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everything here is subject to debate. We publish EVERYTHING
received.
Closer and Closer
Multinet Fido is slowly approaching. The local net hosts
and regional coordinators should be receiving a "starter
kit" in the mail from St. Louis soon, if you haven't got it
already.
Ken Kaplan and Ben Baker have been busily carving up the
country into regions and assigning numbers to them, and I
guess they've got it finalized by now. They also managed to
write a couple of articles about all of this, including the
promised piece on what it means to be a regional
coordinator.
I wound up in region 13 somehow. Good thing I'm not
superstitious. Not that it matters much, since I'm really
in net 107.
You see, the regions only matter to independents. If I were
an independent node, then I'd be in region 13. But my mail
is routed through node 79 in New York, so I'm in his local
net, which is net 107.
FIDONEWS -- 03 Jun 85 00:00:51 Page 2
If it seems confusing, don't worry about it. It's mainly
just the hosts and coordinators that have to worry about the
fine points. Fido will chug along as always, happily
routing mail wherever it belongs, and never bothering the
user about how it all works.
FIDONEWS -- 03 Jun 85 00:00:52 Page 3
============================================================
NEWS
============================================================
MIKE HAMILTON 23 MAY 1985
SYSOP 313 & 370
Over the past several months there have been some practices
which the administrators of the network in southern
California find very irritating. The item on the top of the
list is the use of our or any network for commercial
messages. I don't see why we should stand the cost of the
messages for someone else's profit. Recently one such node
was notified that we would no longer receive commercial
messages, specifically for items for sale. This is
accomplished by removing them from the accept-from list in
the routing. This is a drastic step, however repeated
requetes to stop were not honoured. I'm sure there are
othere who feel the same way and I would recommend that they
take the same action. If a commercial user of the network
wants/needs to advertise then he should follow the same
practices as the ones in our network and send out messages
as attached files thus paying the full bill for the
transmission.
There have been numerous articles lately in the trade
magazines and newspapers about software piracy. In
expressing my opinion on the subject I tend to get pretty
warm around the collar. I personally resent being called a
crook before I even purchase software from a vendor. I
realize this is pretty strong wording but that is exactly
what is being done with the currect protection schemes. A
measure I recommend to any one who asks for my opinion
before purchasing is simply to only buy from those companys
who do not call you a crook first. If enough people follow
this advise and stopped buying products like LOTUS 123, the
companys in question would be forced to use other means to
protect their products. LOTUS 123 isnot the best package on
the market but simply using Hollywood type media hype
promote themselves as being such. Similar to the media
advertising blitz before the openning of a loosing movie.
One more item than I'll quit blowing off steam for a while.
I noticed Tom Jennings articles about the Hays 2400 baud
modems and it brought to mind a problem I'm having with
another companys product. I'm sure everyone has seen
articles advertising CTOS the wordprocessing package in all
the trade mags and newspappers. We have beena use rof CTOS
for about 3 years. Last year around June we received a new
update. The program had a problem in dealing with CIT80
terminals. After 9 months of asking for help, the previous
release was patched to correct them problem, an attempt was
made to installa new version. I said attempt because it
didn't work. We were told they would be back in a couple of
FIDONEWS -- 03 Jun 85 00:00:54 Page 4
days to correct the problems. Two months later, after many
calls, we came to find out the person who was responsible
for the installation had been sent to Europe. Letters to the
presidend of the company have gone unanswered. The only
comments are from the sales representives who keep saying
give us time. This is all well and good except that a new
maintenance renewal period is approaching. I would not and
could not in good concience recommend to anyone the purchase
of this product, CTOS. There are other wordprocessing
packages that work on the entire line of DEC computers that
are fully supported and whose vendors respond to problems in
a more timely manner.
Well that is all for now. Hope this will help someone. Any
responses should be addressed to the SYSOP of #313 or #370.
