F I D O N E W S Volume 18, Number 19 07 May 2001

F I D O N E W S Volume 18, Number 19 07 May 2001
+--------------------------+-----------------------------------------+
| The newsletter of the |Fido, Fidonet and dog-with-diskette are |
| FidoNet community | Registered Trademarks of Tom Jennings |
| Copyright through | San Francisco, California, USA |
| 2007 | |
| _ | Crash Netmail Attach Articles To: |
| / \ | Editor@1:1/23 (1-972-562-8064) |
| /|oo \ | [email protected] |
| (_| /_) | or |
| _`@/_ \ _ | Frank Vest@1:124/6308 |
| | | \ \\ | |
| | (*) | \ )) | Editor: Frank Vest |
| |__U__| / \// | |
| _//|| _\ / | |
| (_/(_|(____/ | |
| (jm) | Newspapers should have no friends. |
| | -- JOSEPH PULITZER |
+--------------------------+-----------------------------------------+
Copyright 2001 by Frank L. Vest, Editor for Fidonews Globally.

Table of Contents
1. FOOD FOR THOUGHT ......................................... 1
2. TOP STORIES .............................................. 2
The number you have reached is not in service ............ 2
What Happened To WWW.FIDONET.ORG? ........................ 3
3. GENERAL ARTICLES ......................................... 9
The future of FIDONET? ................................... 9
4. EDITORIAL ................................................ 11
The first week as Editor. :-) ............................ 11
5. QUESTION OF THE WEEK ..................................... 13
Copyright or Trademark? .................................. 13
6. ANSWERS OF THE WEEK ...................................... 14
Answer to: "Why not carry?" From Bob Seaborn ............. 14
Answer to: "Why not carry?" from Renato Zambon ........... 15
7. INTERVIEWS ............................................... 17
Interview with George Roberts of Nexus BBS Software ...... 17
8. FRANK'S COLUMN ........................................... 19
Networks ................................................. 19
9. GETTING TECHNICAL ........................................ 21
Expanding a Theme on ERN ................................. 21
10. COMIX IN ASCII .......................................... 23
Cow View ................................................. 23
11. RECIPES ................................................. 24
Xxcarol's Lamb Soup ...................................... 24
12. CLEAN HUMOR & JOKES ..................................... 26
What Will Our Son Be? .................................... 26
13. CLASSIFIED ADS .......................................... 27
Rotating Ads ............................................. 27
Reporters Wanted ......................................... 27
14. FIDONET BY INTERNET ..................................... 29
Fidonet-related sites .................................... 29
15. FIDONEWS INFORMATION .................................... 33
How to Submit an Article ................................. 33
And more!
FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 1 7 May 2001

=================================================================
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
=================================================================

If you get to thinkin' you're a person of some influence, try orderin'
somebody else's dog around.
-Texas Bix Bender

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FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 2 7 May 2001

=================================================================
TOP STORIES
=================================================================

The number you have reached is not in service
Carl Austin Bennett 1:249/116

Much has been said over the last two weeks about all the various
route lists. Entries were flagged with TOMBSTONE or MISSING HOP
in one of the lists where routes once pointed to nodes that no longer
exist; the other list had defaulted all of these to respective RC's.

All too easy to point fingers when it came to questions of accuracy.

Unfortunately, the need for a more accurate route list is only
part of the problem. The nodelist itself is too often incorrect.

For instance, behind a routing entry like:

; 1:1/117 No route available TOMBSTONE

or the more euphemistic default route:

; 1:1/117 1:297/11 1:140/1 14 20010316 RC14

hides the rather embarassing reality that the underlying node most
likely just does not exist and has been dead for more than a year.

1:1/117 was ex-RC14 Ray Brown's support site for Tom Jennings'
original FidoBBS[tm] package. FidoBBS[tm] was created in the early
1980's and has long since been abandoned. It didn't survive Y2K.

TomJ had left the network many years ago; the RC14's FidoBBS site
at 1:1/117 dropped offline in early 2000 never to operate again.

The node's still in the nodelist, although Ray's been gone for a year.

While an empty FIDOBBS support echo is still on the backbones, the
original FidoBBS[tm] package itself is now virtually unusable.

Despite the efforts of subsequent co-ordinators, not only was
an updated ROUTELST.R14 last seen in late 1999 but the nodelist
itself contains a most awkward mix of some live nodes, many
disconnected lines and even some just plain wrong numbers.

It's in this context, with both nodelists and regional routelists
severely inaccurate in places, that the creators of these ERNROUTE
and DIFF files attempted to determine who's still connected where.

As much as I hate to have to say it, that isn't going to be an easy
task.

The problems go beyond the routelist. In many places FidoNet has no
idea whether some systems or even entire nets even still exist. The
use of a regional "default route" - sending their mail to RC's or
REC's if no valid path exists - might help to hide the problems, but
FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 3 7 May 2001

it is not a solution.

The original idea when the St. Louis-format nodelist was created in
the mid-1980's was to split the task of maintaining nodelists among
various co-ordinators so that each could ensure the accuracy of their
local segment. For many years, this system worked well. It's beginning
to break down now, largely because as ever-increasing numbers of BBSs
silently close their doors the co-ordinator positions become vacant
without warning.

It's too easy now to find systems like NC293 or NC299 that respond
with "the number you have reached is out of service" despite being
listed in the nodelists as active sites. Any routelist built from this
info could well be attempting to route mail to BBSs that are long
gone.

Any nodelist depending on updates from these missing NCs also breaks.

In the very early days of FidoBBS, there were two key Fidonet sites:
TomJ's site Fido #1 in San Francisco (his local net 1:125 has long
since folded) and the nodelist keepers' site Fido #51 in St. Louis
(net 1:100).

Tom can be found on the Internet, but please don't bother calling the
telephone number listed for 1:100/0 in this week's Fido nodelist.

