Volume 6, Number 20 15 May 1989 +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | _ | | / \ | | /|oo \ | | - FidoNews - (_| /_) | | _`@/_ \ _ | | International | | \ \\ | | FidoNet Association | (*) | \ )) | | Newsletter ______ |__U__| / \// | | / FIDO \ _//|| _\ / | | (________) (_/(_|(____/ | | (jm) | +---------------------------------------------------------------+ Editor in Chief: Vince Perriello Editors Emeritii: Dale Lovell Thom Henderson Chief Procrastinator Emeritus: Tom Jennings Contributing Editors: Al Arango FidoNews is published weekly by the International FidoNet Association as its official newsletter. You are encouraged to submit articles for publication in FidoNews. Article submission standards are contained in the file ARTSPEC.DOC, available from node 1:1/1. 1:1/1 is a Continuous Mail system, available for network mail 24 hours a day. Copyright 1989 by the International FidoNet Association. All rights reserved. Duplication and/or distribution permitted for noncommercial purposes only. For use in other circumstances, please contact IFNA at (314) 576-4067. IFNA may also be contacted at PO Box 41143, St. Louis, MO 63141. Fido and FidoNet are registered trademarks of Tom Jennings of Fido Software, 164 Shipley Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94107 and are used with permission. We don't necessarily agree with the contents of every article published here. Most of these materials are unsolicited. No article will be rejected which is properly attributed and legally acceptable. We will publish every responsible submission received. Table of Contents 1. EDITORIAL ................................................ 1 2. ARTICLES ................................................. 2 FidoNews Editorial Policy ................................ 2 Palindrome Archives -- A Product review .................. 7 FidoNet and Policy4 ...................................... 14 No-Code Packet Radio? (reprint) .......................... 23 What DOES a "reasonable sysop" do? ....................... 26 Wilderness Echo .......................................... 31 3. COLUMNS .................................................. 32 The Veterinarian's Corner: Feline Skin Diseases .......... 32 And more! FidoNews 6-20 Page 1 15 May 1989 ================================================================= EDITORIAL ================================================================= This is turning into a narcotic. Now that I have written something up here and people are sending me mail and responses, I am really getting INTO it. Last week you might have noticed that I was concerned about whether the *C's were going to take any concrete actions to deal with their perceived FidoNews problem. Since writing that editorial I have received sufficient information to believe that they ARE going to take action: they are going to help me increase the "signal" content of FidoNews. In fact, Steve Bonine was kind enough to compose and submit a response to my editorial, which I am printing this week (along with one other). Since much of the controversy seems to have centered on a particular column, it probably would be worthwhile at this point for me to state my intentions towards this column. I intend to run the remaining submissions. Unless I then receive some very strong indication that this column has enjoyed wide readership and interest, I will print no further submissions for this column. So it's up to YOU to determine if you want to read ANIMED excerpts in FidoNews, or if you'd rather just subscribe to the Echomail conference from which all this data was extracted. In future weeks I expect to have assembled a series on FidoNet history, using materials I've solicited from Ken Kaplan and a few others. In many cases, some of you "old-timers" might have seen the material I'll be printing, but you're vastly outnumbered by those members of FidoNet who have not had this opportunity. As always, this is YOUR newsletter. It's only as good as YOU make it. Let's make it GREAT. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 6-20 Page 2 15 May 1989 ================================================================= ARTICLES ================================================================= Steve Bonine 115/777 My Opinion on FidoNews Editorial Policy I feel compelled to respond to Vince's recent editorial on FidoNews editorial policy, since I was (and still am) one of the RC's who raised questions concerning the content of FidoNews. Why do I care? There are two reasons. First, I spend my own money to distribute FidoNews to NC's in region 11. Second, I feel that FidoNet needs a means of distributing information to the sysops throughout the network, and that FidoNews has pretty much lost its effectiveness as that vehicle because of a lack of a reasonable editorial policy. (I'm not criticizing Vince; his hands are tied.) Vince left the impression in his editorial that the RC's are trying to restrict free speech. I'm a firm believer in free speech, but I'm not particularly eager to spend my own money shipping data around that no one is going to read. What is Fido- News, anyway? Is it an important forum -- the last bastion of available distribution mechanisms for opinion? No. FidoNews is the newsletter of the FidoNet BBS network. It's actually the newsletter of an organization called the IFNA, but that organization seldom graces its pages with any IFNA-related information, and rumor has it that IFNA is trying its best to divorce itself from FidoNet. The print-anything policy is an idea whose time is past. There are probably a hundred echomail conferences which have higher readership than FidoNews. If I want to find out about fleas, I am perfectly capable of getting the ANIMED conference myself. Why should the RC's and NC's have to spend their money distributing articles on fleas to an audience which contains only a miniscule number of people who want to read that information? If I want to exercise my freedom of speech, I'll do it where someone might read what I write -- in a forum of people with similar interests. It's not like we are short of echomail conferences! The fact that there are probably a hundred echomail conferences with higher readership than FidoNews is an indication of how bad the problem is. Before echomail, most sysops read FidoNews because that's all there was. Now it has competition, and it's not doing well against that competition. All of which brings us to the question of what to do now. Actually, I agree with much of what Vince says in his editorial. He points out that there is a low signal-to-noise ratio, and that we need more good articles. That's true. But there are two ways FidoNews 6-20 Page 3 15 May 1989 to improve the signal-to-noise ratio: increase the signal, or reduce the noise. I feel that FidoNews needs both. Not only do we need more good articles, but we need a responsible editorial policy to reduce the extraneous junk. I would rather have a FidoNews with one good article, and that's all, than have the same article plus five fillers. It's less for me to distribute, and it's more likely that the sysops of FidoNet will read it. If FidoNews were judged on bulk, then we would have no problem. I think that FidoNews could be improved by the simple application of a common-sense editorial policy to restrict the content to FidoNet-related material. No one is going to have their freedom of speech abridged -- I bet the ANIMED conference will survive just fine without a weekly column in FidoNews. Readership would improve, and subsequently more articles would be submitted. But I recognize that I'm in the minority, so I will content myself with living with the situation, and hoping that eventually the problem improves. In the meantime, I've done my part. Where's YOUR FidoNews article? ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 6-20 Page 4 15 May 1989 Freedom of the Press: An opposing viewpoint Jack Decker 1:154/8 Freedom of the Press: An opposing viewpoint In FidoNews Volume 6, Number 19, our esteemed Editor in Chief (Vince Perriello) editoralized on Freedom of the Press. I am not being sarcastic when I use the word "esteemed" in reference to Vince, since he has probably done more to help Fidonet than at least 95% of the people in the net. Vince has made some major contributions to our hobby, and I value his opinions highly, even if I don't always agree. Vince basically espoused the viewpoint that FidoNews should remain "a free and open public forum in which any of us can share anything we consider important with anyone else." As Vince points out, the present content of FidoNews "often has little or nothing to do with the day-in, day-out nonsense involved in being a member of Fidonet." Let's take a moment to consider what "Freedom of the Press" really means. If we can, let's take a look at the real world, outside of Fidonet. If I submit an article on raising African Violets to the editor of Radio-Electronics magazine, is he under any obligation to print it? Of course not! All right, let's suppose I send the editor of that publication an article that IS somehow related to Radio or Electronics? Is he then under any obligation to print it? The answer is still NO! As a matter of fact, "Freedom of the Press" does not require ANY publication to print ANY article they receive (even if they print a correction or retraction to a previous story, it's not because of "Freedom of the Press", it's because they don't want to be sued for things like libel or slander!). Similarly, FidoNews is under no legal obligation to print everything received. That's an editorial decision. What "freedom of the Press" really means is that if you don't like the way a particular publication is doing things, you have the freedom to start your own, competing publication. In theory, the government is not allowed to shut you down because they don't happen to agree with the contents of your publication. In fact, the scope of "Freedom of the Press" is pretty much limited to government interference with private publications (some of you may recall when the old Bell System was able to legally suppress nearly the entire distribution of one issue of "Ramparts" magazine back