F I D O N E W S -- Volume 13, Number 31 29 July 1996 +----------------------------+-----------------------------------------+ | The newsletter of the | ISSN 1198-4589 Published by: | | FidoNet BBS community | "FidoNews" | | _ | 1-407-383-1372 [1:1/23] | | / \ | | | /|oo \ | | | (_| /_) | | | _`@/_ \ _ | | | | | \ \\ | Editor: | | | (*) | \ )) | Christopher Baker 1:374/14 | | |__U__| / \// | | | _//|| _\ / | | | (_/(_|(____/ | | | (jm) | Newspapers should have no friends. | | | -- JOSEPH PULITZER | +----------------------------+-----------------------------------------+ | Submission address: FidoNews Editor 1:1/23 | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | MORE addresses: | | | | submissions=> cbaker84@digital.net | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | For information, copyrights, article submissions, | | obtaining copies of FidoNews or the internet gateway FAQ | | please refer to the end of this file. | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ FREQ ARTSPEC NOW -- SEND IN AN ARTICLE Table of Contents 1. EDITORIAL ................................................ 1 How does FidoNews get around? ............................ 1 2. ARTICLES ................................................. 2 DESCENT on the Z1 Backbone - your help is needed ......... 2 Making Fidonet Perform ................................... 2 The Start of Something Good? ............................. 8 Alt.Religions.Scientology - cult spams the network ....... 9 ECROC: Good, Bad, or Ugly ............................... 13 Zone 7 Flame will get international now ? ................ 15 3. FIDONET HISTORY .......................................... 17 FidoNet History 20 Aug 85 [Part 2 of 3] ................. 17 4. COORDINATORS CORNER ...................................... 22 Nodelist-statistics as seen from Zone-2 for day 208 ...... 22 5. NET HUMOR ................................................ 23 FidoNews of the Past with Olympic fever? ................. 23 A different kind of "Dear John [Mary]" letter? ........... 25 6. QUESTION OF THE WEEK ..................................... 27 Who's got the News? ...................................... 27 7. NOTICES .................................................. 28 Future History ........................................... 28 Notice to UK Contributors ................................ 28 8. FIDONEWS PUBLIC-KEY ...................................... 30 9. FIDONEWS INFORMATION ..................................... 31 FIDONEWS 13-31 Page 1 29 Jul 1996 ================================================================= EDITORIAL ================================================================= According to FidoNet Policy, FidoNews is supposed to be part of the 'glue' that holds us together as a Network. It is also supposed to be 'made available' to all Nodes by their respective FidoNet Coordinators [ZC to RC to NC to Node]. Back in the 'dim time', we used to DELIVER the weekly files to our Nodes if they were local calls and hold them if they were long distance calls. In the dim time most Nodes were local to their NC and we didn't have these megaNets with many LD Nodes in their structure. Even those, however, usually are broken down into Hubs that are local to NC and hubbed Nodes. So WHY isn't FidoNews being delivered to the local Nodes? Every Node in FidoNet should be receiving this weekly update of life and doings in our Network. It's tough to be the 'glue' if the cap never gets off of the bottle. I'm calling upon all FidoNet Coordinators to get FidoNews back into FULL FidoNet distribution to ALL Nodes. FidoNews relies on the contributions from the Sysops of FidoNet. We are unlikely to get such submissions if many Nodes either don't know about FidoNews [how did that happen?] or don't receive it every week from their Coordinator or Hub. It is the FidoNet Policy-dictated responsibility of EVERY FidoNet Coordinator to get the NODEDIFF and the FidoNews to the Nodes under their coordination. You Coordinators volunteered for this job when you signed on so how about getting with it? If you Coordinators have any excuses for why FidoNews isn't getting out to your Nodes, please send it in to FidoNews as an .ART file for the next issue. I'd be interested in the alibis. [grin] I'm also interested in how FidoNews gets outside of Zone 1. Thanks. C.B. NOTE: Another reminder that FIDONEWS Echo is now on the Zone 1 Backbone. Areafix it from your local Echomail source and join us there for discussion and announcements as well as being able to send in articles for FidoNews via the Echo. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 13-31 Page 2 29 Jul 1996 ================================================================= ARTICLES ================================================================= Descent - A New Echo for those who are hopelessly addicted Moderated by Jim Sorofty 1:243/75 We are attempting to have a new echo added to the backbone and your help is urgently needed. The Descent Players Echo (DESCENT) is a place to discuss all aspects of Descent I & Descent II. It is a place to meet players close to you and from around the world. All of the criteria for having this echo added to backbone distribution have been satisfied. Within the next three weeks the backbone coordinators will be voting on whether or not this echo area will be carried. Your help is needed to ensure that your Regional Echomail Coordinator knows that +you+ are interested in receiving this area. Please take a few moments to netmail your REC (with a copy to me at 1:243/75) informing them of your desire to carry the DESCENT echo and asking that they support its addition in the upcoming vote. I am confident that we have the support of REC12 and according to the guidelines, one more REC's vote (two would be nice) is needed to accomplish our goal. Please don't delay. If enough support for this echo is not received to list the echo this time around, the idea will be dropped. Thank you for your time, consideration and help. I hope to see you in the DESCENT Echo soon. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Making Fidonet Perform Damian Walker, 2:2502/666 It may appear to some people that Fidonet has an identity crisis. Many people regard Fidonet as a collection of BBS's. Some people see Fidonet as a number of echoes. Others insist that Fidonet has nothing to do with echoes or BBS's. So what is Fidonet? In this article I will take a look at existing opinions about what Fidonet is, look at what it can really do, and muse upon where it might be going. Is Fidonet a collection of BBS's? Some people seem to think so. There is certainly a strong connection between Fidonet and BBS's, if only because Fidonet actually did start out as a collection of linked BBS's. A printed magazine here in the UK has a limited coverage of Fidonet, and their early articles showed this link between Fidonet and BBS's quite plainly, with Fidonet and BBS's being regarded as one and the same thing. They even used the nodelist as a basis for their BBS directory! The view of Fidonet as an association of BBS's seems to be found FIDONEWS 13-31 Page 3 29 Jul 1996 with people who run BBS's, and also people who have little to do with Fidonet or data communications at all. Is Fidonet all about echoes? A lot of people think so. When people are talking about Fidonet as a 'friendly' place, especially when comparing it with the Internet, it is more often than not a comparison between Usenet newsgroups and Fidonet echoes. It is true that the main concern of many sysops as Fidonet nodes is centred upon the availability of echomail. Isn't that why most of them obtained their node number? Whether it is a personal interest in reading echomail, or an indirect way of attracting users to a BBS, echomail seems to hold the central key. So why do people say that Fidonet has little to do with either? This seems a political or technical concern rather than a statement of the principal use or capability of Fidonet. Fidonet is defined by the nodelist, nothing more. A node may exist which takes no echomail; perhaps they just wish to make some files available for request. A node may definitely exist and function without a BBS-- my own system testifies to this. However, this minor digression masks the main purpose of this article, which is to take Fidonet as a whole rather than looking for exceptions to the norm. So, what can Fidonet do? We've already seen two uses: Linking BBS's and providing echomail. However, there are some other things which are currently going on, which are connected with neither: files and games, for instance. Let's take a quick look at some of the capabilities of this network. BBS's are an obvious place to start, and need no explanation here. They provide an easy interface for beginners to many of the other things available in Fidonet. Even long-standing comms enthusiasts find