It's someone's voice line. A wrong number.

Of ten systems listed for 1:100 St. Louis, at most one or two are
still valid. A few answer voice but most of the numbers are now
disconnected.

It was one and a half decades ago that the group of sysops in St.
Louis had split Fido's growing nodelist into local net/node entries so
that it could be more readily maintained and be kept accurate.
Perhaps, before anyone creates yet another route list to try to route
mail to yet another local net that no longer exists, the nodelist
should be repaired.

The nodelist was the glue that holds Fido together. It's come apart
now.

The number you have reached is not in service; please check the number
and dial your call again. This is a recording.

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

What Happened To WWW.FIDONET.ORG?
By Lawrence Garvin

Over the past several weeks, participants of the FIDONEWS echo (and a
few others) have observed problems reaching the website at
WWW.FIDONET.ORG. There has been a lot of conversation, accusation,
innuendo, and confusion about this situation. I'm going to attempt, in
this article, to walk back through the whole situation in some sort of
organized fashion and explain what the situation is and what it will
FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 4 7 May 2001

take to fix it.

In the old days (this is prior to approx Feb 2000), Pennsylvania
Online operated on the IP Network 198.69.90 -- a number I know well as
I was an Fidonet/FTP client of PAOnline at that time. In February,
1988, the FIDONET.ORG domain was created. To the best of my knowledge
it has always been hosted at Pennsylvania Online, though for our
purposes that information is trivial. What is significant is what
exists in recent years.

As of June, 1997, and perhaps earlier, though I cannot verify that
information, there existed a computer system at Pennsylvania Online
called FIDONET.FIDONET.ORG at IP Address 198.69.90.5. Among other
things this machine was the FTP server for the FTPHub at Pennsylvania
Online. It also hosted the website for WWW.FIDONET.ORG.

Sometime recently, and I'm speculating February, 2000, based on dates
recorded in transactions in the Whois databases of Network Solutions,
Inc., new IP Network Addresses at Pennsylvania Online were added. The
new network(s) included 216.220.160.0.

As a result of this addition, and perhaps for other reasons I'm not
aware of, the FIDONET.ORG systems were moved from the 198.69.90
network to the 216.220.160 network, apparently in February, 2001.
Perhaps because the connection upstream from 216.220.160 was better
than the one from 198.69.90. It really matters not why, just that they
were. Under normal circumstances moving a computer system from one IP
network to another is a trivial issue; especially when both networks
are owned and operated by the same entity, as in this case.

The changes normally necessary to effect this switchover involve
changing the IP Addresses listed in the DNS Servers for the affected
domain, in this case FIDONET.ORG, and waiting a few hours. These
changes were completed correctly. They can be verified by using a DNS
utility called 'nslookup' and directly issuing a query to the Domain
Name Server that is authoritative for the FIDONET.ORG domain to list
the addresses registered. On my OS/2 system, the process goes like
this:

[G:\temp]nslookup - dns1.paonline.com
Default Server: dns1.paonline.com
IP Address: 216.220.160.7

> ls -t A fidonet.org.
[dns1.paonline.com]
fidonet.org. server = dns1.paonline.com
fidonet.org. server = dns2.paonline.com
z2 server = ns.bofh.it
z2 server = ns0.fido.net
z2 server = ns1.fido.net
z2 server = ns4.fido.net
z2 server = ns.datanova.se
z2 server = ns2.corbina.net
z3 server = verdi.tardis.net
z3 server = fidonet.fidonet.org
z4 server = dns1.paonline.com
FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 5 7 May 2001

z4 server = dns2.paonline.com
z5 server = dns1.paonline.com
z5 server = dns2.paonline.com
z6 server = ns.shim.org
z6 server = ns2.shim.org
z6 server = fidonet.fidonet.org
gnfido server = ns.gn.apc.org
gnfido server = ns1.igc.apc.org
fidonet 216.220.174.11
www 216.220.174.11
ftp 216.220.174.11
n340.z1 server = ns1.spydernet.com
n340.z1 server = fidonet.fidonet.org
www.z1 216.220.174.11
ftp.z1 216.220.174.11

You can see from this list that the three FIDONET.ORG systems are
listed and assigned to IP Address 216.220.174.11, and in most other
circumstances this would end the conversion process.

However, a couple of unique conditions exist that are complicating the
process for some people to access WWW.FIDONET.ORG, and, unfortunately,
only George Peace can fix them.

The first condition is that although WWW.FIDONET.ORG points to the
same IP Address as FIDONET.FIDONET.ORG, apparently WWW.FIDONET.ORG has
been created as a Virtual Web Server on that machine and is configured
to redirect all web service requests to FIDONET.FIDONET.ORG. Even this
would not be a real issue since FIDONET.FIDONET.ORG is the same
computer system (though I do have reservations about the efficiency of
redirecting an address to the same machine). A more appropriate
configuration would be to list WWW.FIDONET.ORG in the DNS as a CNAME
entry pointing to FIDONET.FIDONET.ORG and removing the redirections.

A second, more critical, condition exists that is causing the
interference with some people to access the Fidonet Web Site. When a
web user enters http://www.fidonet.org into their web browser of
choice, a query is sent to the Domain Name Service to retrieve the IP
Address of WWW.FIDONET.ORG. In every case, the address returned is
216.220.174.11. This part of the DNS is working properly.

The browser then sents a request to 216.220.174.11 to retrieve the
home page for WWW.FIDONET.ORG. But the redirection in place sends a
message back to the browser that says "The stuff you want is actually
at FIDONET.FIDONET.ORG, go get it from there". The web server is dumb
as to the fact that it's the same machine. So, the browser repeats
this process and sends a query to the Domain Name Service to retrieve
the IP Address of FIDONET.FIDONET.ORG -- and here's where things start
breaking down.