in the 60's, because Bell objected to an article in that issue detailing how to build a "black box." The comment was made that had Ramparts similarly figured out through their own efforts how a top secret Navy submarine works, the government would have been quite powerless to stop them from publishing those details, unless they could somehow prove that the information had been stolen from government files). FidoNews 6-20 Page 5 15 May 1989 The problem with a "print everything received" policy is that it leaves the door wide open for any particular group to usurp FidoNews as their soapbox. Now, I happen to feel that such a policy is very valuable when the article has something to do with Fidonet, computers, or communications. But there are lots of other subjects that folks might write on, and that sysops (even at the *C level) might object to. A few examples, just to get you thinking: * An article extolling the benefits of being a member of the Ku Klux Klan (if you were a black sysop, would you really want to carry that?) * An article soliciting members for a worldwide neo-Nazi party, and promoting a private echo called "NAZI" for the dissemination of information on that movement (if you were Jewish, would you feel comfortable with this?) * An article describing the joys of sex with animals in the most graphic terms possible (with extremely foul language), and inviting everyone to try it (If you have kids and/or pets, would you be comfortable with such an article? Would you want your children to read it on your BBS?). * Articles promoting various religions (not yours) promising anything from bad luck to eternal damnation to those who do not follow the tenets of that religion (an interesting side note to this: After the Tom Jennings article that started much of the present controversy, I suggested to previous FidoNews editor Dale Lovell that now someone might write a "hell fire and brimstone" article giving the Biblical injunctions against homosexuality (yes, there are some verses that condemn the practice). Dale replied that an article like that would probably NOT be published in FidoNews. This makes me wonder if the "print everything" policy really translates to "print everything that the FidoNews editor doesn't find repugnant." The problem there is that if the FidoNews editor can censor articles that he personally finds objectionable, why can't the *C's that are forced to distribute FidoNews do the same? Either we have a true "print everything received" policy or we don't... and if we don't, we should stop pretending we do, and get on with defining just where the limits are!). The major problem I see with a "print everything" policy is that *C's are forced by Policy to distribute FidoNews to the nodes underneath them. This would make sense IF FidoNews was primarily a technical journal dealing with things relating to Fidonet. The problem occurs when we force sysops to distribute material that is objectionable to their standard of ethics or sense of decency. Even newstand owners have the right to not carry magazines that they personally find objectionable (how many religious magazines do you find in adult bookstores, or vise versa?). But, in effect, Policy states that "we don't care if there's an article in FidoNews from a group advocating the death of you and your family... if the article gets into FidoNews, you HAVE to carry it, or step down as *C. Meanwhile, FidoNews 6-20 Page 6 15 May 1989 as I pointed out earlier, the FidoNews editor apparently has the discretion to omit articles that he personally finds objectionable (I do not know whether Vince uses this prerogative or not). If the editor's world view lines up with yours, you may not be uncomfortable with letting him have all the discretion over what YOU must pass out (if you're a *C), but otherwise, you may find that you're forced to pass along articles that are personally repugnant to you (or perhaps even dangerous to the health and well being of you and/or your family). Now, if the editor replies to this by saying he wouldn't print these types of truly objectionable articles, we still have a few problems. One is, what if he passes on an article that a *C finds truly awful? Is the editor's judgement better than that of the *C? Second, doesn't this give the editor the power to discriminate against certain articles and/or people that he doesn't happen to approve of (I'm just throwing that out for discussion, the truth is that EVERY "editor" has that power. The "print everything" policy really makes the FidoNews "editor's" job more that of a "compiler" of articles than a true "editor"). Third, if the editor really does delete objectionable articles, then we DON'T really have a "print everything" policy, in which case I would like to see some published guidelines, rather than just leaving everything to the personal preferences of the editor (if for no other reason than the fact that I don't want to waste the time and effort to write an article that will be rejected out of hand). I would suggest that at the very least, we modify the "print everything received" policy to say that we will "print everything received" AS LONG AS it has at least something to do with Fidonet, computers, or communications. Perhaps all the other types of articles should go into a separate, Fidonet "literary" publication that would be offered to the *C's (through the same distribution channels as FidoNews), but that the *C's would not be REQUIRED to carry (I suppose that idea is much too democratic for this net!). In any case, if the "print everything received" policy is NOT modified, then I feel that those *C's who object should not be forced to carry it. I would invite anyone who disagrees to show how "Freedom of the Press" REQUIRES someone to distribute literature that they are morally opposed to. Why should we require this of VOLUNTEER sysops in Fidonet? Here again, it seems that a few people are under the impression that Fidonet sysops are somehow their "employees" (that's being charitable, some might say "slaves") that can be dictated to by the higher-ups. The sooner we realize that Fidonet is a volunteer organization, and that you don't make unreasonable demands of volunteers, the better off we're all going to be. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 6-20 Page 7 15 May 1989 Palindrome Archives -- A Product review by Ben Baker -- 7:44/76 We have all heard the litany many times, "Back up your hard disk, or you'll regret it!" One of our favorite New Year's reso- lutions is "Do more back-ups!" The trouble is that backing up is such a painful exercise, we would much prefer to do something else! I know owners of tape systems (I was one of them) who do not perform back-ups as fre- quently as they should. True, you don't have to shuffle a stack of diskettes, and then keep track of them, but even backing up to tape is still largely a manual process, right? Wrong! Palindrome Corporation, a new company based in a Chicago suburb, saw a need and filled it. They market a line of "Tape Archiving Systems," as opposed to a tape back-up system. If you have experience in the main-frame world, you have probably heard the expression "tape archiving" before, but it's a new concept to PCs. Tape archiving is a strategy for backing up disk files in such a way as to provide maximum protection with minimum re- sources. It is a strategy you could employ with any back-up sys- tem -- disk or tape -- but it requires careful record keeping, and 'till now, you were the bookkeeper! Palindrome OEM's the tape drives. The key is their soft- ware, collectively called "The PERSONAL ARCHIVIST" or TPA, which fully understands tape archiving strategy. Believe me, it is so- phisticated stuff. Before I can explain how it works, I need to define some terms. A "tape set" is a coordinated set of tapes, treated as a unit by TPA. A "tape volume" is a single tape. For a system with one 20-meg disk, tape sets will all be single volume sets for some time, but for larger systems, a tape set might be two or more volumes. A "file set" is a collection of files written from a disk drive to tape in a single archiving operation. There are two kinds of file sets. A "save set" is a permanent file set, and a "checkpoint set" is a temporary file set. As you might guess, "saving a file" means including that file in a save set, and "checkpointing a file" means including it in a checkpoint set. A file is "fully protected" if the current version appears in save sets in three different tape sets. (This number is configurable, but three is recommended, and certainly adequate for most circum- stances.) A "tape rotation" is the changing from one tape set to an- other. This is usually done once a week. With the usual number of five tape sets, call them A, B, C, D and E, the tape rotation schedule for a 16-week period would look like this: E D E C E D E B E D E C E D E A FidoNews 6-20 Page 8 15 May 1989 The schedule then repeats indefinitely. Remember I said it requires careful record keeping? The beauty is that TPA keeps track of it all -- painlessly. Notice from the schedule: Tape Set Frequency of use A once in 16 weeks B once in 16 weeks C once in 8 weeks D once in 4 weeks E every other week This means that if you muff things horribly, you have not only current checkpoints, and week-old checkpoints, but others dating back at least eight weeks and up to 16 weeks! And, using TPA's menu system, recovering an older version of a particular file is merely a matter of "point and shoot!" Now that's not merely back-up -- that's true archiving! What's more, save sets are never forgotten. Eventually you would have the capability of going back years into your save sets. Have you ever installed a new version of a program over the old, only to find out that the new version is very buggy? Or how about this. You wrote a C program a long time ago and someone has asked you to recompile it to use the math coprocessor. It should only take a couple of minutes. The trouble is that it was written for Lattice C, 2.47. Since then you converted to Lattice 3.0, then 3.1, then to Microsoft C 4.0 to 5.0 to 5.1. If you can find the old source, it won't be a trivial task just getting