the BBS interface a comfortable way of accessing Fidonet. Echomail should need no introduction either. Most networks and on-line services provide some form of conference mail, be it Fidonet, the Internet, Compuserve or some other proprietary bulletin board system. Conference mail is the principal means of communicating with others in most networks, and in Fidonet it remains the most often used medium for advertising activities and services (such as BBS's, echoes and things non-comms related). Games are another popular use of Fidonet. I'm not just thinking of door games here, most of which could be regarded as an integral part of a BBS. There are, however, some games which offer inter-BBS connectivity between BBS's, and these are of more interest to us in our guise as Fidonet enthusiasts (rather than BBS sysops). Other games of interest are the PBM (play-by-mail) games which are played on the Internet, and to a lesser extent, on Fidonet. Many games players will have heard of VGA Planets, specifically designed for PBM. Stars! is another example of this type of game. Fidonet provides not only an excellent way of exchanging the game data for these games, but also (through echomail) a means of finding opponents. The same holds true of most games providing a play-by-mail option. The only thing we are currently lacking is a game which supports Fidonet directly, although many utilities are available for one of the games already mentioned, to allow automatic interface with a BBS. Bulletins are something which are increasingly making use of Fidonet technology. 'Bulletins' is probably the least used section of FIDONEWS 13-31 Page 4 29 Jul 1996 most BBS's, and yet this is sometimes the most direct and appropriate way to offer information to users. Bulletins are invaluable for specialist systems who could offer information on their chosen interest. As well as being an option or section on most BBS's, bulletins are now being increasingly offered across the network, via netmail. Take a look at my article in last week's Fidonews for one example of this. This allows hobbyists to share information on a one-to-one basis with each other no matter which BBS they regularly call, wherever they live in the world. Bulletins can also be distributed using regular file request availability (as with ARTSPEC). File echoes are a way of distributing files in Fidonet, and provide a facility much like the 'ftp' mirrors on the Internet, ensuring that the latest versions of files related to a certain subject or product are available at a number of sites. That sums up all the broad categories of use in Fidonet which I can think of at the time of writing (if I've left anything out, be sure to write to FidoNews and tell us about it!) But what of the future? With the shrinking of the nodelist, the future is something which we need to look at with more cognitive effort than before. We really need to think of something if our part of the data communications hobby isn't to be taken from us by the increasing popularity of other communications systems. The reasons why people are leaving Fidonet is beyond the scope of this article, but further development of various aspects of the network can help to keep it alive, and perhaps to even grow once again, if chosen carefully. BBS's are Fidonet's first contact with most people. With their simple software and hardware requirements, and often an easy-to-use menu interface, they are already an ideal way to introduce new users to the wonders of Fidonet. How can they be improved? Aesthetics is one way people have tried to improve BBS usage. Some people take advantage of increasing communications speeds by making their ANSI menus pretty with colour and animation. Others take advantage of the increasing use of GUI's to provide a graphical interface, sometimes using HTML in the interests of standardisation. Some might say that this is just pandering to those who need pretty colours to keep their attention. But perhaps this forms the majority of new users, who are not easily attracted by technical details and a 'quaint' hobbyist atmosphere. Who knows? Improving the visual effect of our interface is certainly one way to go. General ease of use is another step towards improving BBS's. Some people have suggested a way of standardising the BBS interface, although few if any BBS's have followed these concepts through (if you know of an instance where standardisation across BBS's has worked, it may make an interesting article for FidoNews, hint hint). Although it has been said that this approach will lose the individuality of BBS's, standardisation of keypresses along with individuality of screen design might provide a suitable compromise. Next we move on to echomail. How can this be improved? Although many people see echomail's friendliness as an advantage in its own right, there have still been many suggestions for improvement (as an aside, I wonder how many people promoting Fidonet's friendliness read sysop echoes). FIDONEWS 13-31 Page 5 29 Jul 1996 Some people would like to see the universal acceptance of high ASCII. This is a controversial point, as although this would allow accented characters and pretty 'graphical' signatures, there are a number of disadvantages. Even leaving the point that some machines cannot cope reliably with 8-bit ASCII characters, there is not yet a network-wide standard for these characters, meaning users of different platforms still see different characters. Possible future developments in this direction are many and varied, and too numerous to go into detail about here. Moderation is definitely an advantage to build on. Views on methods of appointing conference moderators, and actually performing moderation duties, vary considerably, and so it would be nice to see coherent approaches and methods of moderation which would satisfy the reason of having moderators (to keep echoes on topic and legal) whilst keeping the disadvantages (of despotic moderators from hell) to a minimum. Perhaps technical improvements giving moderators and echomail co-ordinators more control over echomail and echolists is something which could be considered. Areas of Fidonet other than BBS's and echomail, which are already fairly well developed, provide the most scope for improvement. Games form a large part of BBS and Fidonet use, probably taking third place to files and echomail. There are a great many 'door' games for BBS's available, which although less visually attractive than stand-alone games, offer a level of interaction between players which is difficult to surpass-- especially given the hardware platform requirements of such games. Many door games could be much improved if a link to other BBS's was added; some door games already work this way. Thus, if a BBS only has a handful of players interested in a game, these players could join with those on another BBS to give a much more exciting competition. Games which already work in this way have a large number of enthusiastic players who already possess the hardware to play Doom, Quake and other visually exciting games-- thus is their appeal. There are many other games which are played using Fidonet technology which are not door games, as has been mentioned. Few of these interface directly to Fidonet, so their use and sysop appeal could be much more widespread if interfaces to standard netmail (for file attach of their game files) were developed. Interfacing with Fidonet netmail is no great task for a competent programmer-- if I managed it then anybody can! Something I would personally like to see in Fidonet is the existence of games in the traditional PBM style. Such games usually communicate from host to players in straight text; the traditional PBM game is played on paper, with orders sent to the host via snailmail, typed into the automated host, and results are printed on paper. The electronic equivalent uses email for the purpose, with players sending their orders to the host using text-adventure style commands. I have not seen any games of this type available in Fidonet, which is a pity. They are very popular on the Internet, and some games have attracted so much interest that there are waiting lists for prospective players! A major hurdle to the production of this type of game is the size of routed netmail (the Galaxy PBM generates upto 40k per message). However, the use of direct (crash or hold) netmail for larger messages would help in this respect, as would drastic economies in the size of the game's output. The C source code for some Internet PBM games are available; if anyone is interested in obtaining them for FIDONEWS 13-31 Page 6 29 Jul 1996 porting to Fidonet then let me know via netmail. Bulletins are another area in Fidonet which leaves a great deal of room for improvement. Being the developer of a document server myself, I am loathe to suggest too many ideas on the technical