This gets very complex inside the operation of the Domain Name
Service. I'll do my best to describe it in simple terms. If I fail,
please feel free to send echomail (in FIDONEWS), netmail, or email and
I'll be happy to try again. Another good source is the book "DNS And
BIND" published by O'Reilly and Associates.

FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 6 7 May 2001

So, what happens at this point, apparently, is one of two things. Some
computers, like mine, who have already identified an address in the
FIDONET.ORG domain, retain information in their cache as to where they
received that DNS information from. The next time a query needs to be
made for an address in that domain, they retrieve the information they
have on the "authoritative server" from the cache and send the query
direct rather than going up the chain and back down. For those
computers, they get back the real IP Address of FIDONET.FIDONET.ORG
(216.220.174.11) and promptly view what purports to be the Fidonet.Org
website.

But some other computers apparently are not so smart. They send out
the query for FIDONET.FIDONET.ORG from scratch. The nature of the
Domain Name Service is that queries always go from here, to the top,
and back down. Hopefully, on the way up, a server will be found that
knows the answer to the query. If not, they refer the query to the
next higher server. When it gets to the top (the root servers) they
refer the query to the "authoritative server". In this case, the
"authoritative server" for FIDONET.ORG is DNS1.PAONLINE.COM. However,
if any server along the way claims to know the answer to the query, it
answers the query, and reports the answer as "non-authoritative". This
is essentially what is happening. Incorrect information is being
provided by a non-authoritative server (but only because that
information should be correct, and it isn't).

In the particular situation that affects FIDONET.FIDONET.ORG, there is
an additional piece of information registered in the Domain Name
Service that is causing these second type of queries to be given
incorrect answers.

I'm going to back up just a bit to catch up on some details. In order
for the root servers to know where the authoritative servers actually
are (that is, their IP Address), each Domain Name Server must be
registered with the registering authority. There are several
authorities these days, but for purposes of this article, we'll
concentrate only on Network Solutions, Inc., as they affect this
situation exclusively. To register one's Domain Name Server, you fill
out a Host Registration, which includes the system name, your contact
info, and the IP Address of the system, and that information is
submitted to the Whois database at Network Solutions, Inc., along with
the Domain Name Registration. Then the Host Registration information
is also submitted to the Domain Name Service. These Host Registrations
are then "hard-coded" into the root servers so that the IP Address of
the authoritative server for any domain can be given to a query
presented.

Having covered that, our fundamental problem with FIDONET.FIDONET.ORG
is that there exists a Host Registration record for that system with
the old IP Address of 198.69.90.5 and the only person that can change
this information is George Peace. It's an arguable circumstance that
the Host Registration record should have never existed in the first
place, as I don't know whether or not that system was ever a Domain
Name Server for FIDONET.ORG; what's certain is that it is not a Domain
Name Server at this time and, therefore, does not need to be there at
all.

FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 7 7 May 2001

The week before last I sent an email to George Peace asking him to
look into this. I received no reply. Late last week I submitted a
renegade request to delete the Host Registration record. An
interesting feature of the Whois database system is that while only
the authorized person(s) can actually implement a change to the data
in the database, anybody can submit a request to make the change. What
happens in this case is that a submission to delete the Host
Registration record is flagged because the submitter is not authorized
to make the change. Then, Network Solutions sends a notice to the
authorized person(s), in this case George Peace, informing them that
somebody attempted to make a change. The authorized person(s) then
have an opportunity to approve the change, or prohibit the change. If
they fails to respond, the request is automatically denied.

In any event, until George Peace authorizes a change, or Network
Solutions determines the entry is invalid -- which would take a formal
complaint, I imagine -- many persons are going to have challenges
viewing this site. There are numerous ways to workaround the
situation, but all of them involve George Peace, ultimately, to
implement a permanent fix. George seems to be unresponsive to these
requests.

All of the above has absolutely nothing to do with the parallel
discussions concering the content of the site at WWW.FIDONET.ORG,
which, although clean in presentation (IMHO), does contain some out of
date information -- most notably broken links to non-existant echomail
distribution hubs, as well as the pratically non-existant Zone 1 site.
The links to Zone 2, Zone 3, and Zone 6 are functional, though no
content exists at the Zone 3 site. Zone 4 and Zone 5 do not have a
link configured.

As to the update of the content at the site, much has been said and
written about who is, or is not, responsible for that content. That
discussion is really beyond the scope of this article as it matters
not what that content is, or is not, until the world can reliably
navigate to the site.

I will also leave the suggestion to those most concerned that
sometimes the telephone is the best way to conduct business such as
this. I would imagine a polite telephone call during normal working
hours to George at Pennsylvania Online with a polite request to look
into the Host Registration issues with FIDONET.FIDONET.ORG and an
explanation of how that is impacting access to the site by a
significant number of persons would go a long way to resolving this
issue. There are several fixes available, and most of them take merely
seconds to implement. The ones that come immediately to mind, in order
of preference are:

1. Remove the redirection from www.fidonet.org to
fidonet.fidonet.org and let the system at 216.220.160.11 answer
as www.fidonet.org, totally removing fidonet.fidonet.org from
existence.

2. Edit the DNS to list www.fidonet.org as a CNAME to
fidonet.fidonet.org (which should permit those clients having
difficulty to get the correct IP address to fidonet.fidonet.org
FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 8 7 May 2001

while attempting to resolve www.fidonet.org via the CNAME
entry).

3. The ultimate, and correct, though of longest duration fix, is
to remove the unnecessary Host Registration record for
fidonet.fidonet.org from the Whois databases at
networksolutions.com

Personally I think all three should be accomplished.

One thing is certain, though. Until these issues are resolved, any
discussions or arguments about content are an exercise in futility.

