F I D O N E W S -- Vol.12 No.44 (30-Oct-1995)
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| A newsletter of the | ISSN 1198-4589 Published by: |
| FidoNet BBS community | "FidoNews" BBS |
| _ | +1-519-570-4176 |
| / \ | |
| /|oo \ | |
| (_| /_) | |
| _`@/_ \ _ | |
| | | \ \\ | Editors: |
| | (*) | \ )) | Donald Tees 1:221/192 |
| |__U__| / \// | Sylvia 1:221/194 |
| _//|| _\ / | |
| (_/(_|(____/ | |
| (jm) | Newspapers should have no friends. |
| | -- JOSEPH PULITZER |
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| Submission address: editors 1:1/23 |
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| MORE addresses: |
| |
| submissions=>
[email protected] |
| Don --
[email protected] |
| Sylvia
[email protected] |
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| For information, copyrights, article submissions, |
| obtaining copies of fidonews or the internet gateway faq |
| please refer to the end of this file. |
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Table of Contents
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1. Editorial..................................................... 1
2. Articles...................................................... 2
Dr. Mod em i lala........................................... 2
ACR (Automatic Call Rejection).............................. 2
Free Quebec! (with every purchase of double poutine)........ 3
3. Fidonews Information.......................................... 5
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Editorial
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FidoNews 12-44 Page: 2 30 Oct 1995
A short issue this week, with only three articles, and an
intro rather than an editorial<S>.
Here is the snooze.
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Articles
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Dear Madam Emilia
Dr. Mod em i lala
From: Sylvia Maxwell (1:221/294)
On the first day of this year's 'puters Freedom and Privacy
concert in Burlingame there existed a bluely glowing being with
brown eyes in the VESTIBULE of a hotel, approximately under
neath a chandelier and beside a piano.
Many e-people were about and perchance one of you might have
noticed me noticing him etc./and could help me find his temporal
presence if he wishes it found? Prey tell.
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ACR (Automatic Call Rejection)
Automatic Call Rejection
by Jerry Schwartz 1:142/928
ACR is a feature you can purchase from the telephone company;
what it does is automatically reject incoming telephone calls
from anyone who deliberately blocks caller identification
information. I was not involved directly with any of the recent
controversy over ACR, but I was on speaking terms with two NCs
who were at the center of the argument and corresponded with both
of them about it. Both of them are reasonable men, if somewhat
fastidious about technical issues.
One side contended that they had the right to reject anonymous
calls, and that it served a direct and important security need:
preventing people from impersonating nodes and thereby forging
mail.
The other side contended that existing security measures (packet
and session passwords, for example) were adequate; but that was
not the impetus for the complaint. The problem was a strictly
technical one, and one which is beyond the control of any sysop.
The sysop whose calls were rejected was NOT deliberately blocking
their CID information. What happened was that his long distance
carrier (MCI) was doing something which was causing the local
telephone carrier at the other end to THINK that he had
deliberately blocked CID.
The calling sysop discovered this problem by turning on the
speaker in his modem; he then heard a robotic explanation from
the phone company at the far end. When he called MCI, he was
FidoNews 12-44 Page: 3 30 Oct 1995
told that he would be charged for these calls because so far as
MCI was concerned the call had gone through. (They did agree to
eat the charges as a matter of good customer relations.)
This highlights the underlying problem: telephone service is not
as well-coordinated as you might expect. For example, my own
area has recently changed area codes. There have since been
articles in the local paper about the problems caused by this:
out-of-state telephone carriers are not universally capable of
handling "860" as an area code, and our local company has
publicly stated that they "have no way of forcing other companies
to make the necessary changes." (If you check the nodelist,
you'll see that I am still using the old area code, taking
advantage of a grace period.)
The ACR argle-bargle occurred because either NyNEX, MCI, or the
carriers down in Texas mishandled the hand-off of CID
information. This is not something that the pro-ACR folks
expected, or even necessarily believed possible. It is also not
something that the anti-ACR folks expected, nor could they
control it.
I can easily conceive of several situations which might cause
similar problems. Many of the analog phone lines in my company
are "anonymous" and cannot accept incoming calls. I have no idea
what if anything appears as CID information when I use my system
at work to call out. Similarly, calls from other countries and
smaller telephone carriers in the US might not look "right." In
theory, ACR should detect and distinguish between "unavailable"
and "deliberately blocked" but it clearly failed to do so in at
least one case.
Until the technological wrinkles are ironed out, we all have to
be careful about adopting new techniques prematurely.
