The huge growth of Netnews/Usenet in recent years has beenaccompanied by many attempts to abuse the system by various formsof malpractice, particularly the forging of various headers,causing it to appear that articles came from parties other thanthose that actually injected them or conveyed some Approval thatthe real poster was not entitled to give. Insofar as Netnews isregularly gatwayed to and from Email systems, these problems alsoextend to the Email domain.This document provides a cryptographically secure means whereby itcan be established beyond doubt that relevant headers of a Netnewsarticle or an Email message have not been tampered with intransit, and that they were indeed originated by the personpurporting to have done so. It seeks to supplement, rather than tosupplant, the existing protocols for signing the bodies ofarticles and messages.[This proposal arises from the activities of the Usenet Format WorkingGroup, which is charged with updating the Netnews standards. Commentsare invited, preferably sent to the mailing list of the Group atusenet-format@landfield.com.]
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