side lest someone asks me to put my money where my mouth is, so to speak. However, using existing technology there is much that could be done to improve the use and availability of bulletins on a network-wide basis. The advertising of bulletins in echomail is one way to alert people to information available, although this begs the question, why not just post the bulletin into the echo. Where a bulletin is too large or too regularly updated for a regular echo posting, however, this approach is quite acceptable-- providing you advertise in a suitable echo! Advertising a bulletin in FidoNews could be a good idea too (see my article in FidoNews 1330). Time will tell whether this way actually works. Another route to the increased promotion and use of bulletins is co-operation between the bulletins' authors (remember, they don't all have to be sysops). For instance if two BBS's in different parts of a country, or the world, have the same speciality, the bulletin of one system could refer users to the other, and vice versa. As such documents become more widespread it may be a good idea to make sure you refer to at least one other document of interest in each of your own documents; if this becomes more widespread then in turn you will find other people's documents referring to your own. It is a popular opinion that some sort of improvement is necessary to guarantee the survival of Fidonet, and thus the survival of free-of-charge communications on a world-wide scale. I hope that this article has provided food for thought, especially to those of you who, before now, regarded Fidonet as merely a collection of BBS's or a method of transferring conference mail. Because the basic Fidonet standard concerns itself only with the nodelist, and the transfer of netmail and of any type of file, it is clear that Fidonet can be much, much more. ----------------------------------------------------------------- * 10 cents a Dance 10 cents a Dance by Michele Stewart, 1:369/21 Okay, okay... so this article is not really about dancing. But it is about some of the best echos in Fidonet. I moderate three really exciting echos I'd like to tell you about. Let me start with the first, and one of the oldest. Started in 1989, this echo is for the computer nerd in all of us... PC_ADDICT Echo -------------- GEEK ALERT! GEEK ALERT! GEEK ALERT! If you are on your computer for more than 4 hours a day, outside of your work hours, then you've got a minor problem and probable PC FIDONEWS 13-31 Page 7 29 Jul 1996 Addiction. But if you think your computer is your best friend, you've got a serious problem and probable Geek infestation! To get rid of those cumbersome, tiresome, boring, repetetive, anal retentive geeks, you need to write intelligent, thought provoking, humorous messages to other PC Addicts. Remember: Your computer is NOT your best friend. She only provides you the means to making alot of them. Your computer is NOT better than a date. She only provides you with the means for actually meeting someone strange enough to want to go out with you. Your computer is NOT your whole life. She only provides you with the means to expand your interests and share your hopes, dreams, likes and dislikes with real people. Now, get rid of those annoying, pesky geeks and come join us in lively discussion, fun banter and social intercoursing (no that's not a dirty word) in the PC-ADDICT echo! The only place where you can complain about your addiction and perpetuate it at the same time! Areaname: PC_ADDICT Distribution: BACKBONE -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Okay, now on to the next echo which is another of my favorites... -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- BBSCON Echo ----------- If you're attending, thinking of attending or just interested in any BBS Convention or trade show, then there's a backbone echo you can join to find or share the latest info. It's a place for keeping each other informed of who's going where, what's going on, where to write for more info, who's joining in a convoy, who's flying, etc., ad nauseum. With the demise of Cyber.Xpo.96 and the change in focus of One BBSCon to One ISPCon, many of us dialup BBS system operators are feeling left out of the loop with no where to go. Small Regional conventions and gatherings, as well as other trade shows are still being discussed though. Information about the conventions, hotels, day trips, BOF get togethers, special events and everything else can be posted here. We're not worried about redundant postings either so you are encouraged to share something that you might have read elsewhere. Discussion of all BBS related conventions, whether professional or FIDONEWS 13-31 Page 8 29 Jul 1996 amateur, is welcome in the echo. If you are planning a mini-con for your area, you're welcome to discuss it here. If interested please consider linking up and sharing this echo with your users as well as fellow sysops. AREANAME: BBSCON DISTRIBUTION: BACKBONE -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- And lastly, a new echo, still awaiting backbone status but of importance to all of us as sysops and people concerned with making the online experience even better! -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- AOP Echo -------- The Association of Online Professionals is YOUR Association and now they've got an echo. The conference is dedicated to issues that affect the management and maintenance of online services. Hosted by members of the Association of Online Professionals, it will present information and discussion about legislation and regulation; marketing of BBSs and other online services; customer service; system design and development; and news and information about the AOP and benefits of membership. Link to the AOP echo today for up-to-date information concerning your hobby, avocation, vocation and/or chosen profession. AREANAME: AOP DISTRIBUTION: BACKBONE PENDING (Ask your NEC!) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- I hope to see you online! Michele Stewart (Moderator/Originator) 1:369/21 ----------------------------------------------------------------- A Call For Programmers Of A New Common BBS Interface by David Rye, 1:3649/10 Despite seeing all the ads listing Web pages for various companies, despite being told that the internet is going to make all our lives perfect, despite seeing how the days of the BBS are numbered... do all of you really believe this? I often wonder how thrilled with the new technology people will be FIDONEWS 13-31 Page 9 29 Jul 1996 when they receive their first bill from a service provider; that is, after Junior has discovered some Butt Bunnies From Beverly Hills web page, and then used Dad's 14,400 baud to view all six-hundred photos they have digitized on-line. Back in the prehistoric times when I programmed for recreation, I spent quite a bit of time writing tools for my BBS. Things to make life easier for myself, or my users. Half of the time I would end up writing something because I couldn't afford someone's $79 fee for registering a program that sorted the file listings, or that allowed the user to download a catalog of the echoes my BBS offered. Looking back on the many things that I spent writing, I could have converted that into something a little more useful had I just possessed an easy means of writing something that would work with other systems. The multiple formats for everything from file listings to message bases prevented me from doing that without going to extraordinary means. If the backyard BBS is really to provide something that will attract the more novice users who expect to be able to do anything one hour after setting the system up, then they must unite to provide a common, easy, standardized format for the transmission of information. This all sounds familiar, right? Well, instead of just sighing and shaking our heads over each user that will never have the fun of signing onto a local BBS, why can't some of us get together and start working on some practical code that will allow a user to log onto a graphics oriented system, even if said user couldn't find their mouse with two hands and a flashlight? With some of the more common tools available today, it shouldn't be so hard to get something up and running; both in terms of a BBS, and a user interface that could be given away to anyone that was willing to take a disk. The use of something along the lines of Borland's Delphi would allow much faster, much neater, and much more standardized code amongst a group of persons interested in doing the aforementioned task. Why sit on our thumbs and bemoan the loss of users when one possible solution is within our grasp if we are willing to put forth the effort? Surely some of you remember the task of putting together a BBS, trying to get compatible software to help you run it, and so forth? If this process could be made