it to compile under your present compiler! Had you been using TPA, the old version of the program you lost might be on the tape in the tape drive. If not, it's surely right in front in your desk drawer. In two or three minutes, you've got it back. The old source file as well as version 2.47 of the Lattice compiler, with all its libraries and include files, are is save sets on older tapes -- you haven't the fogiest which ones. Run the TPA menu. They all show up as migrated files in the database. Select the ones you need -- oops, not enough space. Delete some files you don't need right this minute to make space, then have TPA restore the old files and their old directories. It will tell you what tape or tapes it needs. Then compile and test the program with the right compiler switch to generate coprocessor code. Finally delete the Lattice stuff, re- store your disk the way it was 45 minutes ago and press on! So what's all this about "saving" and "checkpointing?" Here's the philosophy. Stable files should be saved perma- nently. Volatile files should be written to temporary tape sets, or "checkpointed," but permanent saving might well consume enor- mous amounts of tape. How does TPA tell the difference? It uses file date and time stamps and the "archive bit" as any sane back- up system would. And it uses rules. Enter configuration. When you install TPA, it is pre-configured for one hard disk, your boot disk, three saves to fully protect a file, weekly FidoNews 6-20 Page 9 15 May 1989 rotations each Monday, and a default set of archiving rules. All of this may be changed through TPA's menu system. The following is a facsimile of TPA's configuration screen, published courtesy of Palindrome: ----------------------------------------------------------------- THE PERSONAL ARCHIVIST (c) Palindrome Corporation 1989 ----------------------------------------------------------------- Archive Configuration Schedule Archive Storage --------------------- --------------------- Archive ID: BAKER Save Copies: 3 Archive Rotation: SATURDAY Verify ECC: NO Automatic Start: 6:30a Auto Format: NO Automatic End: 7:00a Auto Migrate: NO Auto Intervals: 0 Leave Phantom: NO Auto Command: tpa2tape /a /q Media Type: QIC 40 Error Log: C:\tpa_log Concurrent DMA: NO Split Saves: NO Protected Drives Archive Retrieval --------------------- --------------------- Disk 1: C: (no label) Overwrite File: PROMPT Disk 2: D: (no label) Allow Redirect: YES Disk 3: E: (no label) ChkPt Password: NO Disk 4: F: (no label) Save Password: NO Tab to select. Enter to edit. F1 for help. Esc to return. ----------------------------------------------------------------- (Note that a fair amount of editing has been done to these screens to eliminate line-drawing characters, and to fit the 65- column format. Nevertheless, they are reasonably faithful.) All of the parameters in the above screen, except Media Type, are user configurable. TPA associates a "rule" with each and every file on your hard disk. The rules answer the questions "When should I check- point this file, when should I save it, and when is it eligible for migration?" (More on this in a bit.) There are two kinds of rules -- specific and generic. A specific rule applies to a par- ticular file. A generic rule applies to a class of files in the directory in which the rule is defined, and all its sub-directo- ries. Initially there is a rule for "*.*" in the root directory which says "checkpoint a file when it changes, save it if it has not changed in six weeks, and make it eligible for migration if it has not been used in 12 weeks. When more than one rule ap- plies to a file, the most specific rule is used. Any rule may be edited and new rules may be defined. For example, I use the edi- tor Brief, which places back-up copies of edited files in a spe- cial sub-directory. I have a rule for that subdirectory for FidoNews 6-20 Page 10 15 May 1989 "*.*" which says "Never checkpoint, never save and never mi- grate." TPA dutifully ignores any files in that subdirectory. I have a similar rule for "*.MSG" in the root of the drive which contains my BBS message base (these files are not only volatile, they change names frequently, and I have no desire to preserve them for posterity). The following screen facsimile shows a few of my rules and a few files with rules applied to them: ----------------------------------------------------------------- THE PERSONAL ARCHIVIST (c) Palindrome Corporation 1989 ----------------------------------------------------------------- Directory Tree Files in: \ for Drive C: Check Pt Save Migrate >\ LIST1 On Change After 6w After12w |-123 LIST2 On Change After 6w After12w |-BACKUP TPA_LOG Never Never Never |-BRIEF * .* On Change After 6w After12w | |-BACKUP JUNK* .* Never Never Never | |-HELP RUN .ARC On Change After 6w After12w | |-MACROS SYSTEMS .ARC On Change After 6w After12w | WIN2 .ARC On Change After 6w After12w ----------------------------------------------------------------- The left side of the display shows the directory tree with the root currently selected. Files and rules in the root direc- tory are listed on the right. What's all this about "migrating?" An optional, but very powerful feature of TPA, allows you to identify the files you don't use, and get them off your disk once they are fully protected! How? TPAWATCH, a TSR furnished with the TPA software watches file opens. It uses about 24K of memory and imposes very little overhead on normal operations. If a file hasn't been opened for the prescribed amount of time, it is deemed eligible for migration. Migration may be done at your di- rection, or TPA may be configured to do it automatically. TPAWATCH has a second optional function useful in many sys- tems (but not mine). It can schedule automatic archiving opera- tions at a pre-determined time of day. This is not terribly use- ful in a BBS environment, so I use SEAdog's event scheduler for this purpose. The following screen shows the current status of the archives as TPA sees it: ----------------------------------------------------------------- THE PERSONAL ARCHIVIST (c) Palindrome Corporation 1989 ----------------------------------------------------------------- Last Archive update: Checkpoint modified files. Using tape: BAKER_E1. Updated on: Mon Apr 10 05:34:41 1989 FidoNews 6-20 Page 11 15 May 1989 BAKER_E1 Summary: Percent Bytes Permanent saves: 0% 0 Reusable checkpoints: 24% 9,740,288 Unused: 71% 28,745,728 Next scheduled update: Modified checkpoint. Continue with tape: BAKER_E1. For next scheduled rotation: Sat Apr 15. You will need tape: BAKER_D1. Tapes on hand: BAKER_D1 BAKER_E1 You should have in vault: BAKER_A1 BAKER_A2 : BAKER_B1 BAKER_B2 : BAKER_C1 BAKER_C2 ----------------------------------------------------------------- You can tell from the information reported, that TPA is well aware of the situation. It tells me that I am doing modified checkpoints to the "E" tape set, and that I will rotate to the "D" set on Saturday. It even suggests which tape sets should be stored in a vault or at some off-site location. (I use off-site storage, and I don't agree with TPA's suggestion, since it would put all my save sets off-site, making a full restore impossible until I retrieve some tapes. But its heart is in the right place.) "So, how well does it work?" Installing the tape drive isn't difficult at all. There are two versions in the 40- and 80-meg capacities -- internal and ex- ternal -- and both go in according to the documentation without surprises. The software installation procedure is simple enough. You just insert the diskette and type "INSTALL." It asks which is your boot HD (you need a meg of space there), then it creates a TPA subdirectory, copies the files and initializes its database. It even offers to create a bootable recovery diskette for you. This is a good idea, since it isn't at all obvious how to do this later, but you need a pre-formatted, bootable diskette or a blank diskette ahead of time. The install program offers to format a bootable diskette for you, but if you decline, it won't copy the system files for you, and after it has copied its own files to the diskette, it's too late! The archiving rules can only be configured through TPA's menu system. For a four-partition disk system it's repetitive, time-consuming, and boring. They really need a method of editing the rules off-line with your favorite text editor. But you nor- mally only need to do it once. The menu approach is fine for later tweaking the rules as conditions change. Finally you're ready to start actually using the system. That's when I ran into serious problems. TPA had no end of trou- ble reading and writing my tapes. I spent several hours on the phone with Jim Gast of Palindrome (they are not shy about provid- FidoNews 6-20 Page 12 15 May 1989 ing customer support -- they're young and want satisfied cus- tomers), and more hours than I care to think about exercising the system. Once I had accumulated sufficient evidence, Palindrome,s engineers decided I must have received a "marginal" tape drive, and sent me a replacement. It appears they were right because I have had no problems with the new drive. The menu system is designed for easy use. For the most part it is, and should present no problem for the casual user. At the same time, it permits the more experienced user to get well down into the details. It is a little clunky in spots (like super- fluous "Strike any key to continue" messages in a few places), but I have no serious complaints with it. Most (but not all) functions may also be operated in batch mode without operator intervention. Day-to-day operations can be scheduled either by TPAWATCH, or in my case, by a SEAdog external event. I run checkpoints three times a week on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and it seems to take five to ten minutes. Creating the A, B and C sets took about 80 minutes each because it had to create my initial save sets, and copied every file I had to tape each time. After that, files more that six weeks old are "fully protected" and won't be written any more unless they change, so my Saturday rotation takes 20 to 30 minutes. I schedule archiv- ing