IRC and Security
John Chambers
jc at minya.UUCP
Sun Apr 14 00:31:32 AEST 1991
In article <28058:Apr420:20:3991 at kramden.acf.nyu.edu>, brnstnd at kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein) writes:
> In article <1991Mar21.162220.15612 at sci34hub.sci.com> gary at sci34hub.sci.com (Gary Heston) writes:
> > I suggest you go learn the difference between "illegal" and "improper".
>
> Sure thing. Sending commercial packets over NSFNET, for example, is
> improper. Sending commercial packets over NYU-NET is (as far as I know)
> illegal.
Hey, guys, aren't you missing the most important aspect of any research
project? I'm talking of course about the most common phrase in most
scientific journals: "Further research is needed". For instance, consider
your remarks:
> > Using some of the academic networks for things like newsfeeds would be
> > outside the guidelines established for those networks, and therefore
> > improper.
> Does NYU-NET have guidelines? I sure don't remember seeing any. But NYU
> gets a lot of money from the Department of Education, I believe some of
> that money helps pay for NYU-NET, so any use of NYU-NET must *by law*
> contribute to instruction or research.
A true researcher would look at this and immediately realize that
this is a very good opportunity for further research. It is quite
clear that IRC and newsgroups were worthwhile research
developments in and of themselves, and furthermore there has been
much opportunity for their use to study human-machine interaction
and computer-supported distributed discussions. However, the
research nature is seriously eroded when people start using them
for something of actual value to themselves. At present, there is
no way to easily determine which uses are within the guidelines,
and people are clearly requesting that Something Be Done About
It. So we get to the need for further research.
What is clearly needed here is research into software that does
content analysis, so that we can correctly classify the various
uses according to the rules for the use of a specific network.
This is potentially a large area of research, of course, and will
need accordingly large sums of money. There are a great many
different kinds of usage restrictions that might be imposed by
contract or by law on the use of a network, and building
network-management software to detect usage which violates the
rules would be rather difficult for many of them. But with
sufficient funding, and a pool of talented software developers,
we should be able to establish a network-monitoring testbed
within which we can develop effective content-classification
software.
Or at least it would be many years and many megabucks before the
funding agencies decided to terminate funding.
Whaddaya think, guys? Should we apply for some grants?
--
All opinions Copyright (c) 1991 by John Chambers. Inquire for licensing at:
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