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Subject:	Email Authentication - Why not make it optional?
Newsgroups:	lugnet.admin.nntp, lugnet.general
Date:	Tue, 19 Jun 2001 22:53:45 GMT
Viewed:	95 times

This email authentication is driving me nuts! A lot of people were already timid about posting and now its going to be worse. Since this has happened, I've seen one reply of the nature "Great - I'm so happy you did this!" post and a huge number of "This is such a hassle, why are we doing this" posts. Presumably, the one positive post is from the one person (or maybe there were two) that had this problem. Why are we punishing the whole community for a problem that only one or two people had? This is even more annoying given that this is the first time I've heard about this happening (so presumably, the likilihood of this happening again is low as well). Why can't this authentication be an optional feature? Why not let the one or two people who are actually worried about being spoofed turn it on and let everyone else post without authorization??? Why not have a web page where you can toggle your status on/off (perhaps generated from a key sent by email)? I would immediately turn mine off and leave it off unless I actually started having problems with people stealing my identity (which I think is unlikely in the extreme). I think that the default should be OFF and when you subscribe to LUGNET, you get a message saying "Security Warning: We recommend that you turn this on if blah blah blah...." I seriously doubt that anyone is going to spoof the identity of some new, unknown member. I personally believe that the spoofing that went on was probably an isolated case by one individual. Are we going to let that one attack stifle the life out of LUGNET???

Message has 8 Replies:

		Re: Email Authentication - Why not make it optional?
(...) Well allow me to say that I am glad that Todd implemented this measure. Mostly because since it has been implemented, we have gotten rid of the annoying clone. And it will continue to help LUGNET remain a very nice friendly place that I (...) (23 years ago, 19-Jun-01, to lugnet.admin.nntp, lugnet.general)

		Re: Email Authentication - Why not make it optional?
Amen to you Brad. I've just gotten onto LUGNET, and it's an absolute hassle to post because of the e-mail authentication. As to how anybody could like this is absolutely bizarre to me, it is time consuming and for the most part unecessary to 99% of (...) (23 years ago, 19-Jun-01, to lugnet.admin.nntp, lugnet.general)

		Re: Email Authentication - Why not make it optional?
Brad, Please note that most people here don't like to post "me too" posts. Usually the people who agree to what a post says will remain silent, while the objecting parties will be a lot more vocal. I think that a great number of people are (...) (23 years ago, 20-Jun-01, to lugnet.admin.nntp, lugnet.general)

		Re: Email Authentication - Why not make it optional?
Well, It sounds like the problem was a lot more widespread than I thought. Perhaps these "bad" people weren't posting in groups I frequented. Anyhow, it sounds like the security stuff is here to stay and will probably get more intrusive rather than (...) (23 years ago, 20-Jun-01, to lugnet.admin.nntp, lugnet.general)

		Re: Email Authentication - Why not make it optional?
Brad you rasie some good points, my take is that if you are being Spoofed you might not know it untill it's too late and someone has either ruined your reputaion or you seem to be held in low regard when you post and you don't know why because some (...) (23 years ago, 20-Jun-01, to lugnet.admin.nntp, lugnet.general)

		Re: Email Authentication - Why not make it optional?
I just thought I would throw in my 2 cents in support of the changes even though most of my thoughts have been covered. I will try and keep this to what hasn't been said (or at least I havn't seen posted yet). (...) First let me begin by saying I am (...) (23 years ago, 20-Jun-01, to lugnet.admin.nntp, lugnet.general)

		Re: Email Authentication - Why not make it optional?
I agree that it is time consumeing, as someone else wrote - I too write them offline and then dail in and send them. It is cheaper and gives one time to think about the answer. I also saves money. Now, there is a simple way around this - in Outlook (...) (23 years ago, 20-Jun-01, to lugnet.admin.nntp, lugnet.general)

		Re: Email Authentication - Why not make it optional?
Another idea? It is much faster just to reply to the sent message. Many mailinglists use this system. Opening a page takes quite some time, while sending the mail can be done in just a few seconds. Sonnich Brad Hamilton <bhamilto1@home.com> wrote in (...) (23 years ago, 21-Jun-01, to lugnet.admin.nntp, lugnet.general)

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