operations right after net mail, and they happen while I'm sleeping. All I have to do is check the status and make sure TPA has the tape it needs for the next run. It's an idea whose time is long over due. If the hardware and software are quality stuff, the documen- tation is an afterthought! The information contained in the software manual is well written and reasonably clear. The cover- age of the archiving strategy and of day-to-day operations are adequate, but there are whole sections missing. TPA appears to have a large repertoire of error messages. Each message is num- bered for easy look-up. Trouble is, there's no place to look them up, and it's not always clear what induced an error message in the first place! Two weeks ago TPA stopped backing up my D: drive and began complaining about the "undefined drive D." The manual should have told me how to resolve this problem, but it has no sections on error messages or error recovery. I had to call Palindrome to find out that TPA supports drives with remov- able media, and the volume label is a key part of a "drive defi- nition." Sure enough, I had apparently run a (still unidenti- fied) program which changed the volume label on the D drive. I corrected the label and TPA was happy again. The phone call should not have been necessary. Palindrome acknowledges the shortcomings of the documenta- tion, and I would expect future releases to improve. When I voiced this thought to a Company spokesman, his response was "You can bet on it! The company is growing fast, and a new manual is one of our highest priorities. New sections will include 'How to recover (single files to whole disks).' 'Troubleshooting,' and 'Error Messages (and their likely causes).'" FidoNews 6-20 Page 13 15 May 1989 Now that I have good hardware, I am beginning to trust the system, and have joined the ranks of "satisfied customers." If you are in the market for tape backup capability, you really should take a look at this one. If you already have a QIC-40 or QIC-80 tape system, you might check with Palindrome for compati- bility. They market the software separately at $195. System prices vary from $695 for the 40 Mb internal Personal Archivist for XT or AT (and near clones), to $6,995 for the 2 Gi- gabyte Network Archivist system. For more information, contact: Palindrome Corporation 710 E. Ogden, Suite 208 Naperville, IL 60540 (312) 357-4600 ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 6-20 Page 14 15 May 1989 Randall Greylock, 1:321/202 A Relatively Classless Organization FidoNet started as a relatively egalitarian place. I think it was Harv Neghila who described it as equals participating equally. Unfortunately, FidoNet seems to be changing from a classless organization to an organization that has no class. The Original Deal Send A Message To Your NC All the information originally required by Policy was needed for equals to participate equally. It was stored in a public place (the nodelist) and was equally accessable to all. It was equally verifiable by all. Operate In Accordance To Policy From there, all you had to do was what it said in this one document you could pick up anywhere: Policy. Basically, you had to run ZMH, and try to be a reasonable human being. It didn't matter if you had stumbled into FidoNet on some board in CA, even if you were in MA. All the information you needed was there: the rules and the phone numbers. You Are Now In Fidonet - No Further Costs Need Be Incurred Policy4: Changing The Ante: Haves Vs Have Nots Information Haves And Have Nots (And How To's) Voice Phones Are Valuable Information Like everyone else in FidoNet, there are one or two points about Policy4 I don't like. The big one to me is this Voice Phone number crap. I've heard all the arguments - I still don't buy them. We have crossed a significant line - now we need to provide not only the information required for the technical maintenance of the network, but more. I'm not against the use of telephones. All levels of the coordinator chain above me have a number for me, and vice versa. What I object to is REQUIRING this. Also, I am ONLY talking about the simple case of network membership. I can see merit in requiring them between NEC's and nodes. FidoNews 6-20 Page 15 15 May 1989 Who Has Access To Them I have many questions about this. Who has access to those numbers? It's not spelled out by Policy. If I am involved in a Policy dispute, will the other party be given my number and told to talk it out? (Note there is a section in Policy that mentions voice as a step in the dispute resolution process.) What Responsibility Exists To Use Them If you have these numbers, doesn't it imply some responsibility to use them? This is a many bladed juggernaut of a question. Does an NC or RC or ZC or IC have a responsibility to talk to nodes involved in a Policy dispute? Do they have a responsibility to call first if they cannot get in touch with a system and are about to mark it down? If these things are implied (and I believe they will be - lame logic tends to reinforce itself), the cost of being a *C goes up dramatically. What if I don't WANT to talk to a boneheaded RC? If I refuse to do so, is that grounds for excommunication? What if I refuse to talk to the dolt I'm in a dispute with? Does that mean I automatically lose my complaint? (There is at least one RC who is more or less doing this now; he's affectionately referred to as Adolf by those in his region.) And isn't it only fair if they have our numbers we should have the *C's? And if they won't talk to us, should that be grounds for excommunication or at least removal from position? Not Verifiable Information The information is not technically verifiable, and is discriminatory against those with hearing or speech impediments. I don't HAVE a voice phone number, and when officially asked, that will be my response. I really don't! My business does, I can be reached there. But it's not fair to impose FidoNet calls on my business. More to the point, if I had an unlisted phone number, I could simply tell my NC I had no number. He might suspect I was lying, but he would have no way to verify it. Should I be denied a node number? Discriminatory And what about those with physical difficulties with voice communications? There was a very active person in the network who is deaf. He did not want that known, and did a good job of keeping it that way. I don't know his reasons - I suspect because he had found an environment where he was treated as an FidoNews 6-20 Page 16 15 May 1989 equal. This requirement would destroy all hope of such equality. When I found out about this person's condition, it colored my opinion of him - originally, I thought he was a scumsucker; after I found out he was a more sympathetic figure due to his handicap. Local Policy - Fiefdoms And Other Problems Added Burden To The Coordinator Structure Local Policy is a paradox. It is an attempt to solve problems by adding to them. The real problem is simple: the coordinator structure has not done a very good job of identifying problems, communicating with the body sysop, and attempting solutions. In other words, the coordinator structure has not discharged well its responsibilities. Local Policy will simply add responsibility to be ill-discharged. Local Policy must be written by someone. That's work. And one way or the other, Local Policy will be challenged up the chain - even if you don't explicitly provide for review, somewhere along the line just the creation of bad Policy will be challenged as annoying. We already have people playing Policy Games. "Policy doesn't SAY you have to run mail only during ZMH" is one of my favorites. What do you think will happen when we have hundreds of Policies, all with their potential games? Examples I'm about to list a series of examples of local policy fragments, each stated in the vernacular with the reasoning behind them. In some cases, I'll explain exactly what I think is wrong with each. The important test is this: get a number of sysop friends to read this article, and have them mark Valid or Invalid each example. I'd be willing to bet that nearly all items will have both a valid and an invalid, and, unless you marked all items one way or the other, no one else will agree with you on all cases. Under A Local Policy, Could A Node Be Required To: Attend Network Meetings It is much simpler to resolve many problems - technical and social - via more direct communication than FidoNet provides. Therefore, doesn't it make sense to have a local policy which FORCES the members to attend local network meetings? (BTW - the first person who ever presented this argument to me FidoNews 6-20 Page 17 15 May 1989 was Mikey.) Obey Local User And Point Policies We are having problems with some users and some points that are causing great havoc throughout our network. For instance, we have one malicious user who logs onto Sysop B's board using the name of Sysop A (or a close derivative) and leaves annoying messages. By the time Sysop B gets wise and tightens up his access rules, new Sysop C gets the same treatment. Therefore, doesn't it make sense to require all sysops to abide by a standard set of rules for granting user access? No handles, voice numbers and addresses must be obtained and verified, and God help you if you don't. I mean, who cares about that "A sysop may run his board as he pleases" crap. Participate One of the biggest problems in FidoNet is one of Apathy. We are continually arguing over which side the silent majority is on. If one cares enough to join, one should care enough to participate in the decision making process - if one does not participate, one relinquishes his access. In our net, we have a node that is VERY active in the Veteran's Affairs. The sysop is not very active in either our net or regional conferences, although he does attend the face to face meetings we occaisionally have. Should he HAVE to invest time at the local level when he makes a great contribution at the national level? In many ways, his situation exemplifies the worst of the flaws in a local policy. He was working at putting together a standard kit for other Veteran's groups to get online quickly. It's