F I D O N E W S -- Volume 13, Number 36 2 September 1996 +----------------------------+-----------------------------------------+ | The newsletter of the | ISSN 1198-4589 Published by: | | FidoNet 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. | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ THIS IS THE 600TH PUBLISHED ISSUE OF FIDONEWS!! Table of Contents 1. EDITORIAL ................................................ 1 Our 600th Issue! Going to ZIP and other things ........... 1 2. ARTICLES ................................................. 3 It's a sad world we live in .............................. 3 Borlan Turbo C Large/Huge model difftime() bug ........... 4 What is a PUBLIC KEY? .................................... 4 A Public-key primer in answer to the previous ............ 5 3. FIDONET HISTORY .......................................... 7 Editorials Past - a reflection ........................... 7 4. REVIEWS .................................................. 22 Six Mail Processors Reviewed [III] ....................... 22 5. COORDINATORS CORNER ...................................... 25 Nodelist-statistics as seen from Zone-2 for day 243 ...... 25 6. ECHOING .................................................. 26 Zone 2 Echomail proposal from ZEC2 ....................... 26 7. WE GET EMAIL ............................................. 38 Old Nodelists at 2:240/5815 .............................. 38 Old Nodelists at 2:2448/610 .............................. 38 8. PROOFREADERS REPORT ...................................... 40 Somebody finally caught one! ............................. 40 9. NET HUMOR ................................................ 41 They don't mean Fido, do they? ........................... 41 10. COMIX IN ASCII .......................................... 42 Flushed with success? .................................... 42 And more! FIDONEWS 13-36 Page 1 2 Sep 1996 ================================================================= EDITORIAL ================================================================= FidoNews passes another milestone as this, the six hundreth Issue, is published. There were years where 52 were not published and there was the composite Issue of 5 Jul 96 wherein I caught up the missing numbers of the past Editor in one lump. I don't count any Issues that didn't achieve actual, physical status as an existing file. I counted every FidoNews file in the archives and this is number 600, right here. It has been nearly twelve years since FidoNews started under the fingers of FidoNet's progenitor, Tom Jennings. For the 600th Issue, the History section will contain Editorials past from the previous Editors as a reflection of where we've been, where we are, and where we should be headed. Congratulations, FidoNews! **=*=** Complete topic change - FidoNews is going to ZIP format for weekly distribution beginning in FOUR weeks with the 30 Sep 96 Issue 1340! PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO THIS ANNOUNCEMENT if you never read another word here. You have FOUR weeks to adjust your batch files and Tick throughputs before they begin choking on the new extension of .ZIP instead of .LZH!! When 1340 comes out it will come out as: FNEWSD40.ZIP. Don't get caught unaware and complain about not knowing why your batch files don't work on FidoNews anymore. After the survey, it was obvious that ZIP was the preferred format and the format with the most platforms. It is also the defacto archiver on the Internet as well as producing smaller and faster archives. ALL Coordinators are requested to repeat this bulletin to those Nodes under their auspices so everyone is on the same page come Issue 1340 on 30 Sep 96. Thanks, in advance, for your assistance and cooperation. **=*=** Your FidoNews Editor will be moving at the end of this month. This be a physical move on all levels changing Node numbers [1:1/23 will still be valid but have a new phone number] and counties and cities. We will be going upstate a few miles to Edgewater_FL and be leaving Net 374 for independent Node status as 1:18/14 [my first Node number from the dim time]. The P.O. Box will also be changing in the contact info in the Masthead. The specifics will be forthcoming in a future Issue. Please get ready for that, too. **=*=** FIDONEWS 13-36 Page 2 2 Sep 1996 ZEC2 has a lengthy article in this Issue about a new Zone 2 Echopol. All those affected please take note. Other Zones might want to pay attention as well for future reference. That's enough news for one Issue. [grin] C.B. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 13-36 Page 3 2 Sep 1996 ================================================================= ARTICLES ================================================================= A European point of view by Fredrik Bennison -- 2:205/300, lomaxx@dalnet.se Last night I had a great article in my head but decided to sleep on it to get it all sorted out. Today the idea has evaporated into the great unknown we call sleep. But as I think I know what I wanted to say, I thought I'd try writing an article anyway. It's sad to see the discussion regarding echomail in FIDONEWS the past week. More and more absurd objections are brought up, like whether being tried for murder in a criminal court can justify excommunication or not. What has happened to common sense in Fidonet, Fidonet is not governed by law like other parts of our society, it depends on the good will, common sense and cooperation of individual sysops across the globe. Disrupting the net in an 'excessively annoying' way constitutes reason enough for excommunication. What is excessively annoying is left to the discretion of the *C structure. That is one of the reasons that they are there. The next subject I'd like to mention is echomail and the *C jurisdiction over it. P4 clearly states that in policy disputes, echomail is considered another flavour of netmail, and therefore covered by Policy. Which to me clearly states that actions that would be deemed annoying in netmail does not automatically become null and void just because they appear in echomail. In my opinion, there are several scenarios in echomail that would constitute excessively annoying behaviour and warrant action from the *C structure. But as with so many other things in our beloved Policy, that can be disputed and ignored. Which brings me to the third (and final) topic for the day. Policy 4. It is now more than 7 years old and outdated and obsolete in several ways, of which echomail is one. At the time (1989) echomail