🚀 go-pugleaf

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Previously...
>        We are about to install Netscape ver 3.0 on PC's running Windows
>3.11.  Has anyone figured out a solution to the problem of students
>entering in bogus email addresses under Options/Mail and News
>Preferences/Identity?  Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

This was just discussed, but here goes again. Netscape, as a POP3 client,
makes obvious an existing and known "fault" in the SMTP protocol. SMTP does
*not* care if the sender of a message is who s/he claims to be. Regardless,
it is a bit annoying to receive email from god@heaven.com or
bill@microsoft.com or bill@whitehouse.gov.

With the Windows version of Netscape, it is rather difficult to block access
to Netscape's mail facility. And if you want to offer Netscape as a POP3
client, you have even more problems. My advice is this; try to enforce
accountability. If your lab has any means of tracking a user to a workstation
at a given time (sign in sheets, authentication software, etc.), the received
message headers should reveal who sent the message (Received from:
station8.lab.university.edu -08:00 8/20/96) and allow you to figure out who
was responsible for the forged message. It's not much, but it's a start.

You can also investigate Netscape's expensive ($2000) Administrator's kit,
which allows you to place a Netscape.lck file, which locks up preferences a
bit more successfully than simple .ini settings, or so they say. Still, I'm
not sure how successful this will be. And again, this begs the question of
whether you want authenticated users to be able to use Netscape mail or not.
And, of course, this assumes that your users won't be clever enough to blow
away the file in the File Manager and then go about their business happily.

It all boils down to the very simple point, SMTP is not in the least bit
secure and offers very little in terms of authentication. To my knowledge,
little is being done to address this. The real solution to this problem is
education of senders and recipients.
_________
mike (han@library.ucsf.edu)
"I had lately learned that another way of writing FALL IN LOVE is WALK THE
PLANK." - Jeanette Winterson