invisible to the end user it would make it much easier to go through those struggles again as a whole new line of programs was started. Instead of giving up, why not give it a try? We all did it before if I remember correctly. Anyone that has an interest in trying to develop new software with a published data format that will allow the point and click, graphic based BBS is more than welcome to contact me at my FidoNet address of 1:3649/10. David Rye ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fredric Rice The Skeptic Tank FIDONEWS 13-31 Page 10 29 Jul 1996 (818) 335-9601 Clocking in on the "Just-when-you-thought-they-couldn't- get-any-lower" port: As most members of FidoNet and Internet know, the "church" of Scientology has been engaged in a war against Internet and BBS SysOps around the world in an attempt to silence both their critics as well as those (usually ex-Scientologists) who continually expose both the contents of and criminal activities of the "church." The focus of their war against the networks has always been alt.religion.scientology and, to a far smaller extent, a few FidoNet forums, yet they have also tried to silence critics out in the real world. Time Magazine, the Washington Post, television news, and even makers of Public Broadcasting documentaries which have exposed the activities of the cult have been attacked, both in the courts as well as physically in person. (Members of the cult even vandalized the automobiles of PBS employees in an attempt to silence them.) In the past (as reported by newspapers and magazines around the world) the cult has repeatedly tried to illegally remove the alt.religion.scientology forum from Internet, forging messages to do so. Additionally, unknown members of the cult have been assigned ("Hatted" in the jargon of the cult) to systematically forge cancellation messages of other participants' messages. The latest low to which the cult had stooped to has been to try to spam the forum with _thousands_ of pointless, meandering, we've-seen-it-all-before propaganda messages daily. Those who may be new to FidoNet or Internet might not know how the two technologies are different. In FidoNet messages are created on thousands of systems, collected and grouped by echo tag, and sent to a series of centralized locations and messages which are dropped into the datastream are not recallable by the author. On Internet, however, an individual may cancel a posting at a later date which has the effect of requesting that all systems which have the designated message identification number be deleted. A system then has the option of removing the canceled message or not. Additionally, in FidoNet we employ AreaFix to turn on or turn off subscribed echo forums whereas in Internet, a rmgroup is sent to a centralized location to have the entire group removed from all the mail servers which honor the rmgroup. The last way in which the two are different is the control of message spamming. In FidoNet a disruptive influence is quite easily removed simply by asking the SysOp or the SysOp's network coordinator to remove someone. (Unless said someone is Steve Winter. ) FIDONEWS 13-31 Page 11 29 Jul 1996 Internet doesn't have that ability. Internet Service Providers must be asked to remove a disruptive individual from a newsgroup yet, if it's a commercial account, most ISP's don't _like_ removing someone from having access to newsgroups based simply upon a rash of complaints filed against them. The primary reason for not wishing to remove disruptive individuals seems to be the cries of censorship which plagues ISPs these days. (While America Online has no ethical or moral qualms against imposing censorship, nearly every other ISP does to different degrees.) FidoNet and Internet do share a common problem with removing a disruptive individual, however, and members of the Scientology cult have been putting this failing into good use: Someone who is ejected from a FidoNet newsgroup may simply locate another system which carries the echo and thus continue to post until he is once again ejected from that system. It then becomes an easy exercise to go through a list of systems known to carry the echo and an individual can live a long, long time -- provided they are willing to expend the time, money, and effort. The Scientology cult has been picking up free hours from a broad spectrum of Internet Service Providers and posting thousands upon thousands of messages -- until the ISP puts a stop to it at which point another account is used on the same ISP for the same network abuse or another ISP is used altogether. The Scientology cult has drawn attention to itself around the world, even prompting a report from Taz. Cornelius Krasel, U Wuerzburg, (Dept. of Pharmacology, Versbacher Str. 9 D-97078 Wuerzburg, Germany, email: phak004@rzbox.uni-wuerzburg.de ) offered a translation of the article: [the office] Robots suffocate the discussion Since several weeks, the usenet newsgroup "alt.religion.scientology" is being flooded by anonymous nonsense contributions. Shouting down used to be not quite so easy: one needed a majority on their side. It has become more convenient in the Internet. The automatical electronic down-shouter squashes any discussion - without any majority. In the usenet group alt.religion.scientology followers and adversaries of the science-fiction author, L. Ron Hubbard, discuss enthusiastically about his odd teachings. Recently, somebody has been trying to squash this discussion. His method, "vertical spamming", is easy: in a short period of time, a huge amount (in this case almost 10.000) of meaningless, computer-generated messages are posted in the group. FIDONEWS 13-31 Page 12 29 Jul 1996 This is supposed to overload the computers, but especially the participants of the discussion which have to work themselves first through hundreds of robot-letters before being able to read a sensible contribution. Unnerved, many finish the discussion. It is almost impossible for the net community to defend itself against this kind of attack. The nonsense would have to be sorted out by hand, short-lived throw-away accounts hide the true originator. Nevertheless, the American Jon Noring (noring@netcom.com) believes to have found the true cause: the Church of Scientology itself. He has placed a petition in the internet which is supposed to lead Scientology to cease the spamming (to sign the petition, send an empty email to petition-1@netcom.com until June 30th). Noring's clues for the sect's authorship: all the jamming contributions are pro-scientology, nothing but short excerpts from a Scientology publication, and all start with the same introductory sentence which states that "a lot of wrong information about Scientology is being distributed in alt.religion.scientology". When, some time ago, "secret" teaching documents of the sect had been published on the net, Scientology had used similar "throw-away-accounts" and normed texts to take the publications back - why, Noring asks, remains the sect silent this time, although large parts of the injected postings contain a copyright mark? The silent approval would speak for a participation of the money-greedy organization. In addition, Noring thinks that Scientologists planned such spamming for a long time - the secret plan can be found in his directory at ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/no/noring/spamplan.txt Stefan Kuzmany: kuzmany@ifkw.uni-muenchen.de TAZ Nr. 4953 of 06/20/1996 page 12 Internet 77 lines TAZ report Stefan Kuzmany More information on the attack can be found at: Spam Information at http://daemon.apana.org.au/~fjc/scn/spam.html More Spam Information at http://www.bway.net/~keith/spam/spam.htm FIDONEWS 13-31 Page 13 29 Jul 1996 It's important, I feel, to get a broad-spectrum exposure of what is being done to Internet out into both FidoNet and the real world as I can expect the success or failure of the attacks to be an object lesson for others who might feel the need to emulate the Scientology cult's activities. In FidoNet we have yet to experience this level of attack -- we have safeguards. Knowing what type of activities "hatted" members of the cult are expected to engage in before hand will doubtless keep most people from joining the cult. Knowing that technological fixes for such abuse exists and that spamming to silence critics is a futile and embarrassing prospect should also help to keep this type of abuse down. Spread the word. ----------------------------------------------------------------- ECROC: Good, Bad, or Ugly By Troy H. Cheek, 1:362/708.4 "The real world is what I see. The real world is what you see. Strangely, they are never the same real worlds." -JMS of B5 Our good friend Bob Moravsik of 2606/583, in the guise of injecting some reality into the ECROC discussion, basically tells us that anybody who doesn't think ECROC is a good idea is some kind of "immature" "control freak." As someome who thinks ECROC is a good idea with a bad implementation, I guess that makes me a *mature* control freak. :-) Bob also tells us that moderators exist only to serve the posters. This is certainly true, from a certain point of view. Civil servants such as the police exist only to serve the populace. However, this doesn't mean that if you don't like a particular law and want it changed, you can ignore the police in the meantime. Bob says that ECROC "doesn't put a router in the position of judging." Sorry, but that's _exactly_ what it does. 