LYNX-DEV Re: problem with 'news' url draft

[Phil Peterson]

Al Gilman wrote:
> 
> I have got the following from Keith Moore, co-AD for Applications
> concerning my Internet-Draft on the 'news' URL scheme (which
> actually defines three scheme names: news, nntp, snews; all with
> the same syntax outside of the scheme identifier).
> 
> > A separate port for news+ssl is unacceptable for standards-track;
> > it introduces security holes and wastes ports.
> 
> The offending language in the draft is:
> 
> > When the scheme is news, the default port (in server) is 119.
> > When the scheme is snews, the default port (in server) is 563.
> 
> So:
> 
> Are snews URLs used?  Is news+ssl offered with any regularity?
> Is port 563 generally used for this?
> 
> Should this be discouraged?  Actively or passively, by failing to
> bless this usage with a Proposed Standard?

Netscape clients and servers support NNTP/SSL over 563, the
IANA-assigned port.

I think there's more value in documenting this usage than in
discouraging it, actively or passively.

We do not have NNTP support to step-up from clear text to encrypted in
the same session. I'm not aware of any proposed NNTP protocol extensions
to support that usage (as draft-hoffman-smtp-ssl-05.txt has done for
SMTP).

-- Phil.

--
Phil Peterson
Netscape mail/news client engineering