tough enough to do the technical work of bringing up a new node; local policy could increase that exponentially. For instance, suppose the local policy mandated CM operation - that would exclude any Vet Center wanting to do "split use" on their phone lines. Strict network rules regarding user identification and registration contradict the need for confidentiality in many "social service" forums. Pick Up Echoconferences (At Your Expense?) Echomail is the main mechanism for communication in FidoNet. In order to ensure that everyone gets the information, doesn't it make sense that everyone should be required to get some base set of echo conferences? Not to me, it doesn't. Let me count the ways. FidoNews 6-20 Page 18 15 May 1989 In the old days, there was one, and only one thing one had to do to join FidoNet that overtly cost money: send a message to an NC requesting a node number. Once you had your node number, you could easily exist with nearly no contact with the coordinator structure. The logic presented for mandated echomail sounds like requiring that I buy a TV and leave it on CNN all the time, even if I could care less. Further, the question is where does it stop? Can we mandate regional, zonal, and FidoNet wide conferences as well as our little local one? (What, this is unreasonable? Hmmmm - that doesn't sound consistent to me ...) And while we are at it, can we mandate more than one per level - say one for sysops, and one for general chatter? (Oh, you say this is unreasonable? Hmmmm ... but what you suggest sounds unreasonable to me!) Pick Up Groupmail If we assume it's ok to mandate echomail, why not groupmail? In fact, in this net, we are right thinking sorts of people - you not only have to get our net conferences grouped, but EVERYTHING. Provide Credit References Before you get into this net, we are going to make sure you are a right thinking upstanding individual. Our NC, S. Daddy, has access to TRW, and checks your credit with them before granting a node number. If you are unwilling to provide enough information for same, no node number. Mandated Routing Since we have mandated conferences here, we don't really want to impose too much long distance. Therefore, you MUST make any conferences you have available to other net members. Minimum Baud Rate Since we require you to pick up all this crud, and since I don't want my Glorious NC System tied up for excessive periods of time, all nodes in My Most Perfect Network must run 2400 baud or better. If you run less than that, you should be a point, as you are not real serious. Run A BBS This network exists to serve users. Therefore, to be a member of this network, you must provide direct services to users by FidoNews 6-20 Page 19 15 May 1989 operating a BBS. Mail Only and Private systems are simply not allowed. Run CM In this day and age, there is just no reason not to run CM. And who cares about Fido11w anyway? Run Session Protected We have a lot of problems with nodes imitating nodes. In order to eliminate this problem locally, all nodes must operate session protected. We don't care about Fido11w either. Run Wazoo In this day and age, it's damned annoying to have to restart an echomail or other file transfer. Since WaZoo was the first restartable session technology, we require all nodes in this net to operate WaZoo capable. Impact of Stupidity Let's consider the impact of this stupidity. First off, we'll probably have to establish that local Policy itself is subject to challenge up the chain. This will probably take a few of months of arguing. Let's assume it takes the nets a couple of months of squabbling to arrive at a local policy. Then there will be a month or so of intense local argument before things get into complaints or challenges. From there, we have a couple of weeks of per level of fact gathering and decision making. And if the policy is overturned, we are faced with other ugly questions: is the whole local policy invalid? Will the creators follow the dim logic of "There's more than one way to skin a cat" and come up with some new policy that does about the same thing but avoids the points of the decision. It's Sysiphian. Stupidity Is Uniformly Distributed When I was younger, I spent long hours trying to convince Chairman Len that my generation had a unique perspective on reality, and was therefore smarter. Len would argue that stupidity is evenly distributed. I still believe my generation's perspective is quite different from his, but long ago, I conceded his point on stupidity. FidoNews 6-20 Page 20 15 May 1989 Many people, myself included, have been critical of the upper level coordinator structure. In my opinion, a significant percentage of the RC structure could be used as lab animals in a brain death demonstration. However, this is not to say the NC's and NEC's are perfect. Far from it - I have seen MANY more misstatements of Policy from the NC level than from the RC level. This is to be expected: if stupidity is equally distributed on a percentage basis, there are bound to be more stupid NC's than RC's. Also, in very few cases do I believe Malice is the operating emotion. To quote Chairman Len: "When presented with stupidity or malice as explanations for incomprehensible behaviour, the smart money is always on stupid." A Policy is only as good as the people that bring it to life. At this point, we have one single Policy which is unevenly interpreted and implemented - a direct comment on the quality of the people doing the implementation. Policy3 (or 4) may or may not be badly written, but if you allow full local policies, you will SURELY end up with a zillion Policies, some of which are badly written, most being unevenly interpreted and implemented. You considerably increase the amount of stupid arguing that goes on about Policy - instead of pointless bickering (and little action) on one Policy, you'll have three or four times the pointless bickering, as you add Zonal, Regional, and Net Level hassles. I recently saw a message characterizing the various operational entities in FidoNet as gangs. What leads anyone to believe that local Policy would not lead to local gangs? Policy Process Comparisons To US Governmental Organization Paradox: A Node Number Is Not A Right One of the biggest pieces of garbage I've heard lately is that FidoNet is a right. Freedom of speech in FidoNet is a right, not a privilege. Membership in FidoNet is not a right. It is a privilege. It is earned. Unfortunately, many in FidoNet (particularly in the SouthEast) seem to have lost sight of this. We do not have the right to defame, to make racist remarks, to shout Theatre in a crowded Fire. What I find most amusing about all this is it comes from the hotbed of EggNet - a network based on all these fine principles which does not work. Since it's screwed up on its own, it seems now to want to try the same experiments in FidoNet, which largely DOES work. FidoNews 6-20 Page 21 15 May 1989 Policy Is More A Bill of Rights Than A Set Of Laws A fundamental problem is that people look on Policy as the rules of FidoNet. This is only partially correct. If you come back to the analogy of US Government, Policy is both the "US Code" AND The Bill of Rights. Those basic rights are as follows: A Sysop May Run His Board Pretty Much As He Pleases So long as he meets the basic technical and social norms, he may participate in the network Along with these rights are responsibilities: Thou shalt not excessively annoy Thou shalt not be excessively annoyed Voting Against As Opposed To Voting For Perhaps the biggest problem with something like Policy is that too many are willing to be one-issue people. All their decisions are based on that one issue. For some, it is democracy. For others, it is local Policy. For still others, it's commercialization. It's simply not possible to write a policy document that doesn't offend someone. But in our "I"-centered network, the things I object to are far more important than the good of the whole. More than anything, this typifies what is wrong with the network. How Do You Expect A New Policy To Be Put In Place? Personally, I think a big mistake was made in using Policy4's own processes to bootstrap it. I am at least partially to blame for this. It should simply have been put in place by the IC/RC's, and subsequent changes made by the mechanisms therein. Let's assume P4 is voted down. What next? Do you think the RC's will want to go through this again? For that matter, if David were as power hungry as he is depicted, what reason is there for him to ALLOW a policy that erodes that (as P4 does.) One way or the other, a Policy change must be acceptable to the *C structure at all levels. It cannot be imposed on that structure, at least not given Policy3. How Do You Expect To Get A New IC? If you vote down Policy 4, how do you expect to get a new IC? One of the things that keeps David in office is the chaos that FidoNews 6-20 Page 22 15 May 1989 would surely ensue if he left given the current "non-succession". Who Do You Expect To Write Policy 4.07? At this point, at least a year and a half of effort on the part of the RC's has gone into Policy 4. Despite what many think, it was not the work of an obnoxious bunch of boors who want to crush the sysops under their boots. The divisions among the RC's are as great as the divisions seen in the network. It is a particularly gruelling process for the person doing the writing. This person has to tread a fine line between his own opinions and the will of the majority. He is often placed in a position where he has to write language he considers terminally flawed, and is met with abuse when he finds it impossible to do so. It's even tougher given that the RC's are as apathetic as the net as a whole - a minority of the RC's even bothered to participate while I was scribe - Zone 3 was marginally involved, Zone 2 not at all. (Another farce that needs to be addressed - Zone 2 isn't a part of FidoNet. They operate under their own Policy and we should give them what they want: out.) Vote For Policy 4 ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 6-20 Page 23 15 May 1989 Re-typed and submitted by Jack Decker Fidonet 1:154/8 LCRnet 77:1011/8 NetWork 