F I D O N E W S Volume 18, Number 18 30 Apr 2001 +--------------------------+-----------------------------------------+ | The newsletter of the |Fido, Fidonet and dog-with-diskette are | | FidoNet community | Registered Trademarks of Tom Jennings | | Copyright through | San Francisco, California, USA | | 2007 | | | _ | Crash Netmail Attach Articles To: | | / \ | Editor@1:1/23 (1-972-562-8064) | | /|oo \ | flv@texoma.net | | (_| /_) | or | | _`@/_ \ _ | Frank Vest@1:124/6308 | | | | \ \\ | | | | (*) | \ )) | Editor: Frank Vest | | |__U__| / \// | | | _//|| _\ / | | | (_/(_|(____/ | | | (jm) | Newspapers should have no friends. | | | -- JOSEPH PULITZER | +--------------------------+-----------------------------------------+ Copyright 2001 by Frank L. Vest, Editor for Fidonews Globally. Table of Contents 1. FOOD FOR THOUGHT ......................................... 1 2. HEADLINE NEWS ............................................ 2 fidonet.org .............................................. 2 3. CHAT WITH THE EDITOR ..................................... 3 The New Fidonews Editor .................................. 3 4. GUEST EDITORIAL .......................................... 5 Echomail Censorship ...................................... 5 5. INTERVIEWS ............................................... 8 Interview with Rusty Johnson of JNS Doors ................ 8 6. FRANK'S COLUMN ........................................... 11 What do I need to run a Fidonet System? .................. 11 7. FIDONET WEB PAGE REVIEWS ................................. 13 Announcing "Fidonet International" ....................... 13 8. HUMOR IN A FIDO VEIN ..................................... 14 NoBlackfly - Is this debugging tool screening your mail .. 14 A satire of a message in the Z1_ROUTING echo ............. 17 9. COMIX IN ASCII ........................................... 19 !Hey Dude! ............................................... 19 10. CLEAN HUMOR & JOKES ..................................... 20 The Power of Acts 2:38 ................................... 20 11. CLASSIFIED ADS .......................................... 21 Rotating Ads ............................................. 21 12. QUESTION OF THE WEEK .................................... 22 Why not carry? ........................................... 22 13. FIDONET BY INTERNET ..................................... 23 Fidonet-related sites .................................... 23 14. FIDONEWS INFORMATION .................................... 27 How to Submit an Article ................................. 27 Credits, Legal Infomation, Availability .................. 28 FIDONEWS 18-18 Page 1 30 Apr 2001 ================================================================= FOOD FOR THOUGHT ================================================================= "You can please some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can't please _all_ of the people _all_ of the time". ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 18-18 Page 2 30 Apr 2001 ================================================================= HEADLINE NEWS ================================================================= fidonet.org The talk in the Fidonews Echo seems to be about the "fidonet.org" site. Many are the pros, cons and opinions of this. Here's a brief take of it. "fidonet.org" is owned by George Peace. That is clear from the Internet "lookups" of ownership. When trying to get to the "fidonet.org" site, there is a problem that seems to come up. At times, the site appears to be "passworded out" to all and gives some sort of "access denied" error. It's been argued that this is a DNS problem, a fault of George not updating or some fault of some server that isn't "up to date". The content of the site, when available, is another subject. Some seem to think that Ward, as IC, should be doing something about the content of the site. Others think that George should be fixing the "problems" in this, and the aforementioned area. The common agreement seems to be that there are problems. What seems to be missing is input from the IC and George Peace. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 18-18 Page 3 30 Apr 2001 ================================================================= CHAT WITH THE EDITOR ================================================================= The New Fidonews Editor Hello All, First. It was a sad day when I was informed last week, by Warren Bonner, that his eyesight was failing and he could no longer perform the duties of the Fidonews Editor. Warren asked me if I would take the position. I have agreed. Please join me in wishing the best for Warren. In introduction: Many of you already know or have heard about me. That could be good or bad. :-) At any rate, here we go. My name is Frank Vest. Vital stats, Age: 47 Married and a Grandfather. Fidonet - 1:124/6308(.1) E-Mail - flv@texoma.net Current occupation - Mr. Mom (that's not as easy as you think. :-) Let me start out by saying that I am not Warren Bonner. Nor am I Douglas Myers. I'll probably not fit the description of any former Fidonews Editor. I'm just me. I was asked by Warren, when he first became Editor, if I would take the Fidonews Editor position should he leave for whatever reason. I was reluctant then and I still think that I'm not the person for the job... but, I'll try my best to fill the position. I can't fill the shoes of any of the previous Editors, but I will do what I can. I take the production and Editorship of the Fidonews seriously. Tom Jennings wrote (paraphrased): `Fidonet is held together by two documents. The Nodelist and the Fidonews.' To me, that places the Fidonews Editorship as very important. I intend to have fun, but I will also try to do the best I can in the producing of the Fidonews. Some things to know about me in the Fidonews Editor position: I'll try to keep this short. :) The next Editor of the Fidonews will be chosen by me. My choice might not be accepted, but I'll at least make it clear. Now, Let me make this clear: I'm as proud of my Zone in Fidonet as anyone is of their Zone. I also realize and respect the pride of others in their Zone. I'll not choose a replacement based on my pride in my Zone. I'll choose based on who I think best, regardless of what Zone or Nation s/he is in! FIDONEWS 18-18 Page 4 30 Apr 2001 On other subjects: If you are interested in being the next Editor, let me know. The best way to let me know and prove to me that you will be a good Editor is to participate in the Fidonews. Help promote Fidonet and work for the good of Fidonet. That doesn't mean just posting in the Fidonews Echo. It means submitting articles and following the format for submitting articles. In other words, "Put your