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Chaos Corner V02 N03 24 March 1992 This is likely to be a little shorter than the regular Chaos Corner ... we are just preparing to depart today for a speaking engagement and will not return for several weeks. Operating, as we do, under the rule of "if it weren't a crisis, I wouldn't be doing it" (note the use of the subjunctive mood -- German grammar is sooo much fun!) we have spent the last week updating foils (and converting them from Word-for-Windows to Aldus Persuasion), and preparing the 20 page written document for the conference proceedings. Of course, it all could have been done a month ago, but it wasn't a crisis then! -------------------------------------------------- SMTP mailers Shelia Patterson in CIT's Systems Programming Services guessed that Gary Buhrmaster requested his copy of Chaos Corner Volume 1 by using a "standard" trick. The SMTP mailers that route these files across the Internet don't just talk to each other; they also will talk to any human using 'telnet' to talk to the TCP/IP port the mailer uses. All this means is that you can 'telnet' to any mailer and give it any old interesting file you want (like sending a friend a personal mail file from our fearless leader). This explanation should not encourage any of you to try this, but it should lead you to suspect "strange" mail files -- if you get a mail file that you question, check with the sender, it may have been forged! Dr. Chaos has heard of a user at one site receiving a mail file from the system operator telling him he was using too much CPU time (not sent by the operator at all). -------------------------------------------------- Mail time and bound copies of Chaos Corner Volume 1 The trick that Gary used to get his request for Chaos Corner volume 1 sent before the deadline was to set the date and time back by several days when he had test time one Sunday morning on the 3090-200J. Remember, bound copies of volume 1 are still available at the CIT Help Desk for cost (3 Dollars), or you can get the document via FTP from pelican.cit.cornell.edu in the /pub directory. Look for files ccv01.ps and ccv01.text for the PostScript and text versions, respectively. (But you won't get it bound with the beautiful covers designed by graphics artist 'Tomass Boggass'.) -------------------------------------------------- Chaos Corner distribution problems Dr. Chaos apologizes for some confusion in the distribution of the last several issues of Chaos Corner. There have been some problems with delivery to VM/CMS-Bitnet sites and also problems with readers from Bitnet sites sending requests to chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu. At first, we thought the problem was with the SMTP mailer on the VM/CMS systems ... sorry to say, it (at least partially) was a problem with the sendmail.cf on pelican.cit.cornell.edu. After only a couple of hours of comparing sendmail.cf files from various systems, we were able to deduce the fix and update pelican. We hope this distribution will go OK ... because if it isn't, we're not going to be around to fix it. Any files that are mentioned below can be requested by sending mail to chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu. Note that the response is handled in person by Dr. Chaos so it is possible to give a more-than- one-word description of the file you want. (We get some requests that are just a little too terse -- do you think that we REMEMBER what we write?) -------------------------------------------------- Germany and German A discussion list started recently dedicated to German History from 900 to 1992. Dr. Chaos reports many discussion threads ranging from the current neo-Nazi movement to feelings between Protestants and Catholics. The list is fairly active and the postings are primarily in English. If you are interested, send mail to listserv@uscvm.bitnet with the single line 'subscribe germhist <your-name>'. Dr. Chaos reports that he also has copies of the regular postings for Netiquette, Emily Postnews Antworten, and a Glossary of English acronyms (FTP, etc.) explained in German. It's too bad that the local SCOLA channel on TV carries the German news with a one week delay. Right now we are hearing about the nuclear accident near St. Petersburg from a Japanese news report (with English subtitles). -------------------------------------------------- X11 R5 Fix number 10 for X11 Release 5 is now available. Of course, the complete X11R5 distribution (and fixes) is available on pelican.cit.cornell.edu in the pub/X11R5 directory. Fix-10 cures about 30 problems, including some introduced by fix-09. -------------------------------------------------- Space - ftp site info The UseNet newsgroups sci.astro and sci.space have a regular (approximately