8:70/8 NO-CODE PACKET RADIO? [All of the following text (INCLUDING the note asking that the article be reprinted) is taken verbatim from April, 1989 issue of the Tandy User Group Newsletter (a NON-copyrighted publication of the Radio Shack Marketing Information Department of Tandy Corporation). The author is Ed Juge, director of market planning, Radio Shack, 1700 One Tandy Center, Fort Worth, Texas 76102.] And, Speaking of Packet Radio... (Note to club newsletter editors - Even though this may seem a little bit off the subject, please try to find space in your newsletter to reprint it. I think many of your members may find it of real interest.) In a column in PCM Magazine last Fall, I editorialized a bit about the large number of computer users who are sharing data, programs, electronic mail, and more... not just locally, but with others literally around the world... and not paying a dime in connect time charges. That, and a follow-up column early this year, brought more mail than any topic I have ever written about. How are they doing this? By way of Amateur Radio. But, you say, "You gotta' learn that Morse Code stuff." MAYBE NOT! Amateurs recently lost 2 MHz. of frequency spectrum to commercial services, and frankly, it had the effect of a major earthquake, measuring "10" on ham radio's Ricther scale! Immediately, one well-known Amateur launched a campaign to petition the Federal Communications Commission for a no-code VHF license. Even the prestigious American Radio Relay League (ARRL), who had successfully and bitterly fought a previous attempt at such a license, appears to be taking a much more liberal stand. They appointed and an ad-hoc committee to study the no-code issues and recommend a course of action to their board of directors. To make a long story as short as possible -- and to get to why I'm discussing all this in a computer newsletter -- the FCC has effectively told the Amateur community, if you want a no-code VHF license, and the ARRL doesn't fight it, it's yours. If the FCC receives a petition, it will issue a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), and allow some period of time for replies... possibly as short as 30 days... before making their decision. That's far too short a comment period for magazine lead times to pass the word, and IF YOU'RE INTERESTED, YOU SHOULD COMMENT TO THE FCC! FidoNews 6-20 Page 24 15 May 1989 Let me take a moment to explain to those who don't know, that Very High Frequency (VHF) refers to frequencies above 30 Mhz. In terms of the Amateur bands, this includes 50 Mhz (6 meters), which allows for some fairly long-distance work. (Under international law, Morse code is a requirement for licensing below 30 Mhz.) ============================= An Amateur Radio License WITHOUT LEARNING MORSE CODE!! ...Maybe ============================= Although there are several digital modes used below 30 Mhz, including PACKET, AMTOR, BAUDOT and ASCII teletype, and even keyboard sent/video received Morse code... most of the VHF digital operation is "Packet Radio." Packet is literally computer-to-computer data transfer, using a slightly modified X.25 protocol. There are bulletin boards, personal mailboxes, and many types of operation computer users would find exciting. There is even a nationwide traffic (messaging) system which allows me in Texas to address a message to someone in Maine, which will be automatically relayed across the country to its destination. It could go through multiple VHF relays, or it might go through a "gateway" onto the long-haul HF bands, or even cross the country via satellite. Widespread use of these exciting digital modes on Amateur Radio is less than five years old, so exciting advances in software and techniques are happening monthly if not weekly or daily. ========================== Transfer Data and Programs --Around the World-- No Connect Charges! ========================== An Amateur VHF Packet station can be as simple as a Model 102 laptop computer, a "Terminal Node Controller" (TNC) and a ham "walkie-talkie." A small, battery-powered TNC costs about $160, and a used "talkie" another $150 or so. So, as you can see, a complete station (you can even throw it in your briefcase) is quite inexpensive. Packet Radio has one interesting characteristic... if you are close enough to "connect" with ANY other station, you can use that station (even without his knowledge) to act as a repeater for your transmissions, and thereby extend your range considerably. Many hams leave their VHF packet stations on 24 hours per day, making packet operation about as easy from a walkie-talkie as it is from a base station with an antenna high in the air. Getting back to the original objective... the question of a codeless license takes on almost religious overtones among Amateurs. Others feel it's stifling growth, and thereby endangering frequency allocations. Those who favor a codeless FidoNews 6-20 Page 25 15 May 1989 license feel that many who could contribute greatly to the Amateur service are being kept out by what they view as an unreasonable and irrelevant restriction... code. Because of the leading-edge technologies Amateurs have available today... satellite communications, "EME" ("Earth-Moon-Earth" or "moonbounce"), and digital communications, computer enthusiasts are probably at the top of the list of those who could derive the most enjoyment from, and make the greatest contribution to, Amateur Radio. So, my purpose in bringing you what I had hoped would be a short dissertation, is to encourage you to watch the news on this matter. If a codeless Amateur Radio license appeals to you -- or if you feel strongly that it should NOT happen -- then watch for an FCC NPRN, and send them your comments!! This newsletter appears in electronic form on several information services. If you look around the service, you'll find a ham radio special interest group. Watch their bulletin board for developments. ============== If YOU care... Comment! ============== If you're reading this in a club bulletin, and you're interested, send me an SASE, and I'll let you know if and when it's time to comment. It is important to get input to the FCC from those who might benefit from such a change, rather than just from those who are already licensed. The FCC sincerely wants opinions from all interested parties. Let me know if you want to know when and how to comment. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 6-20 Page 26 15 May 1989 Bill Vanglahn FidoNet@1:107/557 "...what a reasonable person would do......" Statements like this are seen throughout the law books when referring to definition of negligence. Legal issues are are beginning to crop up throughout the land of Sysops, with Sysops suing users, users suing Sysops.... The question of what an average, reasonable Sysop would do in a given everyday situation has crossed my mind many times as of late. And so, the reason for this letter. As you are well aware of, YOU run your system the way YOU want to. That's the way it should be. The person 3 blocks away from you may run his system differently, and I may do it a different way than either of you. That's what makes BBS's so interesting, the diversity of the systems you can call, and the way you can make your system conform to what you like. But, as far as the law is concerned, a Sysop should be working within some set of boundaries, which are mostly common sense. As of this moment, I know of no defined rules of What-a-Sysop-does- or-doesn't-do, because it has never been defined in any way. If a list were compiled that stated, "Well, given this similar situation, an AVERAGE Sysop would have......", not only would we have a legal leg to stand on, but we could help the courts get a view into our world of electronic communications. In order to get a good concensus of what we are doing individually, I have compiled the following questionnaire. Please take the 2 minutes out to fill it out, and return it to me at the netmail address below. This is truly a case where you can help define your own future! Please send your answers to: Bill Vanglahn FidoNet 1:107/557 ALTERNet 7:520/557 P/Net 9:93/0 PhoenixNet 9:807/2 Or, via US Mail to: P.O. Box 73 Dumont, N.J. 07628 Sysop Questionnaire ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ FidoNews 6-20 Page 27 15 May 1989 *NOTICE* ALL INFORMATION ON THIS FORM IS HELD CONFIDENTIAL! Please answer these questions with the one MOST correct answer. 1) Do you run your BBS as a...... A) Hobby B) Support Board for PD/Shareware Products C) Support Board for Commercial Products D) Other, please specify _____________________ 2) When new users log on, what kind of registration system do you use? A) On-Line Registration B) Mail Registration C) No Registration D) Call-Back Verification E) Questionnaires On-Line F) Other, please specify ___________________________ 3) No matter which method of regitration you use, do you voice- verify new users? A) Always B) Occassional Spot-Checks C) Very Seldom D) Never 4) Do you have material that can be considered of an adult nature available for reading/downloading on your board? A) Yes B) No (If the answer to #4 is No, please skip to question #9) 5) Do you restrict access to adult material on your system? A) Yes B) No 6) How do you determine access rights to the adult material? A) On-line Verification B) Mail-in Disclaimer Form, Notarized C) Mail-in Disclosure Form, with Copy of Proof of Age (Driver's License, Passport, etc.) D) Voice Verification E) Other, please specify ______________________________ 7) Do you have any limits set on the degree of adult material present on your system? FidoNews 6-20 Page 28 15 May 1989 A) Yes B) No 8) The following is a set of True/False questions. I would allow adult material on my system that dealt with....... T F A) Nude photographs B) Masturbation C) Explicit sexual acts D) Homosexuality-male E) Homosexuality-female F) Group Sex (more than 2 people) G) Sex with animals H) Pedophilia (sex with minors) (Back to the multiple choice) File Area Questions 9) A user uploads a program that is protected by copyright, either as the whole program, a hacked version, or a pirated version. I would A) Warn the user that he will be locked out next time. B) Lock the user out of your BBS. C) Permit the file to be downloaded by others. D) Inform the company that wrote the software. E) Other, please specify _______________________ 10) A user uploads a program that is a trojan/virus program. I would....... A) Do nothing. B) Take no action against the user, but erase the file. C) Warn the user, and erase the file. D) Lock the user out of the BBS, and erase the file. E) Lock the user out, and seek legal action. 