🚀 go-pugleaf

Peter T. Caffin (ptcaffin@uniwa.uwa.edu.au) wrote:
: Craig Sanders stated to the world at large..
: : ptcaffin@uniwa.uwa.edu.au (Peter T. Caffin) writes:

: : > The only problem with this approach is that it only guarantees the 
: : > student's rights to _read_, rather than _contribute_ discussion to net 
: : > news.

: : > All a sysadmin has to do with this in mind is to change the ~\.article 
: : > (and whichever files control this function) ownership to root, so that the 
: : > owner of the account cannot post.

: : And all the user has to do in response is:

: : cp ~/.article ~/.article.bak
: : rm -f ~/.article               # the user can do this because they have
: :                                  write permission on their own home
: :                                  directory.
: : mv ~/.article.bak ~/.article

: I had the impression that with UNIX as with most OS's, directories are 
: simply files that contain a list of files and address locations.  You can 
: change the ownership of a directory, therefore, you can change the 
: ownership of a file.

However, this would then have the effect of removing the account of the 
person, since they wouldn't have a home directory any more.

: I'm not a sysadmin myself, tho, so I guess I'll admit defeat on this one..

: BTW, there _should_ be methods to do the same thing, even if mine wasn't 
: it ;-)

: : (btw, which news system uses a ~/.article file to control posting
: : access?  I don't know of any, but I don't have total knowledge of every
: : news software)

: Well, the message every time I post from tin is:

: Saving to: ~\.article

: I also found that unless I saved my work to this file, the message didn't 
: get posted.  I think it's a transitory file between the editor and the 
: newsreader..

: : > What's the net if you can't write to it?

: : not much use.

: Apologies if the method was flawed; I hope my general point got across, 
: though.

: --
: -- _--_|\ -- Peter Caffin <ptcaffin@uniwa.uwa.edu.au>: -----------------
:   /      \   Finger this account for the Nestle Boycott list, as well
:   X_.--._/   as other somewhat interesting stuff.
: ------- v --------------------------------------------------------------

--
---------------------------+--------------------------------------------------
Ring around the neutron,   |  "OK, so he's not terribly fearsome.
A pocket full of positrons,|   But he certainly took us by surprise!"
A fission, a fusion,       |
We all fall down!          |
---------------------------+--------------------------------------------------