monthly) posting of FTP sites where you can obtain a large amount of space-research related material. Items include images, solar reports, star data bases, and space shuttle updates (another successful launch today). Let Dr. Chaos know if you would like a copy of this list. -------------------------------------------------- Space, and the Flat Venus society From sci.space comes the report of the "Flat-Venus Society" -- anyone with even a low-power telescope can see that Venus is a flat disc, just like Earth, so this society is encouraging everyone to write their government representatives to urge them to uncover the fraud. -------------------------------------------------- Space Calendar Dr. Chaos also has a copy of the 1992 space calendar compiled by Ron Baalke at JPL. There is still time to prepare for the Lyrids Meteor Shower scheduled for April 21st. -------------------------------------------------- AIX Security advisory The Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) has issued an advisory of a security loophole in the RS/6000 version of AIX at service levels 3.1.6 and before. If you do not use the uucp utilities, then you should (from root) issue the following command: 'chmod 0100 /usr/bin/uucp', and if you do use uucp then call IBM (800-237-5511) for a fix to the problem logged as ix18516. -------------------------------------------------- AIXTIPS posted to comp.unix.aix Andreas Siegert of the IBM AIX Field Support Center in Munich regularly posts AIXTIPS to the comp.unix.aix newsgroup on UseNet,and aix-l on BITNET. Dr. Chaos finds that these contain useful information and has saved the last 5 issues. -------------------------------------------------- AIX Public Domain Software archive Dr. Chaos hopes you are all familiar with the AIX Public Domain Software Repository at UCLA. The source for many applications in a form already ported to AIX 3.1 is available on the machine AIXPDSLIB.SEAS.UCLA.EDU. Once you have connected via anonymous ftp, 'get' the README file. By retrieving the README file, you agree to abide by instructions contained therein, and in any additional files which the README file references (legal stuff). While the initial focus is the exchange of codes and ports that are running, or are in process, for the RISC System/6000; code that runs on mainframe AIX and AIX PS/2 will also be accepted. -------------------------------------------------- Gopher Developed at the University of Minnesota, Gopher clients and servers allow a user to perform a keyword search for information on the network and then easily retrieve that information by an appropriate access method. The definitive software and instructions for setting up clients and servers is on the machine boombox.micro.umn.edu in directory pub/gopher. Version 0.8 of the Unix software has just been announced, and clients exist for the Mac, Unix, VMS, NeXT, VM/CMS, PC-DOS, and X- Windows. -------------------------------------------------- WAIS Gopher is related to the Wide Area Information Server (WAIS) code developed and distributed by Thinking Machines Corporation and is available for anonymous FTP from think.com in the wais directory. The current version can be found in the file named wais-8-b4.tar.Z. WAIS includes indexing software that some people have reportedly used to index their saved mail files -- they can then easily do searches to find that missing but suddenly very relevent mail file. Dr. Chaos thinks that this may well prove to be the "magic bullet" to finally get us organized ... now if we could only get organized enough to get the software running on pelican ... Info -------------------------------------------------- Time Zone abbrevations Dr. Chaos reports collecting a file that contains a list of all the abbreviations for the various time zones, their offset from CUT (that's GMT for old fogies), and their English name. -------------------------------------------------- Internet Services List Of course, the updated Internet Service List gets even longer. Just a couple of items: you can telnet fedix.fie.com or telnet 192.111.228.1 (login fedix) to get information on scholarships, minority assistance, etc.; and if you telnet 130.44.1.100 (Login: e-math Password: e-math), the service is an Am. Math. Society sponsored bulletin board system with software and reviews. For any of you without FTP access, send mail to ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com Subject:(hit return) Body-of-letter: help (return) quit ... for information on how to access FTP sites through electronic mail. Well, we promised a short issue, so we must stop for now. Remember, for your own subscription or any of the files mentioned above, send you request to chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu. Dr. Chaos (I have a master's degree!)