"60 Minutes" and Web Site Evaluations

[Bill Crosbie]

>> that the internet expert said that one way that Leslie Stahl's page
>could
>> be perceived as having greater credibility was the fact that it was
>being
>> served from the CBS.COM domain.  Did that in fact happen in the
>report?
>
>No.
>
>A purported *e-mail message* from Leslie Stahl was given greater
>credibility because Andrew Kantor configured his copy of Netscape to
>use smtp.cbsnews.com as his SMTP host.  The mail header on the message
>he sent then indicated it had come through that server.  In the
>sysadmin community this is a known shortcoming of SMTP (as just
>described to me by my sysadmin); plugging this hole seems to require
>firewalls, although "maybe the next version of sendmail fixes this."  
>
>It's enough to make one get PGP.

Thomas,

Thanks for clearing that up for me, and thanks to everyone who has already
responded about my concerns.  I may have been overly paranoid, but the
thought of a media outlet setting itself up as a known entity that would, of
necessity, have valid information gave me heebie-jeebies.  Guess it was too
much Max Headroom when I was growing up....

Bill
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