Subj : Web access, false BBS ID To : ANDY BALL From : MICHEL SAMSON Date : Thu Oct 28 2004 11:33 pm Hi Andy, About "TelNet vs SSH" of October 28: BG> Are there any web-access BBSs, other than EleWeb... MS> ...the obvious lack of security is what i'd call a deterrent, in MS> favour of plain old DialUp/~TelNet~ BBSing, i mean... AB> How is this any more secure than an unencrypted HTTP connection? MS> We're in perfect agreement over ~SSH~, not the removal of ~TelNet~. AB> Sysops seem pretty thin on the ground these days... MS> ...it's not tempting to leave such people too much ground... AB> What telnet transition? Well, for some people, not everyone, euh... the total disapearance of local DialUp BBSes didn't take place without being noticed; for some BBSers among the others, the transition to ~TelNet~ was relatively easy. %-b, A couple years suffice, in absence of any help. The real challenge was ~OLMR~ BBSing which depended on the availability of ~TelNet~ clients with suitable `ZMoDem' support, as far as i'm concerned. Of course, for some people, not everyone, euh... SoftWare/HardWare may be an issue but others will argue this is only marginal. And now, for the ones who must cope with transitions on their own, euh... there's more to come: ~WEB~ access (which may go unnoticed by some people but not everyone) and then ~SSH~ (idem). Considering the increasing number of these transitions, i shouldn't be surprized that you must happen to wonder about which it is! ;-) AB} After reading this paragraph several times I /think/ I understand... AB> ...use English more simply, you may end up with more readable... More than once! In that case i shall make my posts *LESS* legible! 8-) MS> I'd make the UpGrade Path INCLUSIVE. I'm thinking of a scheme like MS> ~POP3~ before ~SMTP~... ...i'd keep ~TelNet~ but require my LEGACY MS> users to validate using ~SSH~ and then grant ~TelNet~ access only MS> after the ~IP~ address is approved... AB> Please explain... That would not work for the many, many people who AB> are assigned IP addresses dynamically... ^^^^^^^^^^^ Instead of "like" i should have wrote "similar" as i wouldn't agree to depend on ~E-Mail~ myself (not before i tried some sturdier methods)! :) Indeed, but i haven't tried to determine on which criteria the ~IP~ address should be approved just yet. What about Domain Names? This was only meant as an alternative to accomodate BBSers who must connect using ~SSH~ then ~TelNet~ *SEPARATELY*, for some reason... The BBSer could be requested to connect through a recognized access to retain his privilege and, since the number of ~ISP~s increases while more BBSers quit all the time, euh... the likelihood that BSS hackers who got the same ~ISP~ may try to steal my identity got slim (and French-Canadian BBSers are rare)! MS> ...~TelNet~ can be secure enough if combined with ~SSH~/~HTTPS~... AB> Combining them is odd. Combining them would accomodate BBSers who can't use file transfers over a same ~SSH~ session but who could ~SSH~ then ~TelNet~, separately. To accomodate BBSers when there's only a few left isn't that "odd". AB> Why reinvent the wheel? Yes, that's one question i keep asking myself all the time when the file transfers over ~TelNet~ problem is on topic!!! Authors/SysOps need to play with new stuff but why break the UpGrade Path and impose on us?! :( Those who promote ~WEB~-based interfacing to .QWK doors help BBSing but not when something as basic as identity is overlooked, unless it's a world where the only users left are all SysOps who have lost control and who just can't cut each other's feeds without hurting `FdN' to death!... %-b, Salutations, Michel Samson a/s Bicephale http://public.sogetel.net/bicephale/ .... I BBS using LEGACY DOS+TCP/IP+TelNet+ZMoDem/Kermit+.QWK technologies --- MultiMail/MS-DOS v0.45 - Trying to make TelNet OLMR BBSing UNIVERSAL * Origin: BBS Networks @ www.bbsnets.com 808-839-6036 (1:10/345) .