F I D O N E W S -- Volume 15, Number 30 27 July 1998

F I D O N E W S -- Volume 15, Number 30 27 July 1998
+----------------------------+-----------------------------------------+
| The newsletter of the | ISSN 1198-4589 Published by: |
| FidoNet community | "FidoNews" |
| _ | 1-209-251-7529 [1:1/23] |
| / \ | |
| /|oo \ | |
| (_| /_) | |
| _`@/_ \ _ | |
| | | \ \\ | Editor: |
| | (*) | \ )) | Zorch Frezberg 1:205/1701 |
| |__U__| / \// | |
| _//|| _\ / | |
| (_/(_|(____/ | |
| (jm) | Newspapers should have no friends. |
| | -- JOSEPH PULITZER |
+----------------------------+-----------------------------------------+
| Submission address: FidoNews Editor 1:1/23 |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| MORE addresses: |
| |
| submissions=> [email protected] |
| |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| For information, copyrights, article submissions, |
| obtaining copies of FidoNews or the internet gateway FAQ |
| please refer to the end of this file. |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+

"This edition published under duress."

Table of Contents
1. EDITORIAL ................................................ 1
2. ARTICLES ................................................. 2
FidoNet over IP, Part 1 of 4 ............................. 2
FidoNet over IP, Part 2: What do I need for it? .......... 5
3. COLUMNS .................................................. 8
Cosmology predestines yogurt ............................. 8
4. NOTICES .................................................. 10
Future History ........................................... 10
5. FIDONEWS PUBLIC-KEY ...................................... 11
FidoNews PGP Public-Key Listing .......................... 11
6. FIDONET BY INTERNET ...................................... 12
7. FIDONEWS INFORMATION ..................................... 15
FIDONEWS 15-30 Page 1 27 Jul 1998

=================================================================
EDITORIAL
=================================================================

With all else going on, the eye surgery seems to have taken a turn
for the worse, so this one will be mostly brief.

Lothar Behet has submitted the start of a series of articles on the
ideas and concepts of FidoNet over IP addressing that are worthy of
review and merit. The first two of a projected four parts are in
this issue.

I've also been advised of something forthcoming from one of the FTSC
working groups, which has not yet arrived in the Editor's inbound.

As to the vagaries of Zone 1, always keep in mind that not all sides
have been heard from.

-zf-

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FIDONEWS 15-30 Page 2 27 Jul 1998

=================================================================
ARTICLES
=================================================================

FidoNet over IP, Part 1 of 4
Copyright by Lothar Behet

Part 1:
What is Fidonet over IP?

Fidonet-over-IP (later called "FIP" in this article) tries to
integrate another medium as carrier-service beside the conventional
telephony connectivity.

The most basic technical specification of Fidonet (FTS-1, version 15,
dated Aug. 30 1990) describes the handshake procedure, as it can be
used within conventional pstn environments.

Foreseeing the technical development, Chapter H leaves room for
future extensions:

| H. Physical Layer : the Actual Connection of Two FidoNet Systems
|
| Will one of the more hardware-oriented comm types give me some
| idea of what's needed here? Can we leave it open enough to allow
| implementation over a non-dial net? Thanks.

The internet is just one more possible physical layer in place of a
direct (sometimes quite expensive) connection between two nodes.

It may be discussed, if FTS-1 handshake specification is required for
a fidolike connection via the internet, but in any case the nodelist
based data should be directly used for the dial attempt and the
(possible) authentication of a direct session using another carrier.
So the transfer of data via FTP (direct connection, but completely
independant of any nodelist data) or Email based methods (just
delivering something to a mailbox) are not fido-like in the direct
sense of FIP.

The Nodelist:

For this connection one data is required in any case:
The replacement for the phone-number is the ip-nummber,
i.e. 194.231.142.17. Furthermore the internet utilizes the DNS
(Domain Name Service) for a more mnemonic presentation (FQDN,
Fully Qualified Domain Name) of the same system, i.e. fido.nrh.de.
The use of DNS gives additional advantages:
- load balancing between several computers for the same service
- backup against system failure

But DNS has one real shortcoming:
It does not fit in any way in the nowadays used nodelist format,
based on FTS-5 (released 5. February 1989).

