[email protected] (Brad Templeton) wrote on 18.12.01 in <[email protected]>:
> On Wed, Dec 19, 2001 at 06:08:00AM +0000, Andrew Gierth wrote:
> > The overriding consideration is that the defaults must not break the
> > network. This is _more important_ than protecting the privacy of
> > users, because on a Usenet that isn't usable it matters very little
> > whether anyone has privacy or not.
[...]
> But we should not standardize wrong solutions either.
> Indeed, but you don't standardize bad practice just because it's
> existent!
It's a very close analogy to security. Systems should not fail open, they
should fail close.
The bad practise is software that does not, by default, identify its
users. Whoever wants to allow users to post non-identifiable MUST be
prepared to use other means to prevent abuse, and so this MUST be a
conscious decision and not a default.
MfG Kai