are we supposed to be posting to announcements?

[Beastman]

Hello Microsoft team,
Are we supposed to be posting to the announcements newsgroup?

I thought this would be reserved for announcements From the Anti spyware
team?

 

[Bill Sanderson]

Frankly, no.

Almost none of the posts here belong here.

There are technology limitations that allow this, unfortunately, but it'd be
nice if we all exercised some self control and moved our threads to the
appropriate groups.

 

[Eric C. Vogel]

I do not think so.

 

[Sky King]

There are technology limitations that allow this, unfortunately, but

....


Bill, if MS cannot prevent the intrusion of such a simple thing as a
plain-text newsgroup post into a specific area of their server, it doesn't
say a lot about an ability to protect a more serious intrusion elsewhere.
To have this newsgroup wide open for this particular test is irony verging
on the tragic.

Isn't it actually a lack of technical knowledge causing this newsgroup to be
wide open to all? MS has deftly handled the Read-Only attribute for other
newsgroups; apparently they don't want to make the effort to learn how that
is done on this one.

I'd certainly hope that MS finds this situation embarrassing. I certainly
do when clients and co-workers ask me about it.


sorry....stumbling off the soapbox now....mumble, mumble.........


....Sky

 

[Jon G]

It's really not that big a deal. The worst that can happen is that some
people won't get their queries answered promptly. Other than that is it
presents a problem with announcements that can be easily remedied - no need
for embarassment from anyone.

 

[Milhouse Van Houten]

It's really not that big a deal. The worst that can happen is that some
people won't get their queries answered promptly. Other than that is it
presents a problem with announcements that can be easily remedied - no
need for embarassment from anyone.

It's truly bizarre though. MS knows about this group; MS is IN this group;
the betanews server does read-only all the time; this server is run the same
way. Why is it even in question?

 

[Sky King]

It's truly bizarre though. MS knows about this group; MS is IN this
group; the betanews server does read-only all the time; this server
is run the same way. Why is it even in question?

Perzackly!

--

....Sky

Tom "Sky" King
=============

 

[John Eddy [MSFT]]

Bill, if MS cannot prevent the intrusion of such a simple thing as a
plain-text newsgroup post into a specific area of their server, it doesn't
say a lot about an ability to protect a more serious intrusion elsewhere.
To have this newsgroup wide open for this particular test is irony verging
on the tragic.

Isn't it actually a lack of technical knowledge causing this newsgroup to
be wide open to all? MS has deftly handled the Read-Only attribute for
other newsgroups; apparently they don't want to make the effort to learn
how that is done on this one.

I'd certainly hope that MS finds this situation embarrassing. I certainly
do when clients and co-workers ask me about it.

I'd like to step in to comment on this particular question, since, as the
newsgroups administrator, it's my balliwick.

I can deftly handly the read-only attribute for newsgroups quite well, thank
you. However, the older web based interface does *not* handle the read-only
attribute. It does not directly understand what 'read-only' is. As the web
based interface is used for these private newsgroups, setting a read-only
attribute on this newsgroup so that NNTP clients can not post to it is kind
of silly, since anyone coming in via the web would be freely available to
post. In fact, that was what happened with the SP2 newsgroups.

I'm trying to find a solution that would allow for a read only newsgroup on
the older web interface, but I'm not confident there is one.

To stave off the two FAQs I can see:

1) Well, why don't you fix the old one?

Because a newer solution is being worked on.

2) Well, why don't you use the newer solution?

Because it's not finished.

John Eddy
Microsoft Newsgroups Administrator

 

[John Eddy [MSFT]]

I'd like to step in to comment on this particular question, since, as the
newsgroups administrator, it's my balliwick.

And one added comment, if you still feel the need to blame anyone, you can
squarely lay the blame on me, not the spyware folks. They have nothing to
do with the way the news server is run, or how these groups are implemented
apart from asking for the particular groups, and I have nothing to do with
the functionality of their product apart from being another user who submits
bug reports.

John Eddy
Microsoft Newsgroups Administrator

 

[Quilnux]

If it were reserved the Microsoft team would have
restricted access to write new posts.

 

[Bill Sanderson]

I'd like to step in to comment on this particular question, since, as the
newsgroups administrator, it's my balliwick.

Thanks, John!

I might add that, judging from what I can recall about the "from"
designations in the groups I've been reading and responding in, the web
interface is getting plenty of use, and, I believe, is referenced in the
product itself, so that aspect is essential to the beta.

 

[Milhouse Van Houten]

I can deftly handly the read-only attribute for newsgroups quite well,
thank you. However, the older web based interface does *not* handle the
read-only attribute. It does not directly understand what 'read-only' is.
As the web based interface is used for these private newsgroups, setting a
read-only attribute on this newsgroup so that NNTP clients can not post to
it is kind of silly, since anyone coming in via the web would be freely
available to post. In fact, that was what happened with the SP2
newsgroups.

Thanks. It might make some sense to disable it for NNTP, since that might
cut half the posts right there, or more. The instructions for accessing the
server via NNTP are prominent right in the Newsgroups section of the Spyware
page.

BTW, I took a second look just now at how the MS BetaNews (Webnews) server
handles it, since I've never once seen anyone not from MS post there, and
next to the name of the Announcements group on the left side there's a "Do
Not Post" in parentheses. Remarkably, that does the job there, though I
think that crowd would be 90%+ NNTP, and they can't post to Announcements at
all.

 

[Sky King]

I'd like to step in to comment on this particular question, since, as
the newsgroups administrator, it's my balliwick.

I can deftly handly the read-only attribute for newsgroups quite
well, thank you.

Thank you, sir, for taking the time to respond in detail.

Blaming the interface used seems sorta bass-ackwards to me. Shouldn't the
Read-Only attribute be controlled on the server, rather than basing it on
what newsgroup software the poster happens to have used? I doubt anyone
would expect a newsgroup to be Read-Only when using Forte Agent but writable
when using Outlook Express (although that is possible, I suppose).

I'm trying to find a solution that would allow for a read only
newsgroup on the older web interface, but I'm not confident there is
one.

Thank you for trying. Since there are forums where a web-based interface is
used, and where there are newsgroups within those forums that deny user
postings via any method, I feel confident that a solution does exist. I
don't know what/how/etc. but it is certainly possible. Given that there
are a very few MS folks who will be posting in this particular Announcements
newsgroup, perhaps something as simple as a scripted filter to dump all
others into the bit-bucket would be an interim solution. Just a thought.


--

....Sky

Tom "Sky" King
=============