This so called St.Louis-format has only one entry for a
FIDONEWS 15-30 Page 3 27 Jul 1998

"connection point", which is basically defined as sequence
of numbers, seperated by dashes. Other characters may not be
used in this field, as several (older) programs can not handle
other contents.

The ip-number normally contains points in place of dashes, but
that conversion would only be a small problem for actual suppor-
ted software.

Older programs cannot see the difference between a phone number
and an ip-number in this field, so they have to examine the flag
field for this differentiation.

This leaves room for any twit-sysop, to dial an ip-number with
his modem, which is at least annoying for the opponent side of
the connection and may cost some bucks of dollar for the
unexperienced sysop.

But there is a solution:
Not one system using the nodelist can dial a number without
a dial translation table, as the data in the nodelist is
normally undiable by itself. So the utilization of an unused
country code gives room for suppression of dial attempts on
ip-numbers by conventional pstn users.

The selection of the country code "000" in Z2 was taken after
some discussion, as this prefix is an emergency code in some
countries. But any other prefix is or may be used for legal
country codes at a given time and only under very rare circum-
stances (the sysop twit with a dial translation enabling this
number) a call would by made by a modem.

Another solution is defining another field for the ip-address,
which is possible by itself, as older software would in no case
use it for a connection.

- Flag field: any content may be possible here, but some programs
only take care of the first 32-64 characters of it (and we need
this room later, as you will see :).

- Location field: it normaly gives information about the geo-
graphical position of the individual node, which is redundant
to the phone number. But ip-numbers are not geographically
oriented and and the fqdn may be any sequence of characters.

- System name field: it serves sometimes as an additional
"human readable flag extension" and sometimes shows the
"hidden ego" of the sysop.

The usage of any of these three fields leaves room for
another intention:

Definition of a "combined entry", which includes one ip
connectivity and one conventional in a single entry in
the nodelist. Furthermore all may carry either characters
or numbers, so ip numbers or FQDN may be used to the actual
FIDONEWS 15-30 Page 4 27 Jul 1998

sysops intention. Just the locally used nodelist compiler
has to know, which field to use for the preparation of ip
connections.

As shown above, the system name field would be the logical
decision under technical aspects, as it serves the least
significant part of information of these three, while on
the other hand the FQDN may be defined in a wide range
(something like "mybbs.mydomain.org").

There surely are other solutions for the nodelist problem:

1. Define a completely new nodelist structure, which contains
any valuable information about all connectivity variants of a
given node.

This might be a future project, but when will this future
become reality?

2. utilize pure internet techniques for ip-connectivity, i.e.
fidonet.net in eastern europe. This method is nearly completely
independant from nodelist data, except that the address presen-
tation f3000.n2.z2.fidonet.net looks like the addressing
schedule for gateways in the fidonet.org domain.

After 5 months of discussion in IP_CONNECT several proposals were
defined (part 3).

The next part will contain an exerpt about actual used protocols
for FIP.

The author:
Netmail : 2:2446/301 aka 2:2/3000
Email : [email protected]

Apr. 1991: gets member of FidoNet
May 1993: Hub for the area of Kleve, Germany (near the dutch border)
Jan. 1997: Host for Net 2:2446
Jun. 1997: utilization of ip-connections for Fidonet
Sep. 1997: First ip-node 2:2/3000 in Z2
Jul. 1998: FIP-site: http://home.nrh.de/~lbehet/fido/ ,
includes ip-nodelist, information, software

Legal information:
Copyright 1998 by Lothar Behet
This series of articles may be distributed freely within the
fidonet community.

The distribution (partially or complete) on digital or printed
media without explicit authorization of the author is prohibited.

### 30 ###

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FIDONEWS 15-30 Page 5 27 Jul 1998

FidoNet over IP, Part 2: What do I need for it?
Copyright 1998 by Lothar Behet

FidoNet over IP - What's that?

Beside the direct transfer of any data via FTP (File Transfer
Protocol) or Email, the internet supports the tunneling of
protocol data, based on other structures, in ip-packets.
This is used by FIP to establish a direct, password-secured
connection between any two nodes with the internet as alter-
native carrier. Only for the time of this connection both nodes
need to be hooked up to the internet.

Depending on the actual implementation, the data may be transfered
by a normal mailer or an especially for ip-transfer designed program,
whereas (in future) nodelist contents will be used directly for
dialing and authentication purposes.

