> [...], when I tried to untar NetBSD-1.5.3/source/syssrc.tgz
> from ftp.netbsd.org, I discovered that the archive is corrupt.  I
> downloaded it twice and got the same result each time.

How did the corruption utter itself?  I just tried to reproduce this
problem, and a "tar tfz syssrc.tgz" on a freshly fetched file
completed without errors, listing usr/src/usr.sbin/dbsym/dbtest.c as
the last file (the path is source/sets/syssrc.tgz, BTW).

You did of course make sure to download the file in binary mode (which
would be the default if you used NetBSD's ftp client)?

Regards,

- H=E5vard