was considered secondary to netmail and echomail was not to impair the performance of the network as a whole. Today, the bulk of mail passing through Fidonet is in the form of echomail and I feel that that needs to be addressed in a new version of Policy. Another thing that really should be made more clear is netmail routing policies. Routing netmail is (and has been for as long as I can remember) a given right for members of Fidonet Region20, and I guess for most of Zone2. Netmail routing in Zone1 however seems to be haphazard at best. One can never know if a netmail will reach it destination, or which networks disallow routing altogether. A new Policy should impose that requirement on the *C structure, that they must allow both inbound and outbound routing to their network. Preferably by some acknowledged paths like NC -> RC -> ZC and back down again. Oh well, this article ended up a bit longer than I expected, but I hope that I have managed to stir up some emotions and responses to my FIDONEWS 13-36 Page 4 2 Sep 1996 opinions, I welcome ideas and constructive criticism. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Borlan Turbo C Large/Huge model difftime() bug Fredric L. Rice (frice@stbbs.com) The Skeptic Tank (1:102/890.0) (818) 335-9601 I ran into a problem a couple of years ago when I was working on a software project in Holland and rediscovered it again tonight. Since I didn't make a note of it, I didn't avoid another length session of table pounding. The problem was that after executing my program in a DOS window, Windows 3.1 would exit to DOS every time I hit Control-ESC or Alt-ENTER to return to the Desktop. Naturally I suspected something funny with my code so I dropped exit() calls in the main() to isolate the problem yet the problem couldn't be isolated that way. Eventually I commented-out sections of the code until the problem went away which allowed me to isolate the faulty code. What was damn strange was the fact that the faulty code wasn't even being executed -- it would cause this strange behavior in Windows 3.1 simply by existing in the executable file. A call to Borlan's difftime() function compiled for either the Huge or Large memory model caused the problem. The difftime() library code for Huge and Large, I would guess, generates code that links strangely -- perhaps code gets byte aligned or some other silly nonsense. Has anyone else run into this and know what's wrong with the library function? As it is I remembered replacing the call with a call to labs(). ----------------------------------------------------------------- What is a PUBLIC KEY? An Inquiry Concerning Fidonet Nomenclature Author: Allen McBroom, 1:361/206 Having recently had the good fortune (or misfortune) of being appointed the position of NC for 1:361, I was suddenly introduced to the marvels of FidoNews. While I've enjoyed every edition that's found it's way over the phone line to our system, I've been curious about some of the terms used by LTFS (Long Term Fido Savvy) authors. FIDONEWS 13-36 Page 5 2 Sep 1996 Every edition has contained a reference to a "Public Key", which seems to be a matter of some import to many readers of FidoNews. I've no clue as to what a Public Key is, and even less of a notion as to whether I should be worried about my inadequate FNRE (FidoNet Relevent Education). Would someone be so kind as to enlighten me? ----------------------------------------------------------------- This Is What a Public-key Is Christopher Baker, ISMH [temp] Rights On! 1:374/14 Allen McBroom asks: "What is a public key?" Well, Allen, without a complete introduction to the mechanics and types of encryption systems, a brief answer to your question is as follows: Public-key cryptography differs from standard password encryption by being a two-part system. When most folks think of encryption, they think of spies coding documents with cipher keys like passwords or passages from books or machines that take in streams of apparent nonsense and put out cogent text at the other end. Standard encryption is a one-part system where both ends must have the matching decoders. Public-key cryptography is a two-part system where the originator has two keys. One is a secret-key that is never revealed and is used locally to decrypt incoming traffic created using his/her public-key. The public-key is the visible and released part of the key pair that anyone can use to send encrypted traffic to the key holder. The sender has no need to have the secret-key because the necessary parts for the sender are contained in the released public-key. The public-key system allows the holder to post his/her public-key anywhere so it may be used to either encrypt traffic to the holder or to verify the signature of the holder on a publicly signed [called clear-signed in the vernacular] document including messages and files. In the case of the FidoNews public-key, it was produced by the program known as Pretty Good Privacy by Phil Zimmerman. PGP is available for most platforms and is the most powerful authenticity tool available to ordinary folks today. You do not need PGP to read a clear-signed document since the text is in 'the clear', i.e. openly readable. You only need PGP to verify the authenticity of the signature. The signature encloses the document to which it is affixed and will indicate immediately any tampering with any part of the document or signature. If, for some reason, you wish to send something to the FidoNews Editor that can only be read by the FidoNews Editor, you can use the FidoNews public-key and PGP to encrypt your traffic to that public-key. The operation of PGP is well outside this brief answer. If you want more information on public-keys or PGP or related privacy issues, please join us in the PUBLIC_KEYS Echo available on the Zone 1 FIDONEWS 13-36 Page 6 2 Sep 1996 Backbone and elsewhere. I hope this hasn't confused the issue. [grin] ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 13-36 Page 7 2 Sep 1996 ================================================================= FIDONET HISTORY ================================================================= Editorials coming and going - part of the FidoNet History series Tom Jennings: fidonews.man -- 04 Dec 84 00:56:08 Page 1 Editor: Tom Jennings Publisher: Fido #1 HOT NEWS THE FIRST FIDONET NEWSLETTER Well, it finally got done ... FidoNews, the FidoNet Users Group newsletter is real. It will be published once a week, possibly once every two weeks if it gets busy. There will be at least three regular "features": the