11) Do you have a separate file directory for newly uploaded programs? A) Yes B) No 12) Do you check new uploads before they are available for downloading? A) Yes B) No FidoNews 6-20 Page 29 15 May 1989 13) How often do you perform checks on newly uploaded files? A) Daily. B) Once a week or more. C) Once a month or more. D) Every other month or more. E) New uploads are not checked. Message Area Questions 14) Do you proof messages before they can be read by the general public? A) Yes B) No 15) How often do you check your message base for improper messages? A) More than once a day. B) Daily C) Every other day. D) Weekly E) Every other week. F) Monthly. 16) Is your system capable of running in a network (communicating with other BBS's)? A) Yes B) No 17) Does your system share messages with other systems (Echomail /Groupmail conferences)? A) Yes B) No 18) Do you routinely run any utility that deletes messages from a particular user or network address? A) Yes B) No 19) A user enters a message which is considered offensive to other users. I would..... A) Warn the user, and lock him out if it happens again. B) Deny the user access to the message conference. C) Deny the user access to the entire message system. D) Lock the user out. FidoNews 6-20 Page 30 15 May 1989 E) Do nothing. The user is stating his/her opinion. F) Other, please specify _____________________________ 20) A user enters information in a message about some illegal activity. This could include phreaking, hacking (in the bad sense of the word), construction of bombs, etc. I would...... A) Warn the user that he will be locked out next time. B) Lock the user out of your BBS. C) Permit the message to be read by others. D) Inform the proper authorities. E) Other, please specify _______________________ General Information (We will attempt to correlate answers based on these) 21) How many users are currently listed on your system? A) 1-50 B) 51-100 C) 101-200 D) 201-500 E) 501-1000 F) >1000 22) Which BBS Package are you using? A) Fido H) Phoenix B) QBBS I) PCBoard C) TBBS J) RBBS D) Kitten K) TComm/TCommNet E) Opus L) Lynx F) WWIV BBS M) Spitfire G) Wildcat! N) Other _____________________ Optional Information Your Name: ______________________________________ Street Address: ______________________________________ City,State,Zip: ______________________________________ Network Address Zone:___ Net:_____ Node:_____ When you include your mailing address, I will send you the hard-copy results of this survey! Thank you for helping support the future of your hobby! ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 6-20 Page 31 15 May 1989 John Perkins The Engine House, 1:260/315 (315) 451-7148 Syracuse_NY The Wilderness Echo The Wilderness Echo, WILDRNSS, is a non-backbone Echo that has recently been created in response to a perceived need. Any and all discussions related to wilderness camping, hiking, canoeing, and related fields are welcome and encouraged. Discussions include, but are not limited to, 'Places To Go' , recently acquired wilderness and canoe areas, as well as new equipment reviews. There currently are nodes receiving this Echo in various parts of the USA. I would like to have many more nodes as there are many fine wilderness areas that are not represented. If you enjoy the great outdoors or would like to find out more about the wilderness and related fields give us a try! If you would like to carry this echo please send netmail to me at the ENGINE HOUSE , 1:260/315. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 6-20 Page 32 15 May 1989 ================================================================= COLUMNS ================================================================= The Veterinarian's Corner Excerpts from the ANIMED GroupMail Conference by Don Thomson, 1:102/1005 (From the ANIMED conference): Hi Doc. How's business? I have to report that Ranger's chin has been clear for a long time now, or at least it sure seems long. Thanks. I think he feels a lot better because of it. He is more social and playful with G.P. than he had been while his chin hurt. However, this brings with it another new problem. (If it ain't one thing it's another...) The little #@$@@ G.P. chews on Rangers ears as they do battle all over he apartment. Ranger's ears are pink and, I'd dare guess, a bit sore. Is there a recommended ointment or treatment, other than seperation of the two monsters we call cats? Nice to have a doc in the bbs community. Thanks again... Robert, Jeanne, Ranger and G.P. ---------- Glad to hear it, Robert! The eosinophilic-granuloma complex is a skin disease unique to cats. We can get into that topic at a later date. Suffice to say, great that he feels better all around! > The little #@$@@ G.P. chews on Rangers ears as they do battle > all over the apartment. Ranger's ears are pink and, I'd dare > guess, a bit sore. Is there a recommended ointment or > treatment, other than seperation... I assume we are only talking about irritated skin, not severly inflammed or infected. Mild 0.5% hydocortisone cream applied on a occasional basis would be the most I would reccomend without an examination. As long as there is no foul odor and discharge that would indicate an outer ear infection or earmites this would be safe. Cats are extremely resistant to c.steriod side effects. Some of the base carriers of ointments can be irritating to cats, so stick to a cream. If the inflammation worsens, he should be seen.... DB Thomson, DVM 1:102/1005 9:871/16 ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 6-20 Page 33 15 May 1989 The following is the last in a series of four columns Fred Grosby (a federal government employee, and a user on "The Falcon's Rock") has written. He deserves all the credit for writing them. I suggested that he upload them to my system, because I enjoyed reading them in our local Mensa newsletter, Capital M. I hope you enjoy reading them, too. The archive of all four is available for file request from 1:109/501 as BSOUTH.ZIP. Notes From Bureaucracy South (Part 4) By Fred Grosby, a user on 1:109/501 What a mess. Sprinkler head blew on the eighth floor, and by the time they figured out how to shut the system off, three floors of our building had been inundated with several inches of water. Five hundred thousand dollars in computer equipment was ruined. Documents that I had worked on for months now have water and rust spots on them. And the whole damn thing wouldn't have happened if it hadn't been for SMART. SMART stands for Space Management And Reduction Task, and like a lot of things here at Bureaucracy South it started out as a pretty good idea. We've reduced staff over the last few years, so it only made sense to reduce our office space as well. Sure, it would cost something to renovate the remaining space to better accommodate us, but the savings in rent was supposed to more than make up for that. Seemed like a smart idea at the time. So we hired a Contractor to draw up some plans. We used to do a lot of this sort of thing ourselves, but that's not what one does nowadays. Today, you hire a Contractor, often because the staff reductions have hit the people who used to do whatever sort of work is being contracted. This is called Privatization. There may not be money for anything else, but there is always money for Privatization. Anyway, the Contractor In Charge Of Planning drew up a stack of plans, which were duly approved by the building management and the Bureaucracy In Charge Of Buildings, a moving schedule was issued, and people started to pack up their stuff. And then... nothing. SMART slammed to a screeching halt. For months we heard nothing. I mean, people were working out of cardboard boxes and we heard nothing! Just about the time I had figured that the whole thing was a dead issue, we found out what the delay was about. Seems that in his zeal to get the building management and the Bureaucracy In Charge Of Buildings to approve the plans, the Contractor In Charge Of Planning had forgotten to get the plans approved by The City. Now The City did not like the idea of us renovating a building without the required permits, and clapped a lid on the whole thing. What we had been waiting for was for The City to review and approve the inch-thick stack of plans and issue the permits. Anyway, once all the building permits were in order, an army of employees hired by the Contractor In Charge Of Renovation showed up and got right to it. Only thing was, the plans called for FidoNews 6-20 Page 34 15 May 1989 renovating areas of the building that still had people in them. This, folks, was not a very smart idea. I walked into the first office being renovated just in time to see somebody trying to work while a contractor employee stood on her desk rewiring the ceiling, as dust and pieces of ceiling tile drifted down over everything. It came to a head when the next scheduled office demanded to be moved to safe quarters while their space was being renovated, and invoked the threat of a complaint to The Union. Faced with this threat (nothing intimidates us like a threatened complaint to The Union), the Contractor In Charge Of Renovation was instructed to revise the whole work plan that had been drawn up by the Contractor In Charge Of Planning. More delays. Finally, the Contractor In Charge Of Renovation started working on the space into which my group would be moving. Boy, were we excited! We used to go down to our new space and try to figure out what was going to go where. Well, guess what. Just as we were getting ready to pack up, the workers disappeared. Just dropped their tools and split. Seems that the Bureaucracy In Charge Of Buildings forgot to pay the Contractor In