IRC and Security

[John Chambers]

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?

-- 
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