Aryeh Weiss asked that I forward his private reply to me on to the confocal
list.  I include my comments, too.

>
>I created the anonymous FTP account read-only, so that anyone can read
>their data, but directories, files, etc cannot be created via that account.
>We have nothing worth stealing (software-wise) on thsi machine, so I
>dont care if someone probes it.

That's a great way to set it up, and should discourage what I was refering
to.  What I had intended with anonymous access was for users to deposit
files while in the lab, then retrieve them when they got back to their
offices.  That requires write permission.  As it is, I am willing to make
the effort to manage users accounts for better security.

>The big advantage of FTP is that it works for virtually every computer system
>(mac, dos, windows, unix, etc) that exists, and can also be accessed from off
>campus (important because some users are from an affiliated facility that is
>not on our LAN).

I agree completely.  We use it a lot between platforms.  Also, I appreciate
your suggestion/reminder a few days ago to zip a number of files, then use
ftp to move them.  Great idea.  I hadn't thought to do that for this
application, and will start to use that process soon.

Regards,

John
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