Lawrence Garvin
1:106/6018

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FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 9 7 May 2001

=================================================================
GENERAL ARTICLES
=================================================================

The future of FIDONET?
by Henk den Adel (2:280/6415)

The subject of this article -or rather my point of view- indicates
that there is something like a future for FIDONET, although the
question mark burps up that ever present taste of doubt. If you are
succeptible to the signs, you can not deny that decline in FIDONET is
present. Many efforts have been done to stop this decline, many
efforts were counter productive and have merely sped up the decline.

Decline has a negative taste, although decline is absolutely
inevitable. Each human being will decline, our natural resources will
decline, our sun will decline, our galaxy will decline, even the
universe itself will suffer the inevitable decline. Time scale is all
that matters. But how much time do we have? The same question arises
when man is confronted with serious illness. He/she will come to the
conclusion that only a limited amount of time remains, so he/she
makes a wise decision: "Make the best of it, as long as it lasts".
FIDONET can be seen as a patient with only a limited amount of time.
So lets make the best of it. How?

Well, we do not have to reinvent the wheel, others have done that in
advance. Early in the 19th century Watt figured out that a steam
engine would be an nice gadget to lighten mans labour. In the late
1830ies the first steam locomotives laid the foundation of mass
transport. Unfortunately steam engines were not quite so practical in
the London Underground, electricity presented itself as the successor
of steam power. Nowadays steam locomotives are hardly seen in
western Europe. In the third world steam is still an intricate part
of live.

Although steam engines are no longer the common way of commuting in
Western Europe, yet many people are still interested in steam
engines. Each country has one or more 'steam clubs' in a sense that
transcends the steam clubs in Turkish baths. Some people spend nearly
every minute of their leasure time to restorate e.g. old steam
locomotives, for no other purpose than to have fun. Nevertheless
steam power will not return as an alternative for electricially
driven mass transport. When steam clubs are assembling for a national
meeting, their members travel by electrical trains, occasionally
Diesel trains. Although these people love steam, they are
sufficiently realistic about steam, they will not dream about a steam
driven TGV, Porsche, Airbus 400, or Ariane 7.

Yet another analogy. Some radio amateurs pratice the Morse code. The
trick of this code is that it enables its user to make contact with
another ham as far as right 'down under', with as little power as
possible and a transmitter as simple as possible. Other hams use Slow
Scan TV, voice communication as in single side band, AM or FM,
written info by RTTY, FAX or AMTOR. Whatever means they use, they all
depend on the ability of the ionosphere to reflect radio waves. But
solar storms can prevent them from making contact. In the age of
FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 10 7 May 2001

telecommunication satelites a rather disapointing situation. Never-
theless hams love it. Yet they are realistic enough to realise that
satcom is here to stay, Morse code will not replace the phone or FAX.

So lets face it, the Internet drain will not disappear merely by the
fact that FIDONET used to be a huge network. By no means FIDONET will
regain its leading position in transferring information between
people. Nevertheless we can enjoy being a FIDO node, since it is our
hobby and hobbies should be fun.

The essence of FIDONET, the Internet and Radio Amateurism is
'communication'. People need to communicate. It does not matter
whether they make a chat in the elevator, use the phone, go to the
pub, fire up their morse tranceiver, type a message in an echomail
area, write a letter to the editor of the local newspaper, contribute
to a newsgroup in the Internet, all are just different shapes of the
basic C: communication.

Now i will return to the subject of these thoughts.

- "Will there be a future for FIDONET?" Yes.
- "Will FIDONET be restored in its glorious glitter of the late
1980ies and early 1990ies?" No.

FIDO will be nothing more and nothing less than the the steam engine
or the morse code, just another way to commute or communicate. It can
be fun, it should be fun and it will be fun, as long as we FIDO nodes
prevent FIDONET from sliding down into FITONET.

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FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 11 7 May 2001

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

The first week as Editor

Well... In my first week as Editor, I managed to get into a
discussion with Michael Grant that ended in an article submission. I
had a discussion with Lesley-Dee over a submission and ended up
publishing her article after meeting the guidelines. Carl Austin
Bennett sent in an article and it was published after getting a title
from him. I made adjustments to the rules for the Fidonews Echo, as I
discovered, thanks to Michiel van der Vlist, that they were a little
un-clear in one portion. I'm not going to count how many times I went
through the control files for the production of the Fidonews and made
changes to them. :)

All in all, not a bad week. :-))

All of the above has brought to light some thoughts to keep in mind
when submitting articles.

1. Just because it's clear to you, doesn't mean it's clear to all.

2. In Fidonet message areas and article submissions, it can be hard to
tell what emotions are being conveyed. Readers aren't there when we
write an article or a message. This makes it a little hard, at times,
to know what the feelings of the person writing the article or message
are. I might be joking with someone and some other person might think
I'm "busting someone's chops".

3. A title in an article can speak volumes.

On that last note:

I don't have a crystal ball and I'm not a mind reader. I won't try to
guess what your submission is about. Besides, the title will appear in
the index portion of the Fidonews and give readers an idea of what is
in the Fidonews and what your article is about. Please title your
submission.

I have this feeling that some might wonder what and how I think in
regards to the Fidonews. IOW, what will this Editor accept and such.

I'll accept articles from anyone that wishes to submit them. If I
have a question about the article, I'll ask the submitter and try to
work out any problems. Most likely, we will work them out. While I
feel that the Fidonews is the Newspaper of the Fidonet community, I
also understand that there are boundaries and rules to be followed.

The Fidonews isn't a "rag magazine". It isn't a "free for all"
message posting and quoting forum. I'll question any submissions that
I feel are not proper for the Fidonews... This doesn't mean that "I'm
right and you're wrong". It simply means that we need to work out
FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 12 7 May 2001

whatever I feel is a problem. Please, don't be afraid to tell me your
side to a question I might ask about your submission. More times than
not, I'm probably the one misunderstanding what you are submitting.
:-)

My idea of what the Fidonews Publication and the Fidonews Echo are
for is really simple.

