Re: ``WHY TAP?'': A White Paper

[Theodore Ts'o <[e-mail]>]

   Date: Thu, 13 Aug 92 18:56:49 +0100
   From: "Daniel J. Bernstein" <[e-mail]>

>   At their heart they are based
>   on the assumption that a host running a TAP server is trying to benefit
>   the rest of the community. In fact the benefits of a TAP server _accrue
>   to the host running the server_. This theme will show up again in the
>   examples below.

As long as you are willing to state that the fact that a host running a
TAP server has *no* (or negligible) benefit to the rest of the
community, I would be willing to agree with the statement that runing a
TAP server *may* have some benefit to the host running the server.

Given this, though, it is completely unacceptable for a server to deny a
connection service based merely on the absence or presense of a server
on port 113.  Perhaps there should be something like that in the draft?

   network problems. In particular, it completely stops the problem of
   above-TCP mail forgery. Anyone can send an anonymous message (through
   the post office if all else fails!), but, with TAP, normal users on your
   machine can't send messages which look like they came from other
   users.

No, it does not stop the problem of above-TCP mail forgery.  It means
that after the fact, if you think someone from your site has forged
mail, you will be able to figure out whodunit after the fact.  Remember,
people may be responding with encrypted tokens, so you won't be able to
use this to stop TCP mail forgery.  Again, the rest of the community
does not benefit from a host running the ident protocol, because they
have no way of knowing whether or not the host is actually sending back
real usernames or not.

							- Ted