node list, Fido list, and the route list. Hopefully there will be more interesting things later. Now you have a reason to get FidoNews. I, Tom Jennings, am apparently the editor. I do NOT wish to be editor; the last thing I need is something else to do. See the HELP WANTED section. (Not kidding) We (ahem) are also looking for a publisher; I will do that for a while at least. A freebie outgoing host would be nice. Not a short term problem, though, like finding an Editor in Chief is. *All* articles, etc are user submitted; anything and everything, as per usual Fidonet protocols (Which isn't saying much ..) Ideas, problems, questions, tips, programs, hardware, etc etc are all welcome. See the ARTICLE article. (sic) Distribution is still up in the air; it will be mailed to at least six hosts across the country. For now, it is available on #1 and #51. Possibly elsewhere in this thing you'll find an article on distribution. THE FIDONET USERS GROUP Oh yeah, I did mention that ... I hereby declare all Fido users and sysops members of the FidoNet Users Group. Sounds pretty stupid, huh? Well ... If there are 100 Fido systems around the country, and each has at least 100 users, that's 10,000 people. Any group that large has advantages, if nothing other than letters to the editor of your favorite magazine. This is just a brainstorm at this point, but is FIDONEWS 13-36 Page 8 2 Sep 1996 something to keep in mind. To make this fake club at least appear real, I am trying to decide whether or not to have bumper stickers made. This will be 3 3/4" X 8 1/2" white vinyl, with black artwork, will have the requisite doggie, the words "FidoNet Bulletin Board Network" and "Fido Node #" on it, and a place for a phone number, and blank space. These will cost $165.00 for 500 stickers, or about $230.00 for 1000. I'll pay part of it ($40.00?) but no more; if I get promises to buy say $125.00's worth, I'll have them made, and sell them at cost. (They cost about 34 cents each; plus 20 cents postage, plus envelopes, etc, call it a buck a piece.) The real reason for this is so I can have one, but I don't want to spend $165 for it! EDITOR'S SOAP BOX fidonews -- 18 Mar 85 18:52:30 Page 1 HOT NEWS This is my last editorial, yeah! Thom Henderson at FidoNode #375 is taking over as Head Procrastinator. Thom has an article here. Please note that this means you submit articles to him, not me. You can FidoNet them, or upload them manually. The latter will probably be a lot easier than spending hours and hours trying to autodial into Fido #1. Good luck to Thom, and thanks. Thanks also to the others who volunteered for Procrastinator duty, it is appreciated greatly. No editorializing here today; I wrote a whole article instead. There are a lot of changes coming soon. This also means that I'll be able to WRITE ARTICLES instead of having to MUNGE ARTICLES. Currently, I cringe when I think about the newsletter; usually it's 10 PM on Monday night when I think about it, and have to work on it then. Ecch! I'll probably write more now that I don't have to. (?) ----------------------------********--------------------------------- Thom Henderson: FIDONEWS -- 01 Apr 85 01:35:51 Page 3 The New Kid on the Block That's me. This is my first issue as editor of Fidonews. Since you are reading this, then obviously I've at least figured out how to put the paper together. So far, so good. FIDONEWS 13-36 Page 9 2 Sep 1996 I've already made a few changes, but almost all of them are internal things, dealing with how Fidonews is assembled, and shouldn't really affect anyone but me. No big deal, really. Everyone develops their own methods for doing things. Tom Jennings and I have developed different methods, is all. My short range goal is to totally automate the production of Fidonews, so that it will get out on time even if I'm out of touch for awhile. This should be no big problem, as long as contributors abide by the submission standards (above). This is really more your newsletter than mine, anyway. I just put together the pieces and send it out, maybe with a little note from me to you tucked away somewhere. So don't think of this as "my" paper, or even as Fido's paper (pun NOT intentional). Think of it as YOUR paper. * * * Real date: 31 Dec 87 FidoNews 5-01 Page 1 24 May 2010 ================================================================= EDITORIAL ================================================================= Time Flies When You're Having Fun I've been editing this newsletter for over two years now. Why do I keep doing it? At least partly because it isn't that much bother. As long as everyone goes along with the simple guidelines given in ARTSPEC.DOC, which almost everyone does, it pretty much takes care of itself. Meanwhile, every now and then I get to sound off in one of these editorials. By and large it's been fun, and when it hasn't been fun at least it hasn't been a bother. I have a long history of running newsletters. I was the editor of my high school newspaper (a real fishwrapper if there ever was one), and I was a shoo-in for the job. Way back in sixth grade I started the first newsletter in the whole school. [The school was in its first year when I was in sixth grade. It covered first through twelfth, and had about 300 people when I graduated. I graduated in a class of eighteen. Growing up in a small town does have its advantages.] Writing these editorials seems to give me a different slant on things that I normally have. I feel as if I'm taking something of a longer view. I have this conception of FidoNet as some great and glorious mechanism to allow ordinary people (well, as ordinary as BBS users ever get) to reach out to each other. When I sit down to write an editorial I remember that view, and I try to talk about it. And who knows? Maybe I even make a difference in some small way. If so, then it's certainly worth it. FIDONEWS 13-36 Page 10 2 Sep 1996 Do you share my vision? I hope so. Yes, we have our little squabbles. But take any three people and sit them down, and they will have their differences of opinion. We have much the same situation, only on a larger scale and vastly amplified. Sometimes it can seem almost too much to bear. But remember this: Nobody ever guaranteed you that everyone would always agree with you. There will always be those (not always the same ones) who disagree with your viewpoint. That is the price we pay for such unparalleled freedom of expression. In return for having so many people hear your viewpoint, you must pay the price of hearing viewpoints from