The Publication is for printing of articles. Articles should be
submitted to the Publication, not posted in the Echo. They should be
thought provoking, humorous, informational, technical or any number of
combinations. There may be more combinations, but these come to mind.

The Echo is for the discussion of the aforementioned articles.
Submissions to the Fidonews publication will, or should, be seen for
the first time in the publication. If articles are taken from the
Echo, then the discussion has probably already taken place and this
ruins the whole purpose and process. IOW, it's backwards.

What is not needed is hate and gossip. Of course, what constitutes
hate and gossip is a matter of opinion, but I think that almost any
subject or opinion, properly presented, can be of benefit.

In this light, I intend to guide the Fidonews. I need you to help by
submitting articles and, occasionally, guiding me. :-)

Regards,

Frank - Fidonews Editor

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FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 13 7 May 2001

=================================================================
QUESTION OF THE WEEK
=================================================================

Copyright or Trademark?

Some of the talk this week has been regarding the "Fidonet" name and
the "dog with diskette".

Q: Is the "dog with diskette" a tradmark or copyrighted?

Q: Is the name "Fido" or "Fidonet" a trademark or copyrighted?

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FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 14 7 May 2001

=================================================================
ANSWERS OF THE WEEK
=================================================================

Answer to: "Why not carry?"
From Bob Seaborn

Note: This was sent to me by Bob Seaborn with permission to print in
the Fidonews

Evening Frank,

Regarding the recent issue of Fidonews, in which you stated:

"In an article last week, Renato Zambon wrote about becoming the Z4C.
My congratulations to him.

Part of the article mentioned Echomail areas available in his Zone.
I've heard that there are many Echomail areas in other Zones that are
not carried in Zone 1. My questions:

Why not?

Why shouldn't the Backbones in Zone 1 carry some of these echos?

There are those in Zone 1 that speak other languages. Why not give
them a chance to get message echos in their language, or better yet,
from their homeland? For that matter, why shouldn't all Zones carry
echos from other Zones?"

I would like to advise you that I have been offered numerous
echos (50-100) from zone 2, some in English from the UK Backbone which
I have a direct link with, and some from other parts of Z2, mostly
non-English. However, I am reluctant to make them available within
zone 1, primarily because the echo, shall we call it policies?, of z2
differ widely from those in z1. Primarily in the echolisting
requirements. Not that I'm a stickler for requiring an echo to be
elisted before transporting it. Far from it, more to avoid the
problems like we saw some time ago when Ward Dossche asked the ZHubs
in zone 1 to distribute his ZCC-PUBLIC echo, which he didn't bother
elisting. Then after a short while Bob Moravsik proceeded to elist the
same echo-tag, then demanded that we ZHubs cease transporting 'his'
echo. It took some time, plus yelling and screaming before we could
convince Moravsik that we were NOT transporting _his_ echo, but that
of Ward Dossche, which used the same echo-tag.

With all the 'rescuers' and 'saviours' out there, plus the few
individuals that appear to delight in deliberately causing problems, I
see no need to aid them by transporting un-elisted echos that just
scream to be hijacked. Factor in that most likely there will be a
fair number of non-English speaking moderators, and all we'll see is
confusion and trouble. None of which I think Fido needs at this time.

As a matter of interest, I am most willing to work with ANY
FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 15 7 May 2001

non-zone1 moderators to get their echos elisted, and I have a Robot
equipped to automagically update their echo every month, in such a way
that there's no mention of the Robot anywhere, each moderator receives
a direct acknowledgement of the submission direct from the Elist
Robot. I have no plans to be involved in moderation, and I am not
listed in the Elist entry for these echos. If this will help some
moderators, fine, if they wish to make their own arrangements,
excellent.

Anyhow, I hope this serves as a partial answer to the question
that you raised.

.....Bob

Fido: 1:140/12
email: [email protected]

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

Answer to "Why not carry?"
From Renato Zambon

Editor:
In last weeks "Question of the Week" section, I asked why there
weren't more echos from other Zones and in other languages available
in the Zone 1 backbones. Renato Zambon replied to me with this
explaination and permission to print it.

Renato:
Lack of interest, lack of other languages knowledge, lack of well
organized information about these areas, a combination of these
reasons I think. The last however is being worked with aid of the
WWB (World Wide Backbone). Here is the part about regional and other
languages echolists from the weekly information file backstat.ww (I
did strip some space columns, and day in file dates, to adjust at
70 so you can place this message in Fidonews):

-----8<-----
3. World Wide Backbone Regional Echolists

Filename Size Date Description
------------ ----- ----- ---------------------------------------------
WWB-BRA.480 1302 03/01 Brazilian Portuguese echos via 4:801/161
WWB-DUFR.229 7445 01/01 Belgian Dutch/French echos via 2:292/624
WWB-FIN.222 3618 04/01 Zone 2 Finnish echos via 2:221/0
WWB-FRA.230 318 10/99 Switzerland French echos via 2:301/1
WWB-GER.224 43549 01/01 Zone 2 Region 24 German echos Forward List
WWB-GER.230 2343 10/99 Switzerland German echos via 2:301/1
WWB-IL.240 482 10/00 Israel R40 public echoes
WWB-IRL.226 588 12/00 Regional echos from Ireland R26 via 2:263/950
WWB-ITA.233 8058 02/00 Zone 2 Region 33 Italian echos Forward List
WWB-MD.240 1029 10/00 Moldova public echoes (Russian, Romanian)
WWB-POL.248 5215 11/00 Polish EchoMail via 2:480/112
FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 16 7 May 2001

WWB-RUS.250 78463 02/99 Russian echos (Region 50 backbone echolist)
WWB-SPA.234 10887 03/01 Spanish echos via 2:341/14@fidonet
WWB-SWE.220 15038 04/01 Swedish echos via 2:20/11

Bones of Regional listings are generally in their native language.
Sysops desiring further information, english translations, hub
locations etc are advised to seek support in the WWB_TECH echoarea.
Regional echolists are distributed in the WWB_FWDL file echo.