Available Programs

1. BinkD
BinkD is a pure ip-mailer, which uses the known Binkley style out-
bound and expands conventional systems by an internet based access.
BinkP is the publicly available protocol specification (default
port 24554), which is implemented in other programs (i.e. Argus,
BBBS) in the meantime.

BinkD is at this moment of writing available for FreeBSD, Linux,
OS/2, Windows 95 and Windows NT as well as sourcecode.

2. Vmodem and other device drivers
Vmodem is a "Virtual MODEM" (comparable to cfos for ISDN cards),
which emulates a comport for conventional programs. It is part of
Ray Gwinn's SIO device driver package for OS/2. Beside its own
Vmodem protocol (default port 3141), telnet sessions (default
port 23) are possible.

RL-Fossil represents a similar implementation for DOS or single
DOS-tasks running in another multi-tasking environment.

3. ifcico
ifcico is a fidonet mailer for *nix operating systems (default
port 60179).

Beside modem connectivity it naturally supports data transfer via
ip. The default port is 60179, but with an additional TX-patch it
may utilize Telnet sessions (default port 60177).

4. Telnet
Telnet is originally a terminal program, as it may be used for
internet based access to a mailbox. Via the default port 23,
FTN-compatible sessions may be handled.

5. Other possibilities
FTP and Email-based proceedings are not FIP in direct sense, but
FIDONEWS 15-30 Page 6 27 Jul 1998

they can save some money on long distance transfers in any way.

Features and advantages of FIP

Basically anybody can utilize FIP, as long as he has any kind of
access to the internet. The only condition is, that both opponents :)
are actually hooked up (even as dial-in) to the internet, as long as
the connection exists. A frequently called system may think of an
steady connection to the internet.

The available bandwidth for data transfer can normally not be
calculated, as it relies on the smallest one in any given part
of the actual connection.

With nowadays used multitasking operating systems, FIP may the
used in parallel to any other utilization of the internet (surfing,
chatting, ...), without requiring another dial attempt in opposit
to conventional usage.

(In-)Compatibilities within FidoNet-over-IP

- BinkD as pure mailer conforming to the BinkP-specification can
only connect to opponets with the same protocol. It's main
usage is as additional task for IP to existing other mailers,
as it uses the widely spread binkley style outbound structure.

- Vmodem is unhappily only available as device driver for OS/2,
but has there the advantage of easy implementation for nearly
any communication program, including a wide range of conven-
tional mailers. The installation just requires the selection
of an appropriate (virtual) comport.

- ifcico is only available for unix-style operating systems, but
with the additional TX-patch may connect to any other system
via the telnet-protocol.

- Telnet is supported on nearly any platform (including rlfossil
for DOS), but may raise some problems depending on the individual
installation.

- All of these rely on an existing TCP/IP-stack, which is sometimes
integral part of the operating system (*nix, OS/2 since Warp3
Connect, Windows 95, Windows NT). For DOS and Windwos 3.x addi-
tional drivers are available.

Sources and availability:
For an actual compilation of sources, downloads and other
information, just take a look on

http://home.nrh.de/~lbehet/fido/

(The site is bi-lingual (english/german) at this moment,
but volunteer translators are already busy :)

FIDONEWS 15-30 Page 7 27 Jul 1998

Testing FIP all around the world:
Beside connections to the authors system (fido.nrh.de at
194.231.142.17) with BinkP:24554, Telnet:23 and Vmodem:3141,
the above mentioned website offers an ip nodelist, which is
continuously growing :)

Legal information:
Copyright 1998 by Lothar Behet
This series of articles may be distributed freely within the
fidonet community.

The distribution (partially or complete) on digital or printed media
without explicit authorization of the author is prohibited.

### 30 ###

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FIDONEWS 15-30 Page 8 27 Jul 1998

=================================================================
COLUMNS
=================================================================

Dear Editorbeing,

This article is submitted by Doc Logger(163/110) who has
spent the week remembering why he hates programming. The
cause of this renewed realization was an attempt to simulate
the collapse of a galactic cluster.

Roll da flic, Zorch...