Charge Of Renovation, who then could not afford to pay his workers. The workers, being good, smart union people, did what all good smart union people do when they don't get paid: they went on strike. Took three weeks to get the whole mess straightened out. Then we had to wait while another office was moved into our new space so their space could be renovated. Our actual move was to take place over a weekend. The Friday before moving day, I helped the people from our administrative services office mark all of our stuff. Every item, right down to the trash cans, was marked with a number corresponding to a location on the blueprint of our new space. This is supposed to insure that the right stuff gets put in the right space for the right person. We'd used this system before, and it had never failed us. Until this time. This time, the Bureaucracy In Charge Of Buildings forgot to pay the Contractor In Charge Of Moving, so the entire office was moved from the eighth floor to the sixth floor by two administrative services people working overtime throughout the weekend. Under the circumstances, they did an absolutely wonderful job, but you wouldn't have known it to have walked into our brand new office on Monday morning. It was a disaster. The marked floor plan had been abandoned. File cabinets, shelving, and boxes were heaped everywhere. Desks were shoved into the strangest places; one woman had to literally climb over the top of her desk to get to her chair. By some miracle, the only thing that I lost was my phone. I was lucky; it took some people hours to find the boxes holding their work. None of the computers were hooked up; three of them, including the one that houses our logging and tracking systems, didn't even get moved. Nobody told the cable pullers to drop new cables for our mainframe terminals, so we didn't have access to the payroll computer. Ever tried working in a payroll office where you don't have access to the payroll computer? And if that wasn't bad enough, they decided that since we were FidoNews 6-20 Page 35 15 May 1989 moving anyway, it would be a good time to give our clerical staff their brand new Workstations. For those of you who have never seen one, a Workstation has less storage space and takes up twice the floor area of the desk that it replaces. Ours have the optional computer keyboard trays that mangle the connecting cables and are perfectly placed to smash your knees if you move too fast. Anyway, here came the Contractor In Charge Of Workstations with all this furniture, which was then crammed into areas intended for plain old desks. On top of the mess from the move, this was more than we could handle. By Tuesday afternoon, we just threw up our hands and decided to live with it as it was. And still is, for that matter. Well, time went by, and even though we still did not love our new work environment, we managed to come to terms with it. And then came The Flood. All of that renovation required relocation of many of the nozzles for the building's sprinkler system. About three weeks after we moved, just as things were starting to settle down, the nozzle located in the public affairs office, right by their brand-new desktop publishing equipment, decided to pretend that the building was on fire. This in itself was a catastrophe, but what really made it bad was that nobody knew how to turn the thing off. Do you believe it? Here we are, in a building with a full-time maintenance staff, equipped with a state-of-the-art fire suppression system, and nobody knows how to shut the damned thing off! ARRRRGH!!! Finally, somebody came up with the smart idea that, well, since it is a fire suppression system, maybe we should get the fire department to turn it off. That worked just fine, of course, but by that time the water had seeped down two floors, and the plaster was falling off the walls in our office. But you know what? We didn't have to pay for the damage! Seems that although we paid for the renovation, the building management was responsible for seeing that it was done correctly. Your tax money is safe this time; the building management's insurance paid the bill. So they fixed the walls, and dried out the carpet, and replaced all that ruined computer equipment, and except for the rust and water stains on about 200 pay documents life here at Bureaucracy South is pretty much as it was before. I'm told that with all of the delays and changes of plans, SMART will end up costing a good bit more than it was supposed to save, but that's not what's important to those of us who work here. What's important to us is that SMART is finished. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 6-20 Page 36 15 May 1989 ================================================================= LATEST VERSIONS ================================================================= Latest Software Versions Bulletin Board Software Name Version Name Version Name Version Fido 12k Opus 1.03b TBBS 2.1 QuickBBS 2.03 TPBoard 5.0 TComm/TCommNet 3.4 Lynx 1.30* Phoenix 1.3 RBBS 17.1D Network Node List Other Mailers Version Utilities Version Utilities Version Dutchie 2.90C* EditNL 4.00 ARC 6.01 SEAdog 4.50 MakeNL 2.12 ARCmail 2.0 BinkleyTerm 2.20* Prune 1.40 ConfMail 4.00 D'Bridge 1.18* XlatList 2.90 TPB Editor 1.21 FrontDoor 2.0 XlaxNode 2.32 TCOMMail 2.2* PRENM 1.40 XlaxDiff 2.32 TMail 8901 ParseList 1.30 UFGATE 1.03 GROUP 2.07* EMM 1.40 MSGED 1.99 XRS 2.0* * Recently changed Utility authors: Please help keep this list up to date by reporting new versions to 1:1/1. It is not our intent to list all utilities here, only those which verge on necessity. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 6-20 Page 37 15 May 1989 ================================================================= NOTICES ================================================================= The Interrupt Stack 19 May 1989 Start of EuroCon III at Eindhoven, The Netherlands. Contact Hans Ligthelm of 2:500/3 for details. 5 Jun 1989 David Dodell's 32nd Birthday 2 Aug 1989 Start of Galactic Hacker Party in Amsterdam, Holland. Contact Rop Gonggrijp at 2:280/1 for details. 24 Aug 1989 Voyager 2 passes Neptune. 24 Aug 1989 FidoCon '89 starts at the Holiday Inn in San Jose, California. Trade show, seminars, etc. Contact 1/89 for info. 5 Oct 1989 20th Anniversary of "Monty Python's Flying Circus" 11 Nov 1989 A new area code forms in northern Illinois at 12:01 am. Chicago proper will remain area code 312; suburban areas formerly served with that code will become area code 708. If you have something which you would like to see on this calendar, please send a message to FidoNet node 1:1/1. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 6-20 Page 38 15 May 1989 OFFICERS OF THE INTERNATIONAL FIDONET ASSOCIATION Mort Sternheim 1:321/109 Chairman of the Board Bob Rudolph 1:261/628 President Matt Whelan 3:3/1 Vice President Bill Bolton 3:711/403 Vice President-Technical Coordinator Linda Grennan 1:147/1 Secretary Kris Veitch 1:147/30 Treasurer IFNA COMMITTEE AND BOARD CHAIRS Administration and Finance Mark Grennan 1:147/1 Board of Directors Mort Sternheim 1:321/109 Bylaws Don Daniels 1:107/210 Ethics Vic Hill 1:147/4 Executive Committee Bob Rudolph 1:261/628 International Affairs Rob Gonsalves 2:500/1 Membership Services David Drexler 1:147/1 Nominations & Elections David Melnick 1:107/233 Public Affairs David Drexler 1:147/1 Publications Rick Siegel 1:107/27 Security & Individual Rights Jim Cannell 1:143/21 Technical Standards Rick Moore 1:115/333 IFNA BOARD OF DIRECTORS DIVISION AT-LARGE 10 Courtney Harris 1:102/732 Don Daniels 1:107/210 11 Bill Allbritten 1:11/301 Mort Sternheim 1:321/109 12 Bill Bolton 3:711/403 Mark Grennan 1:147/1 13 Irene Henderson 1:107/9 (vacant) 14 Ken Kaplan 1:100/22 Ted Polczyinski 1:154/5 15 Scott Miller 1:128/12 Matt Whelan 3:3/1 16 Ivan Schaffel 1:141/390 Robert Rudolph 1:261/628 17 Neal Curtin 1:343/1 Steve Jordan 1:206/2871 18 Andrew Adler 1:135/47 Kris Veitch 1:147/30 19 David Drexler 1:147/1 (vacant) 2 Henk Wevers 2:500/1 David Melnik 1:107/233 ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 6-20 Page 39 15 May 1989 __ The World's First / \ BBS Network /|oo \ * FidoNet * (_| /_) _`@/_ \ _ | | \ \\ | (*) | \ )) ______ |__U__| / \// / Fido \ _//|| _\ / (________) (_/(_|(____/ (tm) Membership for the International FidoNet Association Membership in IFNA is open to any individual or organization that pays a specified annual membership fee. IFNA serves the international FidoNet-compatible electronic mail community to increase worldwide communications. Member Name _______________________________ Date _______________ Address _________________________________________________________ City ____________________________________________________________ State ________________________________ Zip _____________________ Country _________________________________________________________ Home Phone (Voice) ______________________________________________ Work Phone (Voice) ______________________________________________ Zone:Net/Node Number ____________________________________________ BBS Name ________________________________________________________ BBS Phone Number ________________________________________________ Baud Rates Supported ____________________________________________ Board Restrictions ______________________________________________ Your Special Interests __________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ In what areas would you be willing to help in FidoNet? __________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ Send this membership form and a check or money order for $25 in US Funds to: International FidoNet Association PO Box 41143 St Louis, Missouri 63141 USA Thank you for your membership! Your participation will help to insure the future of FidoNet. Please NOTE that IFNA is a general not-for-profit organization and Articles of Association and By-Laws were adopted by the membership in January 1987. The second elected Board of Directors was filled in August 1988. The IFNA Echomail Conference has been established on FidoNet to assist the Board. We welcome your input to this Conference. -----------------------------------------------------------------