Ultimately, ACR may be a "don't care" to every legitimate Fidonet
sysop; but for right now, it seems to be a problem.
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Free Quebec! (with every purchase of double poutine)
Dear Editorbeings,
Please advise both readers of the Snooz that this article
was submitted by Charles Herriot (1:163/110) who
successfully dragged Logger down from a hydro pole where he
was beseeching pedestrians to join him in hearty song on
Patsy Gallant's version of "From New York to L.A." Roll da
flic, Sylvia....
Dear Reverend Visage,
I feel a sort of celebratory feeling towards this missive,
what with it being the 35th outpouring of mine that the
Editor-beings have been gracious enough to include in their
esteemed organ. To think that it all began when I wrote
FidoNews 12-44 Page: 4 30 Oct 1995
about the *EC-trolls shutting down the Golden Toilet echo.
There is much to comment upon this week. Our frozen country
stands on the threshold of Balkanizing itself. I can't quite
fathom the various sentimental outpourings by pundits who
weep over the meltdown of Canada. In point of fact, I'll be
one of those cheering heartily when the spoiled children in
Quebec *finally* live up to their age old threats and get
the hell out of confederation. They suck millions more from
the public teat than they contribute through tax revenues
and that doesn't begin to factor in the cost of reading
everything on the damned cereal boxes in both official
languages.
I wonder, though, who will presume to speak and negotiate
for Canada when Lobster Jack and Lucie Bouchard come calling
to divvy up the spoils. Surely we won't allow Jean Cretin to
straddle more than one horse at once. We need someone with
bloodlust in their eyes, a bible and a flintlock... in
short, you're it. I suggest you open negotiations by
offering to trade Anne Murray for the Val d'Or gold mines.
The culturally paranoid folks in Quebec won't notice the
faint musk of sweat socks when she opens their national
assembly fete. If they raise any kind of argument about it,
remind them that we whupped their sorry asses on the Plains
of Abraham and we'll do it again if we have to.
Another matter which sticks in my craw this week concerns
deer. Yup, the Bambi kind... except in this case the *lack*
of deer is what is causing my apoplexy. The deer story makes
the O.J. travesty seem like a model of jurisprudence. What
happened was an off-duty police office was shitfaced while
driving his car. He splattered a bicyclist all over one of
our local roads and then screeched off from the scene of the
crime. He managed to drive six kilometres to a donut shop
where he discovered that the absence of a windshield, a
headlight, and other parts of his car, meant that he'd been
in an accident. The crime was investigated by other police
officers who *neglected* to take a timely breathalyzer
sample. The charge of impaired driving was withdrawn and a
judge, incredibly, believed his story that he thought he'd
hit a deer. During the trial the murdering bastard was
chauffeured to and from court by his police buddies and
generally accorded more courtesies and privileges than any
other criminal. Something is truly rotten in the state of
Denmark when a police officer is blessed with such a
ludicrous application of justice. Meanwhile, the dead
bicyclist's parents are left to grieve and to have
nightmares about the fact that their son's head was found
100 metres from the road.
I donned a Level 4 biohazard suit and ventured into the echo
that serves Region 12. Gawd, Duddy Grimspam is *still*
whinging about his completely wrong legion of world class
experts. I don't think Net250 have sorted out their
FidoNews 12-44 Page: 5 30 Oct 1995
differences which isn't surprising because they seem to
possess the sort of collective intellect that suggests a
family tree wider than it is tall. If they start playing
banjos, Visage, shoot first, and ask questions later.
Your absence has started to become notable... particularly
by the swarthy gentlemen who claim that you owe major
dollars on your gambling action associated with the GIANT
PUMPKIN contest. I could have sworn that I saw you on the
street the other day. Were it not for the fact that your
likeness was walking in a straight line and not leering at
the 300 pound courier-babes, I might have hailed you.
I must go Visage, your secretary has become inhospitable and
this has nothing at all to do with the fact that I wired her
dictaphone earphone to the gigawatt amplifier output of my
son's most incredibly bad garage band. She is neither a
happy nor a well person Visage, and I think we should send
her to a nice safe neighbourhood like Brentwood.
Regards,
Doc Logger,
Giant Clam School of Opera & Small Arms Repair,
Furlang Island,
South Pacific
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Fidonews Information
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------- FIDONEWS MASTHEAD AND CONTACT INFORMATION ----------------
Editors: Donald Tees, Sylvia Maxwell
Editors Emeritii: Thom Henderson, Dale Lovell,
Vince Perriello, Tim Pozar
Tom Jennings
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FidoNews 12-44 Page: 6 30 Oct 1995
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-- END