Dear Reverend Visage,

This has been a relatively slow week in Fidoland. Bob Kohl
remained true to type and made his exit as RC10 into a
singularly petulant and ugly event. In his last gasps, he
offered to post an archive of messages with Satti to
demonstrate god knows what. What is amusing about Kohl's
threat is that he seems to be one of the few labouring under
the delusion that Satti's incompetence would be a revelation
or a surprise.

The discussions in the ZIC echo have been interesting. Just
when we thought we'd smoked most of the skunks out of the
woodpile, we were treated to a series of messages from
Darryl Gregorash who first asserted that he "owned" his
net's nodesegment, and then heard him exclaim that he would
cast a vote against the expressed wishes of his net if he
thought they were wrong. What makes Gregorash even more
remarkable is that while espousing his totalist vision, he
took time to make some jingoistic comments about Ward
Dossche. It is a pity that the threat of democracy causes
these cretins to mischaracterize Dossche. If Gregorash was
keen to find a fascist prototype, he need look no further
than some of his own posts concerning the Divine Right of
*Cs.

In North America, we were treated to the spectacle of a
deranged gunman barging into the U.S. capital building and
killing a couple of police officers. What amazed me was that
while five channels of live coverage were devoted to the
incident, a raft of talking heads were asking the question:
"Why does such a thing happen?" It seems none of them
guessed that such things happen exactly because the insane
and the deranged know that their acts will get five channels
of live coverage. Unfortunately, the next person with a few
screws loose will have to outdo the previous attempts.
Perhaps as a public service, the cable companies could offer
a special "psycho" channel where the exploits of the insane
are regularly featured. I know, I know, it can be argued
that the Golf channel already fulfills this mandate.

FIDONEWS 15-30 Page 9 27 Jul 1998

My reading list this week was prompted by a suggestion by
Don Cox (Canada's finest eccentric) who thought that I would
be enthralled by a book on cosmology making a case for
anthropic destiny. (For Dallas, "cosmology" is the study of
the formation of the universe, and "anthropic" is that which
involves the study of life.) Since the book that Cox
suggested was full of absurdities, I read several others to
ascertain whether physicists hadn't gotten any smarter since
the last time I was tortured by their tedious lectures. The
major flaw that I can see in most of the writings was one of
causation. They suggest that if the original universe had
been a tiny bit more dense, if there hadn't been a slight
granularity to the initial primordial soup, and if magnetic
monopoles hadn't been consumed; that life as we know it
couldn't have existed. This form of argument is akin to
saying that 100% of the people who ride school buses will
eventually die. There is no causal link(in general) between
death and riding school buses, but experimentally it can be
ascertained that one event will follow the other with
scientific certitude.

Where the physics weenies leave me behind is where they
assert that since the Big Bang required such narrow
parameters in which to eventually express a world that would
involve humans, then there *had* to be a Plan of Divine
nature. Anyone who turns up an ace and a king during a game
of Blackjack could make the claim to Divine intervention but
really, they are simply the beneficiary of random
probability. If cosmology was so Divinely determined, why
was a world created where you couldn't x-ray an elephant?

I must go Visage, Moravsik's Dr. Strangelove finger is
twitching to type the word "budfoon" in characterization of
this week's article and I wouldn't want to disappoint the
lil' tater-tot. Since you weren't around, I let Walloonetta
accompany my teenmonsters to the Warped Tour concert in
Montreal last night. You'll be sooo pleased to know that the
best song of the night was "Cook Your Father" by a band
called "Dahmer's Diner."

Regards,
Doc Logger,
Furlang Island,
South Pacific

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FIDONEWS 15-30 Page 10 27 Jul 1998

=================================================================
NOTICES
=================================================================