those who disagree with you. You can refuse to pay that price, but then your own voice will be silenced. We really do want to hear from you. So some people may disagree with you. Maybe some of them will even descend to personal invective. Just remember, the same is true of any personal contact. That is a price you must pay to make your voice heard. ----------------------------**********--------------------------- Dale Lovell: FidoNews 5-01 Page 1 4 Jan 1988 ================================================================= EDITORIAL ================================================================= Much to my surprise I received a message from Thom Henderson a few weeks ago. It wasn't that he had sent the message that took me so much by surprise as the message's contents. He was looking for a new editor for FidoNews and was "offering" me the position. Let me say up front that it took me several days to finally come to a decision. It wasn't an easy decision to make! As a semi-regular columnist I had it easy. If I didn't feel like writing or didn't have the time it was no big deal, although I did have to live with the guilt it caused (and yes, I did feel guilty when I didn't get a column out). As editor it would be my responsibility to the net to make sure that an issue of FidoNews did go out every week, regardless of what my work schedule was like or my personal feelings. Only after I was sure I could take on the responsibility did I check to make sure I could do the work required. This may sound backward but I was reasonably sure that if I decided to shoulder the responsibility, I could manage the work. In the end, I decided that it was "the right thing." For the time being there shouldn't be any real change apparent to most of you. I am continuing Thom's policy of printing anything I receive (outside of obvious plagiarism, libel, or criminal intent). I am going to try and take a more active role in getting material. Many of you will be hearing from me in the near future in this regard! What kind of articles am I interested in? Well first off, I'd like to see someone take up my FIDONEWS 13-36 Page 11 2 Sep 1996 old "Regular Irregular Column." Actually, I'd like to see a large group of "contributing editors" spring up in the near future. All the title means as far as I'm concerned is that the person makes regular contributions to FidoNews. Not weekly. Not monthly. Just regularly. Also, right now there are many new bulletin board systems being introduced to the net. I'd like to see some articles from these "converted" sysops and their users on what they expect and see in FidoNet. What made them decide to add FidoNet compatibility to their systems, and how easy (or hard) was it for them to learn some of our unique terminology and practices. Some other topics I'd like to see articles on in the future are Gateways. What are they? How do they work? At FidoCon I heard some of the possible uses of EchoMail, is anyone doing anything new and exciting? Tell us about it if you are. There are several public service EchoMail conferences, are they actually accomplishing anything? Also, what is the EchoMail backbone? How do you "link up" with it. Some of these are questions that every sysop asks at one time or another, and it would be a big asset if everyone could point to and read a good article on topics like these. If you think you'd like to write something but are unsure how it would be received, drop me a line and we'll discuss it. In addition to my electronic address (which is now a public board, no more routing worries) I'm listing my home and work addresses and phone numbers. I'm also interested in hearing from you on topics for articles you'd like to see. Who knows, maybe I can find someone to write them! In summary, I'd like to say that I am very excited about this new position and hope that I can live up to your expectations. I plan on taking a more active role than Thom did in that I'm going to be a little aggressive in getting some of you to write an article instead of just posting a message in EchoMail. EchoMail is fickle, many people may not see a message that directly pertains to them. Why not enter a message AND send in an article, after all this is YOUR newsletter! Your Editor, Dale Lovell 1:1/1 (1:157/504) ----------------------------------------------------------------- Vince Perriello: FidoNews 6-16 Page 1 17 Apr 1989 ================================================================= EDITORIAL ================================================================= Hello there. I've been meaning to write a little something here for several weeks now and just haven't gotten around to it. FIDONEWS 13-36 Page 12 2 Sep 1996 Maybe next week I'll find the time. The major reason that I decided to key in anything at all this week was to let you know that next week we will publish responses to the Policy4 issue of FidoNews. As it appears that these responses are on the LONG side, the odds are that we won't publish any other articles next week, though whether we publish columns or not will be a function of how much space the articles take up. Thanks for reading this rag. I think it's a pretty good one. By the way, feel free to help keep it that way by sending along some material for publication. Cheers, Vince ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 6-19 Page 1 8 May 1989 ================================================================= EDITORIAL ================================================================= It's time to speak out on Freedom of the Press As many of you have no doubt noticed, FidoNews isn't a rigidly controlled publication. Its content often has little or nothing to do with the day-in, day-out nonsense involved in being a member of FidoNet. There are articles and discussions of some amazingly varied topics, reflecting the similarly varied tastes of the five thousand member nodes of FidoNet. I personally believe that it is a major strength of this publication that any member of FidoNet is allowed to contribute to a publication that is made available to every other member of FidoNet. It is, quite literally, a free and open public forum in which any of us can share anything we consider important with anyone else. Of course, there is a "down" side to this openness. The down side is this: not every issue of FidoNews will be of interest to everyone in FidoNet. In some cases, there might be one or two issues in succession that in some individuals' opinions, would have been better off unpublished. I'm sorry to disagree with those