'Here, Mr. Router, take these rules and these messages from an echo you probably have no experience with and tell me this person doesn't deserve to have his access cut.' That isn't judging? Bob says that ECROC "stops the Robbins/Winter/Johnstone/Milner/Degan mentaility of making up rules as you go and enforcing them unequally. He left out Gerber/Benge/Frezberg. And me, I guess, since I've been compared to some of these for engaging in such sandbox antics like reminding users that profanity is not allowed, such marble-grabbing tactics as asking that off-topic conversations be moved to other echoes, or the big-frog-in-a-small-pond horror of disallowing personal FIDONEWS 13-31 Page 14 29 Jul 1996 attacks. I'm also supposedly on the receiving end of a civil rights suit for interfering with a poster's right to Free Speech, and there's reportedly a 20-sysop team in Canada working furiously to get my right to be a moderator revoked. "All" ECROC requires, Bob says is that the moderator produce: 1. The text of the rule that was broken if your echo even has written rules, or rules more specific than "play nice and stay on topic." A crooked moderator could easily write a rule later and claim it was in effect when a certain message was posted. A crooked poster could claim the moderator did just that. A moderator could still selectively enforce rules by only attempting to cut feeds to certain posters, or even writing rules that only affect certain posters. 2. The message(s) that broke the rules if you keep copies of every message posted in the echo, never have a floppy eaten, and never have a hard drive crash. A crooked moderator could fake messages. A crooked poster could claim the messages were faked by the moderator or someone else. 3. Two netmail warnings that you can't prove the poster ever received. A crooked moderator could write warnings after the fact, or write them and never send them. A crooked poster could claim he never received them. With routed netmail being as unreliable as it is and some systems not accepting "crashed" messages, who's to say? 4. The text of messages that show that a person has ignored the warnings that he claims he never received or were even sent. See above. I don't know where Bob got statistics that say that "[q]uite often a request to cut a link is done in the heat of a strong debate." Do you? I won't argue that ECROC wouldn't at least slow down most of the excessive moderators, possibly stopping many. I will argue, however, that it will hamstring the efforts of many honest moderators who want nothing more than to keep things running reasonably smoothly. I mean, take the not unreasonable hypothetical situation of a sysop connecting to an echo and immediately begin uplinking a dozen objectionable messages a day. Maybe it's commercial advertisements, totally off-topic rants, personal attacks, or accounts of sexual escapades so raunchy that even your oversexed brother is blushing. What then? If I'm reading ECROC right, and I invite anyone to point out where I might be getting it wrong, I'd first have to make sure the rules of the echo didn't allow these posts. Then I'd have to netmail a warning. After a suitable amount of time to see if the warning was FIDONEWS 13-31 Page 15 29 Jul 1996 heeded, I'd have to send a second. Again after waiting a suitable amount of time, I'd netmail his router with a link cut request, a copy of the rules, and a sample of the offending material. Then I have to wait a few days while the router judges the validity of my request. If he rules against me, I have to start the same process all over again with him... We're talking a *minimum* here of a couple of weeks, and possibly a couple of months, of the echo being disrupted. Without ECROC, it's a matter of a few days. But enough of that. As I said above, I think ECROC is a good idea, but don't care for the current proposed implementation. In order that ECROC properly serve all the affected parties, I'd like to suggest the following changes: 1) Until ECROC is approved and becomes mandatory, consider it null and void. Some systems living by ECROC while others ignore it will only add to the confusion. 2) ECROC must recognize that the job of moderating an echo falls on the moderator, and not on routers or sysops or end users. 3) Initial link cut requests, once confirmed as genuine, must be honored immediately. 4) Cut links will have, say, two weeks to appeal the link cut order to the router, who will of course contact the moderator. *Then* they can debate rules and violations and warnings. Within a reasonable amount of time (say, a month or so) the links will be restored, or not, as the case may be. The upshot of my suggestions is that, unlike the current proposed ECROC, disruptive posters don't get to continue posting disruptive messages while the moderator tries to prove that they are indeed being disruptive. However, those who were cut unfairly still get a chance to tell their side and get reinstated. Finally, Bob quotes that "You are well within your right to refuse to cut a link..." Again, only if the router is asked to serve as the judge of the rightness of the moderator's request is this true. Later, Troy ----------------------------------------------------------------- Zone 7 Flame will get international? Mikhail Ramendik 2:5020/230.4, ramen@pccross.msk.su When I got my first Fidonet Point Address back in Fall '93, the sysop echos were full of flame about Zone 7. It ended quietly when the Moderators became tired of the wars and declared them off FIDONEWS 13-31 Page 16 29 Jul 1996 topic. I was a newbie then. And it was much of a surprise to me when I saw the leaders of the factions peacefully drinking beer together... Now the flame is gone, and the Zone 7 proponents have established an othernet which they believe to be the start of a new zone. The opponents just don't take it seriously. The matter is gone. Or WAS - until the #29 of Fidonews, which proposed Zone 7 over again! Will the flame come back in the snoozie? We shall see... I'm only a Point anyway, and I can probably get an FTPoint even in z1 if really needed (perhaps I'll try it in the fall). I can just stay away and not care. Let the big guys fight. Just you wait until they return from vacations... ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 13-31 Page 17 29 Jul 1996 ================================================================= FIDONET HISTORY ================================================================= FidoNet History 20 Aug 85 by Tom Jennings and others This is Part Two in the history of FidoNet. It turned out that the original FIDOHIST.DOC (now called FIDOHIST.DC1, or just "Part One") was useful, and many people read it. Unfortunately, by the time everyone read it, it became totally obsolete. Oh well. Here is Part Two. FIDOHIST.DOC covered the early history of FidoNet, why it was done, how it was done, and the reasons for the organization and obscure rituals surrounding node numbers. If you haven't read it yet, I suggest you do now, because I'll probably refer to things that won't make any sense otherwise. The original FidoNet was organized very simply; each FidoNet system (each node) had a number that served like a phone number, uniquely identifying it. The NODELIST, generated by the folks in St. Louis that had all FidoNet nodes in it, contains information on all known FidoNet systems. Every system in FidoNet had a current copy of the NODELIST, which served as the directory of systems. (In the interests of brevity I'm leaving out huge amounts of information; I hope you have read FIODHIST.DOC by now ...) FidoNet has been growing steadily since it started by accident in May 84 or so. The node list continued to get out of hand; the original FIDOHIST.DOC was written to try and help smooth things out. It is impossible to overemphasize the amount of work involved in keeping the node list accurate. Basically, the guys in St. Louis were keeping track of hundreds of FidoNet systems in Boston, Los Angeles, London, Stockholm and Sweden, and publishing the results weekly. There has never been such a comprehensive and accurate list of bulletin board systems generated. We talked for many months as to how we could possibly find a solution to the many problems; it was at the point where