Future History

5 Oct 1998
29th Anniversary of "Monty Python's Flying Circus".

14 Sep 1998
Start of International BBS Week [thru 20 Sep 98].

22 Sep 1998
First anniversary of the FidoNews domain of www.fidonews.org.

23 Nov 1998
35th Anniversary of Doctor Who.

1 Dec 1998
Fifteenth Anniversary of release of Fido version 1 by
Tom Jennings.

16 Feb 1999
13th Anniversary of the introduction of EchoMail by Jeff Rush.

12 May 1999
12th Anniversary of Fido Operations in Zone 4;
10th Anniversary of the creation of FidoNet Zone 4.

24 Jul 1999
XIII Pan American Games [through 8 Aug 99].

9 Jun 1999
Tenth Anniversary of the adoption of FidoNet Policy 4.07.

31 Dec 1999
Hogmanay, Scotland. The New Year that can't be missed.

1 Jan 2000
The 20th Century, C.E., is still taking place thru 31 Dec.

1 Jun 2000
EXPO 2000 World Exposition in Hannover (Germany) opens.

15 Sep 2000
Sydney (Australia) Summer Olympiad opens.

1 Jan 2001
This is the actual start of the new millennium, C.E.

-- If YOU have something which you would like to see in this
Future History, please send a note to the FidoNews Editor.

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FIDONEWS 15-30 Page 11 27 Jul 1998

=================================================================
FIDONEWS PUBLIC-KEY
=================================================================

FidoNews PGP Public-Key Listing

[this must be copied out to a file starting at column 1 or
it won't process under PGP as a valid public-key]

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File-request FNEWSKEY from 1:1/23 [1:205/1701] or download it from
IKVHFoT! BBS at 1-209-251-7529 anytime Zone 1 ZMH at 300-9600+ V34.
The FidoNews key is also available on the FidoNews homepage listed
in the Masthead information.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

FIDONEWS 15-30 Page 12 27 Jul 1998

=================================================================
FIDONET BY INTERNET
=================================================================

This is a list of all FidoNet-related sites reported to the
FidoNews Editor as of this issue; see the notice at the end.

============

FidoNet:

Homepage http://www.fidonet.org
FidoNews http://www.fidonews.org [HTML]
http://209.77.228.66/fidonews.html [ASCII]
WWW sources http://www.scms.rgu.ac.uk/students/cs_yr94/lk/fido.html
FTSC page http://www.goldware.dk/ftsc
Echomail [pending]
WebRing http://ddi.digital.net/~cbaker84/fnetring.html [TFN]
General http://owls.com/~jerrys/fidonet.html
http://www.trak-one.co.uk/foti

============

Zone 1: http://www.z1.fidonet.org

Region 10: http://www.psnw.com/~net205/region10.html

Region 11: http://oeonline.com/~garyg/region11/

Region 13: none

Region 14: none

Region 15: none

Region 16: none

Region 17: none

Region 18: http://techshop.pdn.net/fido/

Region 19: http://www.compconn.net

============

Zone 2: http://www.z2.fidonet.org

ZEC2:
Zone 2 Elist: http://www.fbone.ch/z2_elist/

Region 20: http://www.fidonet.pp.se (in Swedish)

Region 23: http://www.fido.dk (in Danish)

Region 24: http://www.swb.de/personal/flop/gatebau.html (German)
FIDONEWS 15-30 Page 13 27 Jul 1998

Fido-IP: http://home.nrh.de/~lbehet/fido (English/German)

Region 25:
http://www.bsnet.co.uk/net2502/net/

Region 26: http://www.nemesis.ie
REC 26: http://www.nrgsys.com/orb

Region 27: http://telematique.org/ft/r27.htm

Region 29: http://www.rtfm.be/fidonet/ (French)

Region 30: http://www.fidonet.ch (Swiss?)

Region 33: http://www.fidoitalia.net (Italian)

Region 34: http://www.pobox.com/cnb/r34.htm (Spanish)
REC34: http://pobox.com/~chr

Region 36: http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/7207/

Region 38: http://public.st.carnet.hr/~blagi/bbs/adriam.html

Region 41: http://www.fidonet.gr (Greek/English)

Region 48: http://www.fidonet.org.pl

============

Zone 3: http://www.z3.fidonet.org

============

Zone 4: http://www.altern.org/zone4

Region 90: http://visitweb.com/fidonet
Net 903: http://www.playagrande.com/refugio
Net 904: http://members.tripod.com/~net904 (Spanish)

============

Zone 5: http://w3.eastcape.co.za/fidonet/index.htm

============

Zone 6: http://www.z6.fidonet.org

Region 65: http://www.cfido.com/fidonet/cfidochina.html (Chinese)

============

Pages listed above are as submitted to the FidoNews Editor,
and generally reflect Zone and Regional Web Page sites. If
no Regional site is submitted, the first Network page from
that Region is used in its place. Generally, Regional pages
FIDONEWS 15-30 Page 14 27 Jul 1998

should list access points to all Networks within the Region.