people, but this is the price that you pay for having your own turn with FidoNews when YOU want it. There are sometimes excesses, but we'll gradually learn how to minimize them without hurting the open policy. There now appear to be some rumblings in the coordinators' structure to the effect that FidoNews has too low of a "signal to noise ratio" and that perhaps the *C's might want to do something about it. This is apparently largely due to the fact that readership isn't what it used to be, and many NC's have been resisting the idea of carrying FidoNews, which is currently FIDONEWS 13-36 Page 13 2 Sep 1996 mandated by Fidonet Policy. I can't resist the temptation to suggest that indeed we have had the same problem with the *C structure. How about some more signal and less noise from them? Whatever happened, for example, to the promised WEEKLY update from the coordinators via the "RegComm - Communications from RegCon" column? Well, to be fair, it only claimed to be a "weekly" update in the January 2 and January 9 columns. The January 16 column billed itself as a "regular" column. Of course, it was the last one submitted. When humans get that "regular" they usually need an enema. Look, maybe as an individual you don't always like what appears in FidoNews. But this is YOUR publication. YOU decide what appears in it through YOUR submissions. If you don't like the signal to noise ratio, submit something with a high signal level and its presence in the newsletter will help keep that ratio closer to where you'd like it. At this point, then, FidoNews seems to have reached a very important cusp. We need this open and widely distributed forum. The *C's want something that stays a bit closer to the center of things. As yet there has been no real consensus among the *C's on any course of action, and this means that the time is right for you to be heard on this issue. If you agree that FidoNews should belong to ALL of us, then you had damned well better get off your gluteus maximus and write a note to your coordinator saying just that. Then, while you're in a writing mood, how about submitting an article? ================================================================= EDITORIAL ================================================================= This is my last Editorial. I have resigned as FidoNews Editor. We are currently working our way through a "short list" of replacement candidates, and the new Editor will be on the job next week. Be kind to the poor soul. I've just been looking though the indexes for the past two years. It's really amazing what we have been through. It's even more amazing that we are still here to talk about it. For example, when I took over Dale's job as Editor, the current version of FidoNet Policy was Version 3. David Dodell was the current International Coordinator. IFNA was still trying to figure out what, if anything, could be made of its existence. I was running my system on a DEC Rainbow. It worked great, too. A few other hardy souls were doing similar things on Sanyo and Tandy PC's (the ones from before Tandy became the PC-Clone hawker FIDONEWS 13-36 Page 14 2 Sep 1996 that they are today). Hardly anyone is doing THAT any more! POLICY4 was declared to be in force in FidoNews Volume 6, Number 24, on June 12, 1989. This created a stir because in the absence of a formal procedure in POLICY3 for replacement, David used the method described in the POLICY4 draft to determine whether he should declare it to be in force. Boy, what a stir! There was that article in Volume 6, Number 26, entitled "Policy 4: FidoNet now a Nazi Dictatorship?". To the best of my knowledge nobody has been gassed or blitzed (except metaphorically) in the almost two years since. David quit at the end of July. I quit two weeks later, then changed my mind (with some coercion from friends). It was an exciting time to be the Editor. Because the Great IFNA Mandate Plebiscite was taking place. This was IFNA's final answer to the people who had claimed that the simple majority who chose IFNA were not representative. The voting rules were simple: if you were in the nodelist running a public access system, you were eligible. And a majority of all eligible nodes was required to endorse IFNA. If IFNA won the election, the critics would be silenced forever. And in a high stakes gamble, IFNA agreed to disband if not ratified. Did IFNA ever have a chance? Was it the right idea? Who really can say anymore? In any event, apathy won the election and IFNA was out, as reported in FidoNews Volume 7, Number 1. As I look back to 1989, what's really fascinating is that Pablo Kleinman was already at work on Worldpol in the immediate aftermath of the Policy4 adoption. And he's still at it. He is showing signs of getting it right, too. It's just going to take some more time. Remember Hurricane Hugo? Remember what it did to Mike Ratledge and many others in his area? FidoNet reached out and touched him in a very special way, and FidoNews was there, starting with an article in Volume 6, Number 39 entitled "Let's give Mike Ratledge a hand". One of our finest hours. I am proud to have been here to see it. FidoNews has had its critics too. There was an article in Volume 6, Number 40 entitled "FidoNews: What IS Its Purpose ?". I have my own ideas about that. Fortunately for my peace of mind, it will soon be someone else's problem to define that role. When the Internetwork Gating Policy was published, there was a lot of comment. Mostly negative. I think (speaking as one of the people who had some input in the process) that if the criticism was directed at alternative solutions to the problems addressed in the Policy rather than direct attacks on the entire idea of HAVING such a document, we might have accomplished something. As things stand, the original document is still in force but not strongly enforced. In other words "If you want to connect to FidoNet, you could refer to this document and get it FIDONEWS 13-36 Page 15 2 Sep 1996 right -- or just do it any old way". Sigh. What happened to the idea of you don't go wee-wee in my garden and I won't go poo-poo in yours? We at FidoNews had a great moment in everyone's spotlight too. The way things were progressing, it was getting really hard to attract your attention anymore. But we found a way. On July 30, 1990 lots of you woke up to find FidoNews sitting on your system in a file compressed with LHARC. Yup, you sure DID notice. I think it was probably the most popular topic in FidoNews that year. Even with the late start. It really pissed off