Naming Conventions: Regional forward lists are prefixed "WWB-"
followed by a three letter language designation eg: SWE for Swedish.
The suffix format is .<Zone><Region><Region> Thus WWB-SWE.220 is a
Regional forward list on the WWB distribution containing Swedish
echos from Zone 2 Region 20. Submissions must follow this convention.

Regional forward lists are controlled by the REC or Distribution Hub
of the list origin, and as such the REC/Hub is considered Moderator/
Owner of all echoareas on that list. WWB distribute for the echo
owner, the owner of the echo retains all administrative control.

Regional list Owners may include information within the Regional list
file as to Hub locations, distribution and/or any special circumstan-
ces/rules associated with any or all of the list echos. Connecting
systems should read the list file of any Regional echoarea for
further information.
-----8<-----

The listed files are, or must be, available for FREQ with these
sysops/nodes:

Joe Jared 1:103/301
Sven Dueker 2:2432/200
Barry Blackford 3:774/605
Renato Zambon 4:801/161

And also in the anonymous ftp glonet.co.nz.

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

FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 17 7 May 2001

=================================================================
INTERVIEWS
=================================================================

Interview with George Roberts of Nexus BBS Software

As Editor of the Fidonews, a publication of the Fidonet mail
network, I'm trying to interview various Authors of BBS related
programs and other software for the Fidonews.

With your permission, I'd like an E-Mail address and Web page, if
available, to publish in the Fidonews.

Sure! http://www.nexusbbs.net/, [email protected], and
telnet://bbs.nexusbbs.net for my BBS.

Questions:

Q: Tell us a little about George Roberts. Just who are you? :)

I am a 28 year old computer analyst for a Fortune 500 company. My
wife Jessica and I are expecting our first child August 1, 2001. I
have been singing in a semi-professional a cappella group for about 11
years now.

Q: What got you first interested in BBS?

I started calling BBSes when I got my first computer back in 1987. I
was fascinated by the fact that I could use my computer to dial into
someone elses computer and download files, play games, read/write
messages and chat.

Q: How long have you been programming?

I've been programming for 14 years, ever since I got my first
computer. I started with BASICA, Microsoft's Advanced Basic, on DOS
3.3 I believe it was. Since then I have learned to program in
QuickBasic, Turbo Pascal, Visual Basic for Windows, C++, Delphi, Perl,
and Javascript.

Q: What prompted you to begin writing Nexus?

Well, it started out just as a personal project to see if I could do
it. I didn't have any grand plans in mind for it, but mainly just for
my own use. A couple of friends of mine who were also sysops saw it
and begged me for a copy for themselves. I gave in. :-) Of course,
the inevitable feature requests, bug reports, comments, and
suggestions followed. Before long they were telling me I should plan
it as a public software package. I started the initial beta team back
in, oh, 1996 I think. Development actually started on Nexus way back
in 1992.

Q: What do you see as the strong points of Nexus? Give us a quick
review.

FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 18 7 May 2001

Well, Nexus is a very configurable BBS software package. Most of the
display strings and such are completely configurable, and before the
"final" release, almost all of them will be. Nexus supports the
standardized message formats of *.MSG, JAM, and Squish. It has a very
flexible menuing system and what is right now only a rudimentary
scripting system, but that will receive more work as time goes on.
The security and priveledge system is VERY powerful. The file system
is very innovative, allowing the sysop to choose how many description
lines per file they would like to store.

The software is still in public beta mode and has quite a bit of work
left to be done on it. Currently it is only available as a DOS
application, but plans are already being made to port to Win32, OS/2,
and probably Linux as well.

Q: Have you written any other BBS related software?

If so, please tell us a little about it.

I recently wrote a small utility that is being tested called NLLIST
that will create a BBS List from a St. Louis-format nodelist file.

I've also written many other small utilities, but most of them are
several years old now and not really maintained. If I remember
correctly, they were all freeware.

Q: Where do you see BBS systems going in the future.

I think that as broadband internet connections become more prevalant,
sysops will move their boards to the net. We're already seeing a lot
of this now in Zone 1. I think that BBS software will allow sysops to
take advantage of the speed and worldwide nature of the Internet, but
continue to provide the ability to create a community.

Q: Anything else you want to add or tell the readers?

Well, Nexus has been released in Public Beta for people to try.
Please feel free to download the latest public beta from
http://www.nexusbbs.net or my BBS at telnet://bbs.nexusbbs.net. I'm
always open to ideas and suggestions, so if you try it out, let me
know what you think!

> Thanks for your time and help in this interview.

You're welcome Frank! Anytime.

George

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

FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 19 7 May 2001

=================================================================
FRANK'S COLUMN
=================================================================

Networks
By Frank Vest

You're probably thinking this is about Fidonet, Internet or both.
Nope. It's about my network. No, not a new Fido or Internet style
network either. Just 'my' network. :)

A few weeks ago, I decided to try to put together a couple of my
computers (I have three in the house counting the BBS machine) in a
network. I must say, it's been fun. :)

Started out with two old network cards. One was an ISA plug & play and
the other was a plain ISA. To make a long story short, I installed the
cards and let Windows configure the stuff that it does for the
network. Things went well and I got it going with NetBeui. I thought
this was great... until I rebooted one of the machines and the network
disappeared. :(

From then on, I fought with the thing. I tried TCP/IP and everything
from resetting up the network, including the dial-up part, to
re-installing the cards. I searched the Internet and finally found the
drivers, manuals and setup programs for the cards. Why is it so hard
to find this stuff on the Internet?... Anyway, that's another story.
:)

I finally decided, after a visit from my RC and our attempt to get the
network up, that the BIOS of my main box had a problem. I tried to
upgrade the BIOS and Windows wouldn't load for nothing. I couldn't
even do a re-install of Windows. I got the BIOS back to the old
version and was flustered to no ends.

