the originating IP in Todd's logs.
> Which means that even though _we_ don't necessarily have the ability
> to verify messages posted from the web interface (messages posted via
> NNTP have a useful X-Nntp-postinghost: added - BTW, Todd, how about
> adding a useful header of originating IP to the web interface as
> well?), Todd can, and Todd does.
Not to spread paranoia, but... offhand, I can think of three different
ways to forge the IP in Todd's logs. Supposing someone wanted to pose
as Brad Justus: one could
a) break into Brad's machine and post from there
b) break into Todd's machine and alter the logs
c) spoof their own IP address so that Todd's computer thinks the
cracker's computer is Brad's computer.
Any of these are outside *my* abilities (of course, as a rule, I don't
break into other people's computers, and I don't spend my time hacking
on TCP/IP), but are possible. Basically, true authentication is not
really possible on the internet outside of (possibly) public-key
encryption, because really smart crackers can do just about anything.
Now, the odds that a really smart, bored cracker is going to choose
LUGNET to torment are very, very low. (Very smart, bored crackers have
a tendency to go after bigger targets, and often get themselves into
bigger trouble. Or are very, very smart, and know not to change
anything or say anything publicly.) I, personally, believe that Brad is
real.
--
Ben Olmstead/BEM
<bem@mad.scientist.com>
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Brad Justus is real
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| (...) Point 1, he uses IE on Windows NT (if we can believe the first message, at least). So no remote breaking in. Which leaves physical access - which is IMHO rather unlikely. (...) Break into a high-security FreeBSD box? Highly unlikely, (...) (25 years ago, 13-Dec-99, to lugnet.dear-lego)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Brad Justus is real
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| (...) Actually, no, it's not possible to effectively forge messages here. Yes, you can post messages using someone else's name (easily, even). But it is _not_ possible to forge the originating IP in Todd's logs. Which means that even though _we_ (...) (25 years ago, 12-Dec-99, to lugnet.dear-lego)
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