"Compu-peater" a new concept
by Dan Taylor, Sysop Fido 411
I may have coined a new term "Compu-peating". As you may
have guessed, it is simply adding one or perhaps more
computers in between you and whatever system your
ultimately communicating with that is at the end of the
chain. A Computer Repeater if you will. Why you would
ever want to do this, I'll leave up to you.
I'm sure this concept is not one that everyone can or will
use, but for those who can benefit from it, I'll share my
experience.
I have an IBM-PC at home that I use like most any other
person that has a computer at home. I have fun with it! I
run a Fido board (411), I write my mother letters, I play
with BASIC, Turbo Pascal and a number of other things. One
thing I really like doing is calling up other bulletin
boards and up/downloading files. I do that alot at and for
work too, where I use an IBM-XT.
Now, I save my company money on their phone bill by making
calls to bulletin boards at night when I'm home. I also
benefit because I can use many of the same programs that
I'm collecting for my use at work. Enter the Compu-peater.
Here's how I've gotten the concept to work for me.
I've installed 2 Hayes 1200B modems in the XT at work.
With Fido running on COM2, that leaves COM1 for MINITEL.
It's obvious that I have 2 phone lines at work with which
to do this. I set up Fido at work such that I can use the
"0" command to exit to DOS. I do have WATCHDOG running so
as not to leave things in a mess if carrier is lost between
home and work. After calling in to Fido at work and
exiting to DOS, I bring up MINITEL. It looks a bit strange
on my screen, because of the direct cursor addressing
MINITEL does. One thing you have to NOT do is TYPE AHEAD
of any prompts. Keep in mind that you do not have a
keyboard type ahead buffer to help you out. One thing
you'll need to do is patch or just set the Terminal setting
in the Compu-peater's MINITEL to NONE. If you leave it set
to emulate VT-102, You won't get any line feeds. But
beyond that, it works fine.
Once MINITEL is up, you should set it's modem to respond to
an online escape charactor other than the default of '+++'.
I set it to look for '@@@', with the command string
"ATS2=64". 64 is the decimal value of the ASCII charactor
'@'. That way, if you call into a system (as I did while
testing it out) that won't disconnect the phone when you
say goodbye, you will have control of the remote MINITEL's
modem, and can hang up the remote modem's phone line by
then using the Hayes command "ATH". All I can say if you
omit this step is "YOU'RE ASKING FOR PROBLEMS".
I have tried downloading THROUGH the Compu-peater from a
FIDONEWS -- 03 Jun 85 00:00:57 Page 6
public BBS. I've found that using XMODEM, MODEM7 and
TELINK no work so good! However, KERMIT seems to work just
fine. An alternative is to simply download to the Compu-
peater using any of the methods above, and later, download
from it to you.
Again, this may not be for everyone, but for me, it's
become an invaluable tool...
Any questions or comments may be addressed to me Dan Taylor
on Fido 1/411.
------------------------------------------------------------
FIDONEWS -- 03 Jun 85 00:00:58 Page 7
The Duties of a Network or Region Coordinator
by Ben Baker -- Fido 76
and Ken Kaplan -- Fido 22
This article defines the duties of a network or region
coordinator.
First, the coordinator accepts application for, and
assigns applicants node numbers. In the case of region
coordinators, the applicant should be located within the
region. If he is not, he is referred to the appropriate
coordinator. (A temporary node number, something awful like
32767 can be assigned to permit sending him mail.) When
applicable, a region coordinator may also refer an applicant
to a network host.
Applications will be accepted only via FidoNet mail.
This verifies that the applicant's board was at least
running once. An application must contain board name,
sysop's name, board phone number, sysop's voice phone
number, sysop's mailing address, board's city and state if
different, highest baud rate supported if not 2400 and hours
of operation. We recommend that the coordinator place a
message in his BULLETIN.BBS file that can not be skipped,
telling users not to request a node by leaving a message on
his board, and that such a message will not be acknowledged.