Saddam Hussein too. In less than a week he had taken over Kuwait in an attempt to capture the responsible parties. After being told that the dirty deed had been done by an American, he is reported to have said "An American? OK. I'll wait here for him." I never made it over there. A lot of very brave folks did. And they did a great job. FidoNet was involved too, in its own unique way. An article in FidoNews Volume 7, Number 45 announced "The Saudi Connection". Numerous articles about the war were published. A healthy exchange of opinions ensued. People were engaged. It was great. We had ZC, RC and EC elections in Zone 1 and elsewhere, as the idea of democracy flowered in the Net. Then of course we had the great turnout in the Worldpol ratification vote. Electing NC's is an idea whose time has come. It should be easier to throw out the old slugs than it presently is. I sure wish I knew where FidoNet is going these days. The only consolation I have is that nobody knows. If anybody tells you that he or she DOES know, you can safely call that person a liar. Boy, there are some great memories here. And some not so great memories. It's been a lot of fun. But I won't miss it. I'll be too busy with other things. Well, maybe I will miss it. But I promise not to make a scene. Best regards, Vince ----------------------------********----------------------------- Tom Jennings [again] and Tim Pozar: FidoNews 8-22 Page 1 3 Jun 1991 ====================================================================== EDITORIAL ====================================================================== Times they are achangin' by Tom Jennings, Editor (1:1/1) FIDONEWS 13-36 Page 16 2 Sep 1996 As you may have noticed, Vince Perriello has stepped down from editorship of FidoNews. Tim Pozar & I have taken over as editors on pretty short notice. We are about to make some substantial changes we feel have been necessary for a long time. Some have already been implemented. The editorial policy was and still is "we publish anything". But what that meant was, on any subject. This is an unusual editorial policy, but one that I felt was important to the net back in 84 when this all started, and I think it is still important. In the intervening years, there were two major directions it could have gone; the "well we can't have *THAT* in there ..." "and *THAT* wasn't what was meant by..." which is the usual route. Then there's the way it *did* go -- the harder route of an open policy. It is to the great credit of all of the editors that they decided what they did. The phrase for the problem (which I just discovered a while back) is the "slippery slope". Once you start down it, there is no way to turn back and no way to tell when to stop. To make it crystal clear -- the "rule" that would keep out "controversial" christian articles would be the same "rule" that would prevent homo-anarchist articles (for instance :-) -- and eventually anything else not lowest-common-denominator. FidoNews is *not* an L.C.D. trade rag. It has no pretense towards an Industry newsletter. It is by and for FidoNet sysops, users and other people we consider "members", and I can tell you plain that FidoNet is not a monolith, the diversity is incredible and only our institu- tional policies prevents this from being clearer. FidoNews, like FidoNet, was an experiment, and I believe we can all be proud of it's success -- for all the flaming, ill will and trouble we go through, we have one of the most reliable, resilient and *fiercely independent* organizations on the planet. I wouldn't have it any other way! It is not supposed to be easy -- convenience is not a good goal. So the policy remains in effect with one change -- there is a minimal writing standard, for clarity, not content -- that articles must meet, to ensure that they are intelligible to someone other than its author. The article-submission guidelines file, ARTSPEC.DOC, has been revamped, and is included in this issue of FidoNews as an article. The various "departments" of FidoNews will also be changed. "Column" type articles are no more; you must submit each one separately. Notices, sale items and want-ads will be converted into a more general "classifieds" section in the near future. The format for FidoNews will change further. The current format is one of those things I did in 1984 that is today very puzzling -- an electronic newsletter designed to be copied to a printing device! It is nearly impossible to read online. It is wasteful of space, on both disk and printer. The left margin alone (now gone) accounted for 10% of its size. The tentative goal is to keep FidoNews under 100K bytes FIDONEWS 13-36 Page 17 2 Sep 1996 in size. We will be actively soliciting articles from people with interesting perspectives in FidoNet and the world beyond on issues and problems that face us as a network in the real world. Though we are accommodating access to/from other networks such as the Internet and uucp, FidoNews will remain 100% a FidoNet newsletter. Some time later this year, the format of FidoNews will be plain text without pagebreaks, long dash lines and formfeed characters. End-of- section markers will be ASCII characters. It will then be readable online. All computer systems today have a way to "pretty print" ASCII text files, so that is no longer a valid reason. Sorry for the terse editorial, we're under a severe time limit to learn the software, file conventions and to get an issue out on time. By next week things will be under more control, and we can get down to the business at hand -- communicating, instead of talking about the communications device! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- I guess you noticed that there are new names for the "Editors" on the Masthead. One you may recognize as the "papa" of this mess, Tom Jennings. Well, I'm the other name. My name may be associated with another mess, the linking of FidoNet to a network called UUCP and a conferencing system called USENET. (*) Which brings up the point of this essay. FidoNet users and sysops, for the most part, are not aware that there are other networks out there. We tend to be a bit ethnocentric in our views of the networking world. With the advent of gateways into other networks from RBBS-NET to non- fidonet based technologies like UUCP, USENET, and the Internet, we need to be more aware of other customs and technologies. (For example, not everyone can display the IBM-PC character set, or perhaps we should look at the method of our network addressing so it is easier to send and receive mail from these other networks. We'll look at these things in later issues.) To this end, we hope to include more articles that are not only related to FidoNet, but to networking and communications as a whole. This is not to say that FidoNews will loose it's FidoNet flavor, we just want to give the readership an idea on what else is out there, and include what Sysops and Users may have some interest in. For instance, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Inc. (EFF) is working to educate folks (lawyers, law enforcement, policy makers, sysops, hackers, and crackers) about the hysteria and misinformation that our government and law enforcement agencies seem to be going through and trying to spread about electronic communications. Our basic civil rights are being affected due to the ignorance of these agencies. The EFF is also supporting many of those affected by paying or helping with legal costs. On other subjects, how many know of the resources that are available via the Internet? There are a number of "News" services that can add FIDONEWS 13-36 Page 18 2 Sep 1996 value to your BBS. There are archives that will easily shadow the biggest FidoNet archive sites. We just can't hide our head in the sand with all of the potential that FidoNet can be, and the threats to FidoNet from the ill informed. Tim Pozar Fido: 1:125/555 Internet: pozar@lns.com --- * I'm not the only one to blame here. John Galvin, Garry Paxinos and I co-wrote the code, and a host of others like David Dodell and Randy Bush tested it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 10-09 Page 1 1 Mar 1993 ====================================================================== EDITORIAL ====================================================================== Editorial: Bye bye!! (boo hoo!) Well this is it, my final editorial. Next week's will be edited by Silvia Maxwell and Don Tees. Say hi to them. (Hi!) Today is a momentous day for me. I'm moving into a new apartment this very day, tomorrow my phone lines get swapped over. As soon as I finish this, I have to pack more boxes and drag 'em over. We're moving from out in the boonies to the heart of the Mission; 16th St between Mission and Valencia. The three little holes in my windows turned out to be bullet holes! (22 or 25 cal.) The glass is double-paned, and I was able to locate the trajectory. Later, I pull down the shade, and there's matching holes! Yipes! Oh well, instead of a 45 minute walk to the cafe, it's about 120 seconds, a vast improvement. No more do I have to pay $1 for a bus, down on the corner I can buy a "late nite" (daily bus transfer) for 25 cents! ("I love, livin' in the city!" -- FEAR) I digress. Oh, probably there'll be small mistakes made, but be helpful and nice. Our new editors have to decipher my 4DOS batch files, and generate a newsletter that's at least recognizable and somehow get it to 1:13/13. In a week. I look forward to seeing what changes they make. I failed to keep one promise, that of revamping the newsletter format from "line printer" format to online readable. I really blew the "Ask EFF!" project, though Shari Steele is hanging in there raring to go. Think back on all the little wars we've had... Zone 2 hassles... Z1C "process" or lack of... POLICYx... encryption... I'm begging off just in time to miss the "Caller ID" wars -- YAY!!! (You know it's time to FIDONEWS 13-36 Page 19 2 Sep 1996 leave when...) It's been fun, really!! Even the hard parts I learned a lot, about taking my lumps when necessary, and staying the hell out of local squabbles. So ta-ta, I'll see you out in the cloud... My BBS is going to go offline for a while, probably a month or two, starting this week. I will have an email address however, but it's on the Internet. It's tomj@fido.wps.com My old DOS machine is now running 386BSD and directly connected to the internet. In itself an interesting story, and one you'll probably see in these pages and BOARDWATCH magazine. Anyways -- you can email me from FidoNet, via certain FidoNet nodes flagged "GUUCP". Those are UFGATE sites, that have one foot each in FidoNet and Internet. There's a bunch of then. The way it works is you send a message to one of those FidoNet addresses, with certain magicwords placed within the message itself, that the UFGATE software detects. These are: the "to:" field being the single word UUCP. The VERY FIRST line of the message formatted exactly as: to: tomj@fido.wps.com With at least one completely blank line following it. After that, put your real message. Make sure you have the address (ie. the to: line embedded in the message body) correct, otherwise your message won't make it. -------------------------------*********------------------------------ Sylvia Maxwell and Don Tees: FidoNews 10-10 Page: 2 07 Mar 1992 ====================================================================== Editorial ====================================================================== Hello World. Brand new green editors here. No editorial policy at all... just anarchy. I used to have a dream about how network communications would free people from visually, geographically and aurally enforced stereotypes like age, gender, nationality, class... but upon reflection of mail this dream seems tame and lame. The image of "everyone in the room, more or less armed to the teeth, and no casualties" (thank you Tom Jennings) seems more generative and fun. Electronic word travel enables a grand experiment in reductio ad absurdum of normal human contact that might fly anywhere willed by any one of us. It has been a hectic week. Getting software to generate the news set up, arranging passwords and paths for distribution, and setting up an internet gateway so that we can get flames from FIDONEWS 13-36 Page 20 2 Sep 1996 all directions. I think that everything is ready to go, but will apologize in advance for the inevitable teething pains. Please note the new addresses. Last but not least, we would like to thank Tom Jennings for his immense contribution to this medium, and say "well done". We hope, Tom, that we will be seeing contributions in the future (after a well deserved rest, of course ). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 13-18 Page: 2 29 Apr 1996 ====================================================================== Editorial ====================================================================== Once again, there are no articles in the inbound. I think, perhaps, that the writer of a few weeks back was correct. I think that perhaps I should resign this post. I would welcome letters suggesting a new editor. ----------------------------************------------------------------ Christopher Baker: FidoNews 13-23/24/25/26/27 Page: 2 3 Jun - 1 Jul 1996 ====================================================================== Editorial ====================================================================== The last issue of FidoNews published by Donald Tees appeared on 27 May 96 [Issue 1322]. Since then nothing has been heard from the former Editor. This issue is a manual composite comprising Issues 23 through 27 for the sake of numbering continuity and historical reference. [see Header] FidoNews is now edited by yours truly from 1:374/14, Rights On!, in Titusville, FLorida, USA. The Nodelist adjustment to the FidoNews listing will appear in NODELIST.194 next Friday [12 Jul 96]. In the meantime, you may wish to set a temporary override for 1:1/23 to reflect the following telephone number: 407-383-1372. Flag override should be: CM,H14,V32B,XA as well. FidoNews submissions may be made to 1:1/23 as before or to my Internet address: cbaker84@digital.net. Submission standards are available in the file ARTSPEC.DOC from this system anytime except Zone 1 ZMH [0900-1000 UTC/GMT]. ARTSPEC.DOC has also been sent to every Zone Coordinator for distribution down the chain. Submissions made as Netmail or email require manual processing so allow more lead time for the issue in which you wish to have it appear. FidoNews Issue 28 will put the standard numbering and submission processing back on track for 1996 [Vol. 13]. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 13-29 Page 1 15 Jul 1996 ================================================================= EDITORIAL ================================================================= FIDONEWS 13-36 Page 21 2 Sep 1996 FidoNet has come a long way since it began over twelve years ago. But how far has it come lately? There hasn't been any discernable movement toward selecting an International Coordinator [IC] from the current field of 6 Zone Coordinators [ZC]. Are we ever going to get one and move along in the areas of Policy and Standards? As our guest editorial indicates, we don't even have regular updates from the other Zones for the master Nodelist. Where are the diffs [Nodelist difference files] from Zones 2-6? Are they getting ours from Zone 1? This still is an INTERNATIONAL hobby, isn't it? Are there any reports from the FTSC [FidoNet Technical Standards Committee] on the state of our Standards? Updates to our practices? Presumably, software authors are still at it and things have changed in the last couple years, yes? Hello, out there! Here's your vehicle for spreading your news. How about some chiming in from the ZCs and FTSC Chair? What gives? Talk to us! CB NOTE: This Issue contains ALL the new sections available. Some of them may just be dummy files to show their locations and use. ARTSPEC.DOC has been updated to include them. Also see the FIDONEWS Echo for details. All sections will not appear in all Issues depending on what is submitted. ----------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 13-36 Page 22 2 Sep 1996 ================================================================= REVIEWS ================================================================= Six Mail Processors Reviewed [III] Damian Walker, 2:2502/666 This is the third article in my six-part series looking at the capabilities of various mail processors. The first and second articles were about FastEcho and GEcho, and in this article I progress to FMail. A full feature table for all six mail processors will be included in the sixth and final article of the series. FMAIL Fmail is a mail processor written by Folkert J Wijnstra of 2:283/619. The version reviewed in this article is FMail/X 1.02. Unlike the versions of FastEcho and GEcho under review, this version of FMail is optimised for 386 processors and above, and so will be faster (the 386 test machine) than an 8086 version. Please take this into account when looking at the speed ratings. Versions for OS/2 and 8086 DOS machines are also available. First Impressions Upon first unpacking FMail, its compactness is noticeable. One could be forgiven for thinking that FMail might be underfeatured when looking at the size of its archive (if one judges a package by such things, that is). While FMail doesn't have the exhaustive range of features possessed by FastEcho and IMail, it certainly couldn't be described as under-featured. The manual seems rather small at 54 pages. Although you would expect the manual to be smaller than that for larger packages such as FastEcho, comparing it to GEcho's manual of around 100 pages shows that this might be a cause for adverse comment. But this is without taking the content of the manual into consideration-- size isn't everything. Looking at the directory of newly unpacked files we see that FMail contains a full-screen setup utility (FSETUP.EXE or FSETUPX.EXE), so configuration by those who do not like editing text files will not be a problem. On Further Examination... The first interesting thing to point out about FMail is that it doesn't support *.MSG areas for echomail. This will probably not be counted against FMail by most sysops, as echomail is rarely held as *.MSG areas on a DOS machine. Squish is not supported either, but the common Hudson and JAM areas are both supported, so while FMail's coverage of area types isn't fully comprehensive, it is enough for most needs. FMail's setup program offers a nice interface in the usual Fidonet program style. The only thing lacking is an on-line help system, so if you're not using a multitasking machine and you want to look something up, you will have to exit FSETUP, and re-load it again FIDONEWS 13-36 Page 23 2 Sep 1996 afterwards (hoping you can remember whatever it was you looked up). Needless to say, some form of on-line help would be an improvement, even if it was only a manual viewer like that used by GEcho. Like most of the other programs reviewed here, FMail includes its own areafix manager, allowing downlinks to fix into echoes and automatically forwarding requests to an uplink if necessary. Unfortunately it lacks the 'import description' facilities of GEcho and FastEcho, so if you wish to set up a large number of areas manually, you will need to find and type their descriptions individually. FMail has a feature which automatically adds areas to the configuration files for itself and other software. Rather than being added on the fly as FastEcho does it (