[17061] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Suggestion for improved identD
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jay R. Ashworth)
Wed May 20 12:15:33 1998
Date: Wed, 20 May 1998 11:57:29 -0400
From: "Jay R. Ashworth" <jra@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us>
To: nanog@merit.edu
In-Reply-To: <19980520082628.10386@dragonlair.dal.net>; from Dalvenjah FoxFire <dalvenjah@dal.net> on Wed, May 20, 1998 at 08:26:28AM -0700
On Wed, May 20, 1998 at 08:26:28AM -0700, Dalvenjah FoxFire wrote:
> I hate to break it to you, but not everyone runs Win95 or a Niftee NT
> Box where people can forge ident to be whatever they please. Some of us
> actually run REAL multiuser operating systems where the ident can be trusted.
[ ... ]
> I don't want to hear any BS about how 'ident is unreliable' and 'ident
> can't be trusted'. If it's been properly set up such that the ISP controls
> what is returned rather than the user, or if the protocol is properly
> redesigned to guarantee this, it *WILL* be trustworthy. And a particular
> ISP can't be trusted to run a proper ident, then they get their entire
> network blocked.
I hate to point this out, Dal, but what is being asserted is that "the
operator of the ident daemon is not under the same administrative span
of control as I am". _That_ is why we say that it "cannot be
trusted". Trust has a _very specific_ meaning there.
It _might_ be reliable... but then again, it might not. Unless _you_
have a _contract_ with the _guy at the other end_, specifying that
he'll run an authenticated ident server, and guarantee on pain of
indemnity that it's accurate, you can't call it _trustworthy_.
There _is_ a difference between that and _useful_, however.
Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth jra@baylink.com
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