Now, why didn't I think of this. Ask Fidonet Sysops! I put a note out
in the Region 19 mailing list and got suggestions. One of which was to
check the NIC settings of the cards. I thought, "I did this and saved
the setting and reset the setting and saved them and ...". Ok, why
not.

Here I go... Check the plug & play. It's fine. Check the other one.
Same settings as before. Random thought. "save the settings even
thought nothing has changed". So, I did.

I'm not asking why and I'm not going to try to figure it out. I'll not
complain. I'll just accept that when I re-booted the non-plug & play
system, the network came up and was just like it had always been
there.

Go figger. :-)

Anyway, just wanted to share this with you all and say: If you need
help with something computer related, the best place to go is Fidonet.
You'll get more help than you could imagine and better than any "help
FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 20 7 May 2001

desk" IMHO.

Regards,

Frank

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

FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 21 7 May 2001

=================================================================
GETTING TECHNICAL
=================================================================

4 May 2001

Expanding a Theme on ERN

A short while ago I wrote on ERN routing and some of the basic ideas
used as well as the history. This next piece will take it a bit
farther to show both flags in testing that may be useful for this
purpose, and some more concepts on how charts are developed.

A chart, is a text file used to show how sites interconnect so that
netmail can be sent from one route to another. People who route
netmail, use these charts in their various different forms, to enter
manually, 'routing statements' to handle netmail sent to them, and
destined for another net.

How are these charts made? Well, it depends on the region and the
zone involved. They are not all the same, nor are they all published
in the same format, even within the same zone. But they all have one
thing in common, for all that the formats differ. A sysop (normally
the REC but not always) checks what route each known net in their
region desires, and types this up into a text file and sends it out to
those who need it.

In Zone1, these are hatched in a filebone area. In Z6, they are posted
in a communal sysop echo.

However they are sent out, eventually someone has to add them
together. The methods for that may be just 'pasting them on' (as in
zone6 apparently) or with a major zone level chart as Z1 uses.

Each method is prone to human error as it requires a human to do some
tasks and make sure all works in tandem and that there are no apparent
conflicts or typographical errors.

Only a person with true divine inspiration and advance knowledge can
be perfect at this, but as a hobby, it's working pretty well most of
the time.

Some however like to look to automated tools to produce such lists. To
do this, the control has (under testing) been placed back with the NC
level to directly reflect feeds. This is a Z1 test at this time and
exists only in 3 regions, with only 1 (R12) having a full test
implementation.

This test series involves several nodelist flags. No one can yet
actually change mailer routing automatically based on them. They
currently exist only to make potential routelists based on software
still in testing.

A new flag was added to the test zone in Z1. Please note, all test
flags until accepted belong in the USER comment area. That means you
FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 22 7 May 2001

use ,U,flag

------

Janis has approved a new user flag for testing in Z1.

U,DRVIA

This flag optionally may carry a :Z:net/node uplink primary.
Specifically there is to be only one entry of this flag per region and
it is used to designate the default region routing site for all nets
in that region if no other route is known. It is applied to the
primary use number of that node only.

EX: 1:140/1 is the primary 'use' number for Bob Seaborn so if he were
the default region route for his net, it would go on that number and
that one only

EX2: Joe Davis is the default region route for R13 nets. Joe has
numbers 1:13/1 and 1:261/1380. 1:261/1380 is his primary use number so
the ,U,DRVIA goes on that number.

This may complete the set of needed *RVIA user flags. For a reminder,
here ar the other 2 listed in earlier articles.

,U,MRVIA:(uplink address). There are to be 1 per net (no more?
Undecided by use yet) but the site specifically must be able to reach
all nodes in their ne via routing services. Just like DRVIA, it is
applied only to the node's primary tossing 'use' address.

,U,RVIA:(uplink address). There may be as many as needed in each net
but specifically this is used just to show *exceptions* to default net
links. If node has a direct connection to the same path as the net
does but with no interconnection to the net, it is valid to list it.

EX: Larry DiFava in 1:270 draws from 1:275/103 and carries a
,U,RVIA:1:275/103 listing. This is correct.

,U,RVIA listings are not valid methods of reaching other than the node
in that list. They are either questionable or non-functional to reach
others in that net.

xxcarol

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

FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 23 7 May 2001

=================================================================
COMIX IN ASCII
=================================================================

Cow View

(__)
(oo) U
/-------\/ /---V
/ | || * |--| .
* ||----||
^^ ^^
Cow at 1 meter. Cow at 100 meters. Cow at 10,000 meters.

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

FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 24 7 May 2001

=================================================================
RECIPES
=================================================================

MMMMM----- Recipe via Meal-Master (tm) v8.05

Title: Xxcarol's Lamb Soup
Categories: Xxcarol, Lamb, Soups, Diabetic
Yield: 6 Servings

1 lb Lamb, neck with bone pref'd
6 sm Red potatoes, skin on
1 sm Onion, sliced small
2 md Carrots, sliced to dimes
1/4 c Chopped fresh chives (opt)
1/2 c Bok Choy, sliced green/white
1 ts Black pepper, ground
1 ts Salt (to taste)
4 c Water (plus as needed)

With the advent of a sudden drop in Lamb prices in the USA, I've
been experimenting with recipes. This one, was made with the
ingredients above although I didnt have a whole pound of sliced lamb
neck bones (with meat) to use. I had only 1/2 so used 1/2 of what's
above. With that, it was 2 cups of water. With this, it should be
4. This will add up to 6 cups of soup. Is it good? I'm told so! It
was so good, my husband and daughter ate it all up and didn't leave
me any! They did add more salt and black pepper to taste, but I
started with the basic minimums (grin).