The new applicant is assigned a node number. For the
first month or so, we ask coordinators to assign numbers of
600 and up to avoid conflicts with nodes still running old
versions of Fido. After that, any convenient assignment
scheme may be used, provided only that all node numbers
within the coordinator's region or network are unique.
Via FidoNet mail, the coordinator sends the applicant
notification of his new node number and instructions on how
to use the '4' command to set up his Fido Net & Node. This
step verifys that the phone number is correct, and that the
net/node is receiving mail. He may also provide any special
routing instructions for his network, if applicable.
Once notification has been successfully mailed, the
coordinator moves the new node entry into the permanent node
list for his region or area.
From time to time the coordinator will receive and
process requests from existing nodes for changes to phone
number, board name, temporary change of status (up or down),
etc..
If, for unknown reasons, a node stops receiving mail,
the coordinator will replace his phone number in the node
list with the -DOWN- flag and make a reasonable effort to
determine the cause and necessary actions. When
"dissappearing" nodes fail to reappear within a month or so,
they may be removed form the node list.
FIDONEWS -- 03 Jun 85 00:01:00 Page 8
Once each week, if and only if his permanent nodelist
has changed, the coordinator will send a copy via FidoNet
file attach to Fido 1/0. The file will be named REGION.nnn
or NETWORK.nnn, where nnn is the region or network number.
Each Friday Fido 1/0 will assemble for distribution, a new
NODELIST, using the most current file from each region or
network.
Finally, the coordinator will be the first point of
contact for questions related to Fido and FidoNet. He will
make every effort to answer questions and solve problems in
a timely manner. He will be provided a list of "experts" on
various subjects to whom he may refer questions he can't
handle. Thus the right person to answer any question can be
found quickly.
It sounds like a lot to ask, but remember, the typical
coordinator will be handling only a few to about thirty
nodes. Ken Kaplan has been doing this and more for 300
nodes! And a new coordinator will have all the help he
needs to set him self up to take care of business.
If you have any questions you can request help from
Fidos 22, 51 or 76. We look forward to working with you and
having a sucessful decentralization of the new multinet
Fido.
As many of you know, Tim Meyers has written a Fido
look-alike in Turbo Pascal for CP/M, and has sent it to Doug
Good, a remote sysop on Fido #50, and I to look over. Right
now, all we have is the preliminary version, which is quite
bare (no download or upload protocols or FidoNetting), and
he has notified me that he will send the new version soon.
Many of you have asked for a copy of the source code, but
right now, as I understand it, I am not to even give out a
compiled version, so I will be holding back on that until
Tim informs me otherwise. This BBS (called TotoBBS) looks
very Fidoish, and should start pulling some CP/M systems
into the net. Doug has had some problems running TotoBBS on
his Kaypro, and he thinks it has to do with the fact that
Turbo Pascal dislikes working with BYE. Anyway, Doug and I
had been working on our own BBS in Turbo Pascal for CP/M and
MSDOS before we knew about Tim's BBS, and we have sort of
taken it as a challenge to make our BBS better than his
(which could turn out being a chore). Our first project is
to get rid of BYE, so we are looking for a decent I/O driver
for CP/M (we already have one for MS-DOS) that will poll for
a character at the serial port, and handle buffered I/O. If
you know of one, please mail me some info on where I can get
my hands on it. If there are any features that you think we
should include in our BBS, please tell us, and we will try
to complete this project by the end of the summer.
COMPUTER CONFERENCE - MAUI HAWAII
JIM KNEPLER (808) 546-2196
FIDO 488 - UNCLE SAM'S BBS
Several of the government agencies in Hawaii are sponsoring
an information processing conference on the island of Maui
September 23 thru 25. We're lining up a host of top
speakers on topics ranging from lap computers to artificial
intelligence. Commodore Grace Hopper will be addressing
the conference (and answering questions) via satellite-
linked CCTV from Washington, D. C. Also, lots of vendor
exhibits with the latest hardware and software goodies.