if a solution was not found in a few months (by Aug. 85 or so) that FidoNet would collapse due to the sheer weight of it's node list. The newsletter, FidoNews, was, and still is, an integral part of the process of FidoNet. FidoNews is the only thing that unites all FidoNet sysops consistently; please keep up to date on it, and stock it for your users if you have the disk space. And contribute if you can! There were many constraints on the kind of things we could do; we had no money, so it had to be done for zero cost. Centralization was out, so obviously localization was in; just how to do it was a total unknown. We thought of going back to having people in different FIDONEWS 13-31 Page 18 29 Jul 1996 areas handle new node requests in their area, but that always generated confusion as to who a person should go to, how to avoided having someone requesting a node number from different people simultaneously, etc., etc. The old method of routing was very different than the current method, and much more complex; instead of Fido automatically routing to hosts, each sysop had to specify (via the ROUTE.BBS file) how all routing was done in the system. The was done originally by hand, later by John Warren's (102/31) NODELIST program. Then of course there was the problem that no matter what we did, it would not be done overnight. (ha ha.) It would take many weeks at the least, possibly months, so that whatever we did had to be compatible with the old method as well. We went through probably hundreds of ideas in the next few months, some possibly useful, some insane. Eventually the insanity boiled down to a pretty workable system. We chatted by FidoNet and by voice telephone. Eventually, we settled on the two part number scheme, like the phone company does with area codes and exchanges. It accommodated backwards compatibility (you can keep your present node number) and the new "area code" (net number) could be added into an existing field that had been set to zero. (This is why everyone was originally part of net #1). When a fortunate set of circumstances was to bring Ezra Shapiro and me to St. Louis to speak to the McDonnell Douglas Recreational Computer Club on XXXX 11th, we planned ahead for a national FidoNet sysops meeting that weekend. Ken and Sally Kaplan were kind enough to tolerate having all of us in their living room. The people who showed up were (need that list) The meeting lasted ten continuous hours; it was the most productive meeting I (and most others) had attended. When we were done, we had basically the whole thing laid out in every detail. We stuck with the area code business (now known as net and region numbers) and worked out how to break things up into regions and nets. It was just one of those rare but fortunate events; during the morning things went "normally", but in the afternoon solutions fell into place one by one, so that by late afternoon we had the entire picture laid out in black and white. Two or three months of brainstorming just flowed smoothly into place in one afternoon ... What we had done was exactly what we have now, though we changed the name of "Admin" to "Region", and added the "alternate" node and net numbers. (We still seem to be stuck with that terrible and inaccurate word, "manager". Any ideas?) I previously had a buggy test hack running using area codes, and the week after the meeting it was made to conform to what we had talked about that Saturday. When version 10C was done, it accomplished more or less everything we wanted, but it sure did take a long time. 10C was probably the single largest change ever made to Fido/FidoNet, and the FIDONEWS 13-31 Page 19 29 Jul 1996 most thoroughly tested version. At 10M, there are STILL bugs left from that early version, in spite of the testing. Once the testing got serious, and it looked like we had a shippable version, St. Louis froze the node list, and started slicing it into pieces, to give to the soon-to-be net and region managers. (That word again.) This caused a tremendous amount of trouble for would-be sysops; not only was it difficult enough to figure out how on earth to get a node number, once they did they were told node numbers weren't being given out just yet. Explaining why was even harder, since FIDOHIST.DC2 (ahem) wasn't written yet. (I have to agree, this thing is a little bit late) It was a typical case of those who already knew were informed constantly of updates, but those in the dark had a hard time. Things were published fairly regularly (am I remembering "conveniently" or "accurately" on this part?) Eventually, 10C was released, and seemed to work fairly well, ignoring all the small scale disasters due to bugs, etc. We couldn't just swap over to the new area code business until very close to 100% of all Fidos were using the new version. This was (for me) an excruciating period, basically a "hurry up and wait" situation. There had not been a node list release for a month or two, and for all practical purposes it looked like FidoNet had halted ... Finally, on June 12th, we all swapped over to the new system; that afternoon, sysops were to set their net number (it had been "1" for backwards compatibility), copy in the new node list issued just for this occasion, and go. I assumed the result was going to be perpetual chaos, bringing about the collapse of FidoNet. Almost the exact opposite was true; things went very smoothly (yes, there were problems, but when you consider that FidoNet consists of microcomputers owned by almost 300 people who had never even talked to each other ...) Within a month or so, just about every Fido had swapped over to the area code, or net/node architecture. With a few exceptions, things went very smoothly. No one was more surprised than pessimistic I. At this time, August, I don't think there is a single system still using the old node number method. This is all well and fine as far as the software goes, but it made a mess for new sysops. For us sysops who have been around for a while, there was no great problem, as we saw the changes happen one by one. However, new sysops frequently came out of the blue; armed with a diskette full of code, they attempted to set up a FidoNet node. Actually, I don't understand how anyone does it. The information needed is not recorded in any place that a non sysop could find. On top of that, most of it is now totally wrong! If you follow the original instructions, it said "call Fido #1 ..." if you found a real antique, or "call Fido #51 ..." if it is more current. Of course now it tells you to find your region manager. "Region manager???" Well, a list of region managers was published in FidoNews, but unless you read FidoNews, how does anyone ever find out? I'll probably never know. FIDONEWS 13-31 Page 20 29 Jul 1996 ANYWAYS ... the original reason for all the changes was to DECENTRALIZE FidoNet. It just wasn't possible for Ken Kaplan to keep accurate, up to date information on every Fido in the US and Europe. The decentralization has been more or less a total success. The number of problems introduced were negligible compared to the problems solved, and even most new problems are by this time solved. It is interesting to note that with the hundreds of systems there are today, the national FidoNet hour is less crowded than it was when there were only 50 nodes. Please, keep in mind that no one has done anything like this before, we are all winging it, and learning (hopefully) as we go. Please be patient with problems, none of us is paid to do this, and it is more and more work as time goes on. Somehow it seems to all get done ... HOW TO GET A NODE NUMBER AND ALL THAT This is by necessity a very general idea of how it's done, and you were warned earlier that this may be obsolete this very minute; with that, here's the "current" process for starting up a new FidoNet node. You can of course skip all or part of this if you've done this before; if you haven't, well, be prepared for a lot of searching and asking questions. Of course, you need to have your Fido BBS system running first. It's probably best that you play with it for a while, and get some experience with how it all works, and whether you have the patience to run a BBS. It can get exasperating, and you will never find time to use the computer ever again. Obtain the most recent copy of the nodelist possible; this may take some searching. If you get totally lost, you can always contact Fido 125/1 or Fido 100/51; though these are very busy systems, they both usually have the very latest of anything, and can direct you to the right place. The big problem here is to find out if you are in a net or not, and if not, then who your region manager is. If you are in a large city (Los Angeles, Cincinnati, etc) then there is probably a net in your area. Look through the node list (use the N)odebook command in Fido, or a text editor) for the right