TCP/IP accessible node access information should be submitted
to the FidoNews Editor for inclusion in their Region or Zone.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

FIDONEWS 15-30 Page 15 27 Jul 1998

=================================================================
FIDONEWS INFORMATION
=================================================================

------- FIDONEWS MASTHEAD AND CONTACT INFORMATION -------

Editor: Zorch Frezberg

Editors Emeritii: Tom Jennings, Thom Henderson, Dale Lovell,
Vince Perriello, Tim Pozar, Sylvia Maxwell,
Donald Tees, Christopher Baker

"FidoNews Editor"
FidoNet 1:1/23
BBS 1-209-251-7529, 300/1200/2400/9600/V.34/V.90

more addresses:
Zorch Frezberg -- 1:205/1701, [email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]

(Postal Service mailing address)
FidoNews Editor
P.O. Box 642
Fresno, CA 93709-0642
U.S.A.

voice: 1-209-446-9038 [voice mail = 'blind' numbers not returned]

------------------------------------------------------

FidoNews is published weekly by and for the members of the FIDONET
INTERNATIONAL AMATEUR ELECTRONIC MAIL system. It is a compilation
of individual articles contributed by their authors or their
authorized agents. The contribution of articles to this compilation
does not diminish the rights of the authors. OPINIONS EXPRESSED in
these articles ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHORS and not necessarily those of
FidoNews.

Authors retain copyright on individual works; otherwise FidoNews is
Copyright 1998 Zorch Frezberg. All rights reserved. Duplication
and/or distribution permitted for noncommercial purposes only. For
use in other circumstances, please contact the original authors, or
the Editor.

=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=

OBTAINING COPIES: The most recent issue of FidoNews in electronic
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PRINTED COPIES may be obtained by sending SASE to the above postal
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particular Issue. Monthly Volumes are available as FNWSmmmy.ZIP
FIDONEWS 15-30 Page 16 27 Jul 1998

where mmm = three letter month [JAN - DEC] and y = last digit of the
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Annual volumes are available as FNEWSn.ZIP where n = the Volume number
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INTERNET USERS: FidoNews is available via:

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And in non-English formats via:

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http://www.fidonet.pp.se/sfnews (Swedish)

*=*=*

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*

You may retrieve current and previous Issues of FidoNews via FTPMail
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with a Subject line of: help

and FTPMail will immediately send a reply containing details and
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*=*=*

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STAR SOURCE for ALL Past Issues via FTP and file-request -
Available for FReq from 1:396/1 or by anonymous FTP from:
FIDONEWS 15-30 Page 17 27 Jul 1998

ftp://ftp.sstar.com/fidonet/fnews/

Each yearly archive also contains a listing of the Table-of-Contents
for that year's issues. The total set is currently about 13 Megs.

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The current week's FidoNews and the FidoNews public-key are now also
available almost immediately after publication on the FidoNews Editor
homepage on the World Wide Web at:

http://209.77.228.66/fidonews.html

There are also links there to jim barchuk's HTML FidoNews source and
to John Souvestre's FTP site for the archives. There is also an
email link for sending in an article as message text. Drop on over.

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A PGP generated public-key is available for the FidoNews Editor from
1:1/23 [1:205/1701] by file-request for FNEWSKEY or by download from
IKVHFoT! BBS at 1-209-251-7529 as FIDONEWS.ASC in File Area X. It
is also posted twice a month into the PKEY_DROP Echo available on the
Zone 1 Echomail Backbone.

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SUBMISSIONS: You are encouraged to submit articles for publication in
FidoNews. Article submission requirements are contained in the file
ARTSPEC.DOC, available from the FidoNews Editor, or file-requestable
from 1:1/23 [1:205/1701] as file "ARTSPEC.DOC". ALL Zone
Coordinators also have copies of ARTSPEC.DOC. Please read it.

"Fido", "FidoNet" and the dog-with-diskette are U.S. registered
trademarks of Tom Jennings, P.O. Box 410923, San Francisco, CA 94141,
and are used with permission.

"Disagreement is actually necessary,
or we'd all have to get in fights
or something to amuse ourselves
and create the requisite chaos."
-Tom Jennings

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