The conference fee is $195, which includes two free
lunches. The conference is being held at the
Intercontinental Maui and they are offering some terrific
rates: $60 single or double. The hotel also offers free
activities for conference attendees and spouses; scuba,
horseback riding, tennis, etc.
For information on the conference call Jim Knepler at (808)
546-2196 or Burl Pepper at (808) 546-8636. You can also
leave a message on our FIDO board at (808) 546-3719. We'll
call you back or mail you the registration and info
package.
Obtaining a Fido Net Number
by Ken Kaplan -- Fido 22
When several existing Fido Node's make the decision to
form a network, ie. several clustered nodes, the proposed
host must send a FidoNet mail message to his Region
Coordinator with the following information in order to
obtain a Net Number:
(1) The region number(s), and/or network number(s)
affected by the formation of the new network. The
region coordinator will inform Fido 1/0 and the hosts of
any affected networks of the formation of the new
network.
(2) The name of the proposed network. The name
should be descriptive of location. For example SOCALNET
for nodes in the Southern California Area and MassNet
for Massachusettes Area. DOGNET doesn't help others
know what your interested in or what area of the country
your group lives in.
(3) A copy of the proposed network's nodelist. The
nodelist file should be named Frrr-nnn.NET where rrr is
the proposed host's current region or net number and nnn
is his current node number. This file should be sent
attached to the message of application for a Net Number.
When Fido 1/0 receives the above items from the
Coordinator, the information received will be verified and a
net number assigned. A FidoNet mail message will be sent to
all affected with the assigned net number.
If there are any questions on the above procedure
please send a FidoNet mail message to Fido 22, 51 or 76.
The following is a listing of the multinet Fido regions.
This only applies to independant nodes. If you are a part
of a local network, then your network will be assigned its
own network number.
+----------------+
|Sorted by Region|
+----------------+
Mid Atlantic Delaware 302
District of Columbia 202
Maryland 301
New Jersey 201, 609
New York 212, 315, 516, 518,
607, 716, 718,
914
Pennsylvaina 215, 412, 717, 814
Virginia 703, 804
West Virginia 304
New England Connecticut 203
Maine 207
Massachusetts 413, 617
New Brunswick Canada 506
New Hampshire 603
Newfoundland Canada 709
Nova Scotia Canada 902
Quebec Canada 418, 514, 819
Rhode Island 401
Vermont 802
North West Alaska 907
British Columbia Canada 604
Idaho 208
Montana 406
Alberta Canada 403
Oregon 503
Saskatchewan Canada 306
Washington 206, 509
South East Alabama 205
Caribben Islands 809
Florida 305, 813, 904
Georgia 404, 912
Mississippi 601
North Carolina 704, 919
South Carolina 803
Tennessee 615, 901
+------------------------------+
|Sorted alphabetically by state|
+------------------------------+
Region State Area Codes
South East Alabama 205
North West Alaska 907
North West Alberta Canada 403
Mountain Arizona 602
Texarkana Arkansas 501
North West British Columbia Canada 604
Calif Nevada California 209, 213, 408, 415,
619, 714, 805,
818, 916
South East Caribben Islands 809
Mountain Colorado 303
New England Connecticut 203
FIDONEWS -- 03 Jun 85 00:01:09 Page 14
Mid Atlantic Delaware 302
Mid Atlantic District of Columbia 202
South East Florida 305, 813, 904
South East Georgia 404, 912
Hawaii Hawaii 808
North West Idaho 208
Central Illinois 217, 309, 312, 618,
815
Central Indiana 219, 317, 812
Mid West Iowa 319, 515, 712
Mid West Kansas 316, 913
Central Kentucky 502, 606
Texarkana Louisiana 318, 504
New England Maine 207
Mid West Manitoba Canada 204
Mid Atlantic Maryland 301
New England Massachusetts 413, 617
Calif Nevada Mexico 706, 905
Central Michigan 313, 517, 616, 906
Mid West Minnesota 218, 507, 612
South East Mississippi 601
Mid West Missouri 314, 417, 816
North West Montana 406
Mid West Nebraska 308, 402
Calif Nevada Nevada 702
New England New Brunswick Canada 506