area code or city. If there is no net in your area, then you are part of a region. This is a little harder, because regions are large, and sometimes cover many states. Look at all the regions in the node list, you should find a region that fits you. Once you find this, you have to contact the net or region manager to get your node number. Exactly how this is done depends on who the manager is, and how sticky they are for details. A near universal requirement is that you send your request via FidoNet, not by manually; this isn't done to make your life difficult, but to FIDONEWS 13-31 Page 21 29 Jul 1996 ensure that your system is really working right. IF you manage to get a FidoNet message to the manager, its usually safe to assume that you're system is working OK. If you get a reply in return, then you know both directions work. It is usually each sysops' responsibility to go get the latest nodelist and newsletters; they are not distributed to all systems because of the expense. (Though, I'm trying to get them distributed to more places than they are now, it's sometimes very difficult to get a copy of the nodelist!) Again, read the FidoNews newsletter regularly; it is about the only way to stay in contact with the rest of the net. Programs, problems, services, bugs and interesting announcements can always be found there. FidoNews articles don't come out of thin air; send in anything you think might be of interest. They don't have to be lifetime masterpieces, or even well written. Please remember the entire network is made of the sysops; there is no central location from which good things come, the net consists entirely of the sysops and their contributions. If you don't do it, chances are no one else will! Tom Jennings 20 Aug 85 Ken Kaplan Fido 100/51 314/432-4129 Tom Jennings Fido 125/1 415/864-1418 Ben Baker Fido 100/10 314/234-1462 [end of Part 2 of 3] ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 13-31 Page 22 29 Jul 1996 ================================================================= COORDINATORS CORNER ================================================================= Nodelist-statistics as seen from Zone-2 for day 208 By Ward Dossche, 2:292/854 ZC/2 The table below depicts the growth of the world nodelist as seen through the eyes of someone in Zone-2. Delays in pro- cessing inbound zone-segments are possible. Administrative entries as well as Pvt, Hold and Down are ommitted. Percentages have been rounded. This article is produced by auto cut-and-paste of outputs from T-NSTAT by Bo Bendtsen, ROBO 0.37 by Tom Kashuba and GW-BASIC 3.20 (C) Microsoft 1986 and MS-DOS 6.22 (C) MicroSoft 1994. It will automatically be produced on a weekly basis. +----+------+------------+------------+------------+------------+--+ |Zone|Nl.180|Nodelist.187|Nodelist.194|Nodelist.201|Nodelist.208|%%| +----+------+------------+------------+------------+------------+--+ | 1 | 13286| 13177 -109| 13105 -72| 12910 -195| 12799 -111|40| | 2 | 16539| 16497 -42| 16551 54| 16536 -15| 16520 -16|51| | 3 | 1066| 1066 0| 1046 -20| 1029 -17| 1029 0| 3| | 4 | 648| 648 0| 656 8| 643 -13| 644 1| 2| | 5 | 112| 112 0| 112 0| 112 0| 112 0| 0| | 6 | 1228| 1228 0| 1228 0| 1228 0| 1018 -210| 3| +----+------+------------+------------+------------+------------+--+ | 32879| 32728 -151| 32698 -30| 32458 -240| 32122 -336| +------+------------+------------+------------+------------+ ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 13-31 Page 23 29 Jul 1996 ================================================================= NET HUMOR ================================================================= --- Following message extracted from NETMAIL @ 1:374/14 --- By Christopher Baker on Wed Jul 24 15:57:25 1996 From: Michael McCabe @ 1:297/11 To: Christopher Baker @ 1:374/14 Date: 20 Jul 96 15:26:50 Subj: Olympics ============================================ * Original to : All * Forwarded on : Jul 24 96 at 06:21 * Forwarded from: 14_REC * Forwarded by : Mike Riddle ============================================ Greetings All! F I D O N E W S -- | Vol. 9 No. 32 (10 August 1992) Welcome to the FidoNet Olympics by Dave Bealer (1:261/1129) The echoes are kind of quiet these days. Maybe everyone is glued to the Olympics Triplecast. For those of us that aren't, why not have our own Olympics on FidoNet? Here is a summary of suggested events: }} Local BBS Events {{ >> 14.4K Protocol Negotiation << The winner is the first user who can stay awake during the entire protocol negotiation sequence between a V.32bis modem and a tin can. >> 110-step Registration Hurdles << The gold medal goes to the user who completes the "simple" registration procedure in the shortest time. Contestants are advised not to wear glasses or contacts while competing in this event, as they might interfere with the online laser retina scan. >> Modern Hexadecimalon << Competitors attempt to break 16 different FidoNet policies and/or draconian local sysop rules in a single logon session. >> Download Ratio Balance Beam << Users attempt daring massive downloads without (hopefully) losing their download privileges. >> Door Exercises << The gold goes to the user who can enter and play the most door games in a 45 minute logon session. >> Echolocation << FIDONEWS 13-31 Page 24 29 Jul 1996 The winner is the user who can find the echo he is looking for in the fewest BBS accesses. }} Echomail Events {{ >> Verbal Gymnastics << You won't believe how these competitors can twist and turn the English language into almost unrecognizable shapes. >> Greco-Roman Thread Wrestling << Wrestling for control over the direction an echo conference thread will take. Moderators are ineligible for this event. >> Marathon Messaging << Contestants enter 75 messages in a single echo in one session. Each message must have at least three lines and at least one line must be original (not quoted). The one who enters the 75 messages in the shortest time wins. Penalties will be assessed for each message which actually pertains to the topic of the echo. The use of offline readers is prohibited. >> Power Quoting << The winner will have made the longest continual quotation with the shortest vaguely pertinent reply. The current world record is 382 lines of quotes with a five word reply. >> Tagline Topping << Medals are awarded in the following categories: Annoying, Childish, Funny, Gross and Stupid. There is also a special all-around medal for the tagline which best combines all five attributes. >> Volley Message << The gold medal goes to the first pair of correspondents who nest their quotes so deeply that the leading initials force the message text off the screen entirely. >> Platform Diving << Each contestant ascends to the soapbox and attempts to make insulting comments about everyone and everything in FidoNet. Timing is critical, as the competitor must dive off the platform before his/her access to the net is revoked. >> Heavyweight Ego Lifting << In this event the posturing which procedes the lift can be more important than the lift itself. >> Full Contact Flaming << What would a FidoNet Olympics be without its symbol, the flame? }} Sysop Events {{ >> 5 MB Packet Toss << The gold medal goes to the Sysop whose system can dearchive, toss, sort, link and julienne a 5 MB mail packet in the shortest time. FIDONEWS 13-31 Page 25 29 Jul 1996 >> Echo Looping << The winner is the Sysop who can cause the most dup-loops in the most different echoes in one day of operation. >> Synchronized Polling << The winning Sysop pair will be the one whose systems synchronize their polls to each other the longest (without getting through). *** After the events are over everyone will be hanging out at the Olympic Village BBS, chatting online about the competitors who failed their drug tests. And we won't have parted with $125 for the privilege. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Later...MM... (nazz@tri-lakes.net) Origin: Golden Country* on Bull Shoals Lake, Missouri (1:297/11) ----------------------------------------------------------------- Could this happen to YOU? By Unknown Dear John [Mary]..... To my darling Husband [Wife]. I am sending you this letter in a bogus software company envelope so that you will be sure to read it. Please forgive the deception, but I thought you should know what has been going on at home since your Node Coordinator position entered our lives two years ago. The children are doing well. Tommy is seven now and is a bright, handsome boy. He has developed quite an interest in the arts. He drew a family portrait for a school project. All the likenesses were good but yours was excellent! The chair and the back of your head are very realistic. You would be very proud of him. Little Jennifer turned three in September. She looks a lot like you did at that age. She is an attractive child and quite smart. She still remembers that you spent the whole afternoon with her on her birthday. What a grand day for Jen, despite the fact that it was stormy and the electricity was out. I am also doing well. I went blond [met a blond] about a year ago and was delighted to discover that it really is more fun! Lars [Laura] , I mean Mr. [Ms.] Swenson, my department head, has taken an interest in my career and has become a good friend to us all. I have discovered that the household chores are much easier since I realized that you don't mind being vacuumed but that feather dusting made you sneeze. FIDONEWS 13-31 Page 26 29 Jul 1996 The house is in good shape. I had the living room painted last Spring. I'm not sure if you noticed it. I made sure the painters cut air holes in the drop cloth so you wouldn't be disturbed. Well, my dear, I must be going. Uncle [Aunt] Lars [Laura], Mr. [Ms.] Swenson, I mean, is taking us all on a ski trip and there will be packing to do. I have hired a housekeeper to take care of things while we are away. She'll keep things in order, fill your coffee cup, and bring meals to your desk, - just the way you like it. I hope you and the computer have a lovely time while we are gone. Tommy, Jen and I will think of you often. Try to remember us while your Nodelists are compiling. Love, Mary [John] (Your Wife) (Your Husband) ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 13-31 Page 27 29 Jul 1996 ================================================================= QUESTION OF THE WEEK ================================================================= FidoNews has been publishing for over ten years. Except for a few missed Issues, that's close to 600 Issues. The Question of the Week is: Does anyone have ALL the FidoNews Issues in one place and if so, WHERE is that place and are they all available for file-request or download or ftp via the InterNet? Respond to FidoNews or via Netmail or in the FIDONEWS Echo now available on the Zone 1 Backbone and in Zones 2 and 3 last I heard. Thanks. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 13-31 Page 28 29 Jul 1996 ================================================================= NOTICES ================================================================= Future History 1 Aug 1996 Confederation Day, Switzerland 15 Aug 1996 Liberation Day, South Korea 28 Sep 1996 Confucius' Birthday. 29 Oct 1996 Republic Day, Turkey. 5 Nov 1996 Election day, U.S.A. 5 Nov 1996 Guy Fawkes Day, England. 1 Dec 1996 Thirteen Anniversary of release of Fido version 1 by Tom Jennings. 19 Dec 1996 Gallileo takes close-ups of Europa to resolution of 20 meters at the equator. 26 Jan 1997 Australia Day, Australia. 16 Feb 1997 Eleventh Anniversary of invention of Echomail by Jeff Rush. 26 Jul 1997 FidoNews Editor turns 48. 6 Dec 1997 Gallileo takes close-ups of Europa to resolution of 11 meters at the north pole. If you have something which you would like to see in this Future History, please send a note to the FidoNews Editor. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Notice to UK Contributors Damian Walker, 2:2502/666 If you are in the UK and you wish to contribute to FidoNews, you are FIDONEWS 13-31 Page 29 29 Jul 1996 welcome to drop your FidoNews articles at Centurion (2:2502/666). These articles will be forwarded to the FidoNews editor early each Saturday morning (around 0530 GMT). ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 13-31 Page 30 29 Jul 1996 ================================================================= FIDONEWS PUBLIC-KEY ================================================================= [this must be copied out to a file starting at column 1 or it won't process under PGP as a valid public-key] -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: SUPPORT the Phil Zimmerman Legal Defense Fund! mQCNAzHghmAAAAEEALj2F2iMEbBF7wd6t3uwkXAs6ntCoCtso8FqOPxzWXbySdk0 Wdw4Dg9MxOhG1ZgKNq5Nx3T9ytxGKEMHcZKMjarGknGU5bZfJIqM5Gt9vBodts4V CooaLWhv9dDLAlDyo9IQp1LaWKYLCEf0hSGcxcirnCTrZWwxgDqu5gtFbxEBAAUR tCRGaWRvTmV3cyBFZGl0b3IgPDE6MS8yM0BmaWRvbmV0Lm9yZz6JARUDBRAx6uKO vAIUz6kYqT0BATruB/4zSAqOwFF9yuNpwtdeNQdMoySB6B14hfPKdsmoKP0vgTUw rs1nzyf5Lejf4tz41XzN9wjwMB5Zjkgt0IfI1p9oCYX6/Q2CSYJJP3pvAeX1mAyk 4LplBf1yXGYGkujihTTEhz/lQRUSFRZ8mmpl9kMVFIIk85Q9TBdnQKMLinO4w0c+ p+c0ysZQlx6lB52h0+vdZnUc8ItXmGpfoAJodMh8PWshbqHF6O5dcO3tYTj4SZND h9tgoXBsOEzHLAvtRz3BJe1Jqb/xxbbgy77QAZRwC3OagZR8igQ65XJFe5ku8KTR vwttmuUIabrwQtfKKX15q3GQp8Gy8qyh9JGi8WAuiQCVAgUQMeRMG0pSi8D+DhVt AQF1nAP/Yv+auNqYMlqYz5VQiUQFFPQnBHdy9MRKgkj5HJeERJRlskaLDGj1vNjm faDm6rCB687lxrKtvnDy3oXFRs+rfdYDiUAtpReVwa77EKjLwDkOdi53zZLszfo7 np2HUdE7+KR2JUvAeYdmxQo+Pdp4OHrTb7A5AFBO5MRdIBbogZqJARUCBRAx5Err tzetWUOA6/0BAUS+CACio9+PkvRoKmM2zTnjOtUCsQ0z8EsjyQ5+Nil+xGxYeX+0 cXUy7uxPuDQhQNiaWBpbogOoltIqYs6W5013R/bv5xcjQEjLeXIhTprFCykuLZ9M IROf0KffvDHJI62N4DdkYCam1hjiy4x5alUdSV4jWb5vpS4SIU1SyrYn2QkV0PrO J5iM1/vVGa0c8fDzJv+LFaC5KTFPzKwvLuFjxSHiYRRtlLet/rdqcTfknxIgF9V6 prxF/p8wHttWiaCQJBletTTvYtcDzStMKuRutFRk/6eTfypNefE4jQSyTZz5gLO2 HayukiM/SuHDv5uLQOOeq4u88QoYEfdQ9/nsRmlUiQEVAwUQMeCIAdNDr/nYgbVJ AQEDRQf+KhLk9H5DbUVybzo0wx5MC3H0i5xoCg+2ITsxrJlUN+Mw2LgokebKhrbZ wuZFWoooN6h6+a5qCuQpu1tSVKwg8iP7WWGDsHxMNBLs5w/TIxncsMeVMxObEmgM Ne2edWimSoWz+2+4a1r8H1eGOFP8f57nGeYAxk4FR1omkrnB9GZ+0992lZ8rJEkN eybceyAIlUY82XKqtZpHFnnXSMOxv663IBM3KNps9rBrNvomskc19t6DS2BcxG2I YRPTzXDP9XJeRizWAwZzPfEcMm4a2lcZhoi2S5MYiE3sxnH9VM8Ko78jwfqTyO78 fkJXMdi0aQzDJq6VxWC4N5fmieXE4bQoQ2hyaXN0b3BoZXIgQmFrZXIgPGNiYWtl cjg0QGRpZ2l0YWwubmV0Pg== =gFHd -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 13-31 Page 31 29 Jul 1996 ================================================================= FIDONEWS INFORMATION ================================================================= ------- FIDONEWS MASTHEAD AND CONTACT INFORMATION ---------------- Editor: Christopher Baker Editors Emeritii: Thom Henderson, Dale Lovell, Vince Perriello, Tim Pozar, Tom Jennings, Sylvia Maxwell, Donald Tees "FidoNews Editor" FidoNet 1:1/23 BBS 1-407-383-1372, 300/1200/2400/14400/V.32bis/HST(ds) more addresses: Christopher Baker -- 1:374/14, cbaker84@digital.net cbak.rights@opus.global.org (Postal Service mailing address) FidoNews Editor P.O. Box 5921 Titusville, FL 32783-5921 U.S.A. voice: 1-407-264-2994 [1400-2100 ET only, please] [1800-0100 UTC/GMT] ------------------------------------------------------ FidoNews is published weekly by and for the members of the FIDONET INTERNATIONAL AMATEUR ELECTRONIC MAIL system. It is a compilation of individual articles contributed by their authors or their authorized agents. The contribution of articles to this compilation does not diminish the rights of the authors. OPINIONS EXPRESSED in these articles ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHORS and not necessarily those of FidoNews. Authors retain copyright on individual works; otherwise FidoNews is Copyright 1996 Christopher Baker. All rights reserved. Duplication and/or distribution permitted for noncommercial purposes only. For use in other circumstances, please contact the original authors, or the editor. OBTAINING COPIES: The most recent issue of FidoNews in electronic form may be obtained from the FidoNews Editor via manual download or file-request, or from various sites in the FidoNet and Internet. PRINTED COPIES may be obtained by sending SASE to the above postal address. File-request FIDONEWS for the current Issue. File-request FNEWS for the current month in one archive. Or file-request specific back Issue filenames in distribution format [FNEWSDnn.LZH] for a particular Issue. Monthly Volumes are available as FNWSmmmy.ZIP where mmm = three letter month [JAN - DEC] and y = last digit of the FIDONEWS 13-31 Page 32 29 Jul 1996 current year [6], i.e., FNWSMAY6.ZIP for all the Issues from May 96. INTERNET USERS: FidoNews is available via: http://www.fidonet.org/fidonews.htm ftp://ftp.fidonet.org/pub/fidonet/fidonews/ Anyone interested in getting a copy of the INTERNET GATEWAY FAQ may file-request GISFAQ.ZIP from 1:133/411.0, or send an internet message to fidofaq@gisatl.fidonet.org. No message or text or subject is necessary. The address is a keyword that will trigger the automated response. People wishing to send inquiries directly to David Deitch should now mail to fidonet@gisatl.fidonet.org rather than the previously listed address. SUBMISSIONS: You are encouraged to submit articles for publication in FidoNews. Article submission requirements are contained in the file ARTSPEC.DOC, available from the FidoNews Editor, or file-requestable from 1:1/23 as file "ARTSPEC.DOC". ALL Zone Coordinators also have copies of ARTSPEC.DOC. Please read it. "Fido", "FidoNet" and the dog-with-diskette are U.S. registered trademarks of Tom Jennings, and are used with permission. "Disagreement is actually necessary, or we'd all have to get in fights or something to amuse ourselves and create the requisite chaos." -Tom Jennings -30- -----------------------------------------------------------------