money where your mouth is". There will be some changes in the Fidonews while I'm Editor. I think they will be for the good. Here's a quick overview off the top of my head: My Fidonet Node is POTS only. You can crash Netmail to me. I will also be available at the 1:1/23 address so you can get submissions to me via crash mail at that address as well (I hope I can get this to work). I'm adding a short (compared to the artspec.doc) article to each edition giving some guidelines for submissions. The rules for the Fidonews Echo will change. You'll see this when I post them. :) Cut off time for submissions to the Fidonews will be midnight (that's 24:00 hours) on Saturday night according to _my_ clock. IOW, if your article hits my machine at 12:01, it will be in the next Fidonews. Get your submission(s) in early. I'll work on putting the edition together on Sunday and release it sometime Sunday evening or night. I'm working on a "rotating ad" setup that will allow those of you that offer Fidonet services to advertise on a rotating basis without having to submit your ad each week. More about this in another article. :) This is not all inclusive, but it is a start. Regards, Frank Vest - Fidonews Editor ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 18-18 Page 5 30 Apr 2001 ================================================================= GUEST EDITORIAL ================================================================= Echomail Censorship ******************* By: Michael A. Grant Dear Fidonet membership: Recent events in the distribution of echomail by the Z1B distribution system have revealed a disturbing practice that's apparently been going on for quite a while amongst some Top Level Hubs in the distribution system. First, a little background. The Z1B was formed out of disagreements and personality conflicts mainly between Bob Seaborn and John Souvestre, both of who were TLH's in the then-NAB distro system. John convinced a few other hubs to join with him in forming a new backbone distribution system, and thus the Z1B was formed. Recently, John Souvestre quit Fidonet, and two of the remaining three top-level mail hubs in the Z1B system felt the main reason for the distro systems being separated was gone, and decided to mesh with the two TLH's in the present NAB system. Prior to this occurring, a controversy arose in the Z1B around Dale Ross,the third TLH in the Z1B; and problems a moderator, Sean Rima, was having in getting his echos distributed in the Z1B. Sean had previously encountered no problems distributing his echos in the Z1B. However, since Dale had recently started using NoBogus, a program designed to catch dupes and undesirable messages, a large part of those echo's mail got stopped on Dale's system until Dale could manually inspect it. Dale then proceeded to publically brow-beat Sean over the technical standards that he had set up as a trap in his NoBogus config and was using to filter out Sean's messages with (the messages were gated from the internet). This prompted Sean to request his echos be removed from the Z1B system. In large part because of this fact, but also added to it the fact that Dale Ross had been elected spokesperson for the Z1B and a large number of the Z1B echomail hubs felt Dale was following his own personal agenda and was ignoring the concerns of those he was supposed to be representing, the other two TLH's who moved to mesh with the TLH's in the NAB did not invite Dale Ross to mesh with the top levels in the new distro system. Dale took this as a personal affront, and personally cut off several hubs (without any official vote being taken) from the Z1B's BACKSTAT.Z1B hub list. At the heart of the matter is NoBogus. Dale remains unapologetic for his use of it, and in fact continues to brag about adding new traps to make his system even more restrictive. This amounts to censorship, plain and simple. NoBogus is a powerful program, and has uses for mail filtering that go far beyond dupe detection and technical standards. Used in a malicious manner, it could be very damaging to a person a mail hub FIDONEWS 18-18 Page 6 30 Apr 2001 happens to dislike enough to use the program against, and it could single-handedly cause the demise of an echo. The program can stop an entire mail packet from passing through the hub's system if it finds *one* word, say, someone's name, in the text of the message body, in the to: or from: field, in the tear line, or in the origin line of any message. Ross Cassell states that he uses the program for dupe detection only. This is, in my opinion, a good use of the program, as it can effectively detect dupe loops and other dupes that get by some mailers/tossers. I have no reason to doubt his word, as he has shown himself to be trustworthy in my dealings with him, yet I am still uneasy about him using it, as the potential for abuse is still there. My opinion of NoBogus is that no TLH's should be running the program as a mail filter. Regardless of whether the mail is being deleted or merely held up until the user manually inspects the mail packets, it amounts to censorship of echomail, and in my opinion that goes against everything a mail hub is supposed to stand for. Mail hubs should simply move the mail in it's raw form, and leave any filtering to the individual sysops and the filtering programs, mailers and tossers *they* choose to run. Dupes are a valid concern, as mis-configured hubs can create them, and reasonable efforts to catch them should be made; however, further filters on the echomail for reasons *other* than dupe detection are IMO dishonorable in the practice of mail moving. Dale maintains that his system ought to be very strict in enforcing Fidonet technical standards. Unfortunately, much of the software that adheres to the present Fidonet technical standards has been long abandoned by it's authors, and sysops who are trying new ideas, such as allowing users to post messages from a website, may have trouble finding new, supported software that meets the technical standards and can perform the task. The end result of this is that many messages are finding their way into Fidonet while /not/ meeting the present technical standards. Dale Ross is filtering these messages. The FTSC is struggling at present to address issues such as Internet only nodes in the nodelist; these issues are long overdue, and the FTSC is far behind in keeping up with the times. This is hardly their fault; things are changing so rapidly in the electronic world around us, and we are sadly lacking as a group for people who have the desire and free time to help advance our hobby. The people on the commitee are capable, but can only give so much; they are doing their best, which is all we can hope for.