RE: [Asrg] NNTP IS Pull, deal with it

["Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <pbaker@verisign.com>]

Vernon,

	I implemented the NNTP protocols for my web browser. Don't try to
pull the authority crap.

	I think it is very clear what your game is here.

		Phill

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Vernon Schryver [mailto:vjs@calcite.rhyolite.com]
> Sent: Saturday, April 26, 2003 7:07 PM
> To: asrg@ietf.org
> Subject: Re: [Asrg] NNTP IS Pull, deal with it
> 
> 
> It occurred to me that just pointing out the obvious that 
> netnews is no
> more of a "pull" protocol than Internet mail isn't sufficient 
> for those
> who don't read RFCs or C and don't configure or run SMTP or 
> NNTP servers.
> 
> 
> RFC 977 describes the important part of NNTP.  Messages can be moved
> from an NNTP server to an NNTP client using two different mechanisms.
> One is "an interactive mechanism" based on the NEWNEWS and ARTICLE
> commands.  The NEWNEWS command causes the server to send a list of
> articles and the ARTICLE command requests that the server 
> send individual
> articles.  In a sense that is inconsistent with the way the word has
> been used in this mailing list, this is a "pull" protocol.  It is
> inconsistent because no authenticating, checking, or filtering is done
> other than by article-ID before the entire article is transferred.
> The NEWNEWS comamnd produces only a list of article-IDs and 
> the ARTICLE
> command tells the server to emit an article by its ID.  The NEWNEWS
> and ARTICLE commands can be used to move articles among servers, but
> as far as I can tell, generally are not.
> 
> News is more commonly moved among servers using the IHAVE command.
> A news system accumulates lists of file names containing articles that
> need to be sent to its peers.  When there are enough articles 
> or enough
> time has passed, the NNTP client contacts a peer NNTP server and uses
> the IHAVE command very much like an SMTP envelope to offer an article.
> The NNTP server either rejects the article with 435/436/437 much as
> an SMTP server says 4yz or 5yz to the SMTP envelope or the 
> NNTP responds
> by saying 335/235 much as an SMTP server responsds to an SMTP envelope
> with "250 ok."
> 
> Never mind elaborations and optimizations such as SMTP ETRN and
> persistent/"cached" SMTP or NNTP connections. 
> 
> Also skip kludges and hacks in such as "slurp" where an NNTP host
> pretends to be a newsreading program to move bulk news.  These are
> commonly used to violate terms of service that allow news reading and
> posting by humans but not news serving by computers or to avoid the
> greater hassles and security worries of configuring an NNTP peering.
> 
> Please do note that SMTP pipelining makes SMTP look even more
> like NNTP IHAVE/sendme running at speed.
> 
> It is a relevant educational exercise to imagine how one might control
> netnews spam given the nature of the overall system, and then to see
> what tactics are now working and what never worked or stopped working.
> (I do not intend to suggest that the effective netnews spam defenses
> are directly applicable to email spam.)
> 
> 
> Vernon Schryver    vjs@rhyolite.com
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