New England New Hampshire 603
Mid Atlantic New Jersey 201, 609
Mountain New Mexico 505
Mid Atlantic New York 212, 315, 516, 518,
607, 716, 718,
914
New England Newfoundland Canada 709
South East North Carolina 704, 919
Mid West North Dakota 701
New England Nova Scotia Canada 902
Central Ohio 216, 419, 513, 614
Texarkana Oklahoma 405, 918
Central Ontario 416, 519, 613, 705
Mid West Ontario Canada 807
North West Oregon 503
Mid Atlantic Pennsylvaina 215, 412, 717, 814
New England Quebec Canada 418, 514, 819
New England Rhode Island 401
North West Saskatchewan 306
South East South Carolina 803
Mid West South Dakota 605
South East Tennessee 615, 901
Texarkana Texas 214, 409, 512, 713,
806, 817, 915
Mountain Utah 801
New England Vermont 802
Mid Atlantic Virginia 703, 804
North West Washington 206, 509
Mid Atlantic West Virginia 304
Central Wisconsin 414, 608, 715
Mountain Wyoming 307
Fido Message Security Loophole
by Lloyd Miller, Fido #418
I have discovered what I believe to be a small
security loophole for Fido systems who are running with
public access allowed. If a user logs in giving the name
"ALL" that user can then wreak havok with the public
message base. "All" can then proced to kill any message
addressed to "All", and just by reading "his" mail it
will be marked as (RECV'D) and if the sysop uses the
(undocumented) "2" command then the sysop could be
killing the messages himself.
Of course if you validate users before letting them
into the message section there is no problem with this.
Don't go rushing off to make your system (semi) private
quite yet, there is a (fairly) easy solution.
The solution to this is simple once you know about
it. Use sysop.exe to enter a user named "all" BEFORE
some twit tries it. Set the password to a long string of
random keystrokes and give the fake user $1 credit so
sysop.exe won't expire the entry in 30 days (or whatever
you use). For extra security you can give "All" twit
priv. level so even if the password is found it probably
can't be used to spend the $1. Hope you sysops out there
see this before any malicious users find it. (My system
has taken care of it of course).
There is a possible problem with the $1 credit in
that the proposed user directory utility will think
"all" is a paid up network user. This is easily repaired
at several stages.
There is still one (very small) problem left.
Public messages do not have to be addressed to "all".
They can be To: anyone or everyone or hey you or
whatever your users fee like. (Tom will claim this is a
feature so you can send mail to someone who hasn't
registered yet.) About all you can do about this is warn
your users or ignore it till someone gets burned. Good
luck however you treat this warning, I still think Fido
is extremly secure for the amount it does.
-------------------------------------------------------
New Fido Utility Software
-------------------------------------------------------
David Purks
Sysop #456, FIDO-FHLMC
I have written a new Fido Sysop's user utility that is ready
for distribution. Originally I wrote it because I am forced
to work on our Fido from remote a majority of the time. The
old utility is screen oriented and very difficult to work
with from remote. The new version offers a number of
enhancements that make it worth using even if you don't do
any modifications of the users file from remote.
The utility I've written looks and works much like Fido
itself and runs 25-30% faster. From the tests we've run, I
think it's pretty much machine independent (works on IBM and
Rainbow 100).
In order to do the final testing on it, I'd like to hear
from people who would be interested in giving the routine a
try. The first 20 or so Sysops that notify me of their
interest, I'll Fidomail the routine and documentation to
you. I am especially interested in hearing from Sysops who
run Fido on equipment other than IBM & Rainbow. Give it a
try and let me know if you have any problems, sug-gestions,
etc. After the initial distribution, everyone else can pick
the routine up from our board in the \FIDODIST area or any
where else you can find it.