This will make a very nice broth with lots of veggies in it.
Depending on the size of the red potatoes, you may want to slice
them. I used really small ones so each bowl got a whole one. If red
skinned potatoes are expensive where you are, any type of non-sweet
potato that takes well to long boiling will do.

Bok Choy, for those not familiar, is an oriental cabbage with white
stalks leafing out to dark green tops. You could substitute 'head
cabbage' (the hard balls shaped like a head) if the price of Bok
Choy is dear in your area. The Bok Choy amount would be about 2
individual stalks.

The chives added a nice touch but if you dont have a garden with
them, you could add either some leek greens, a green onion, or just
another small onion.

To start, wash the veggies (skin the carrots if you prefer), then
slice those that need slicing. Place these in the pot along with
the sliced neck bones (or other lamb meat with bone should do) and
add the rest plus 4 cups of water. Set the heat on a slow simmer
and allow it to simmer for about 2 hours. Add more water as needed,
then test the taste. If it seems ready, it is.

For diabetics, you will want to then 'de-fat' the soup. I poured it
into a large plastic container and put that in the fridge to cool so
FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 25 7 May 2001

the fat could be lifted off easily. (If the lamb was another part
other than 'neck bone' or it wasnt well trimmed, this may be a
required step as lamb tends to be greasy).

Grin, unfortunately at that point I went shopping and when I got
back, Don had removed the fat, reheated the soup, and he and
Charlotte (7YO) were licking the bottom of their respective soup
bowls!

From the kitchen of: xxcarol

MMMMM
---------------

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

FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 26 7 May 2001

=================================================================
CLEAN HUMOR & JOKES
=================================================================

WHAT WILL OUR SON BE?
An older couple had a son, who was still living with them.
The parents were a little worried, as the son was still
unable to decide about his future career.

So they decided to do a small test. They put a note on the
front hall table saying that they had left. Around the note
they put a ten-dollar bill, a Bible, and a bottle of whiskey.

Then they hid, pretending they were not at home. The father
told his wife, "If our son takes the money, he will be a
businessman, if he takes the Bible, he will be a pastor, but
if he takes the bottle of whiskey, I'm afraid our son will
be a no-good drunkard."

So the parents hid in the nearby closet and waited nervously.
Peeping through the keyhole they saw their son arrive.
The son read the note that they had left.

Then he took the ten-dollar bill, looked at it against the
light, and slid it in his pocket.

After that, he took the Bible, flipped through it, and put
it under his arm.

Finally, he grabbed the bottle, opened it, and took an
appreciative whiff to be assured of the quality.

Then he left for his room, carrying all three items.

The father slapped his forehead and said:
"This is worse than I could ever have imagined!"

"What? asked the wife.

"Our son is going to be a politician!"

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

FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 27 7 May 2001

=================================================================
CLASSIFIED ADS
=================================================================

Rotating ads

As a new service of the Fidonews, I am prepared to offer rotating ads
for those that provide services to Fidonet such as Mail Hubs,
Gateways, Fidonet via Internet and such.

How this works:

1. Create an ad following the guidelines for the Fidonews.
2. Keep it short and to the point.
3. Put contact and other needed information in the ad.
4. Send it to Frank Vest as a file attach.
A. E-Mail "[email protected]
B. Netmail "Frank Vest - 1:124/6308

I will put the ad in a pool and use a program each week to
automatically rotate the ads into the Fidonews.

Please! If you stop offering service or need to change your ad,
contact me! This is very important to keep the ads current.

I'm doing this on a trial basis. If it gets to be a problem, I will
have to discontinue the service. I can make no promise of how often
your ad will be in the Fidonews. This will depend on how many ads I
have to rotate through.

As always in Fidonet, I make no guaranties. :)

Regards,

Frank Vest - Fidonews Editor

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

Reporters Wanted

The Fidonews is looking to fill several Reporter positions.

Salary:
You've got to be kidding. :)

Duties:
Write articles for the Fidonews about what is going on in your Net,
Region, Zone or Fidonet in general.

Job Requirements:
Be able to format articles to no more than 70 characters per line and
use only characters that can be typed on a plain old typewriter.

FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 28 7 May 2001

Benefits:
That good feeling you get when you do something positive for Fidonet.

Sections that are open:

.inv - Interviews with Fidonet and BBS software Authors.
.art - General articles on Fidonet
.gue - Guest Editorial(s)
.ftc - Technical articles relating to Fidonet
.rev - Fidonet and BBS software reviews
.web - Fidonet Web Page reviews

Note: There can be more than one reporter for each section and there
are other sections that are open. This is just a quick list.

Applicants should send articles for publishing to:
Frank Vest - 1:124/6308(.1)
Editor - 1:1/23
[email protected]

Equal Opportunity:
Fidonews is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We don't care what Node,
Net, Region or Zone you are in. You will get the same benefits and
salary. :)

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

FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 29 7 May 2001

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

. -- -- -- -- --- -- -- -- -- .
| FIDONET-RELATED SITES |
` -- -- -- -- --- -- -- -- -- '
Last update: March 3, 2001

FidoNet
Homepage: http://www.fidonet.org
FidoNews: http://www.fidonews.org [HTML]
ftp://ftp.nwstar.com/fidonet/fidonews/
Echolist: http://www.tlchost.net/echolist/
Echomail links: http://www.osirusoft.com/fidonet/fidoip.html
SDS Files: http://fidobbs.dk/download (Web Access to SDS)
FTSC page: http://www.ftsc.org/
General: http://www.writebynight.com/fidonet.html

Zone 1: http://www.z1.fidonet.org
Region 10: http://www.r10.org
Net 102 http://home.earthlink.net/~kayshapero/net102.htm
Net 103: http://www.webworldinc.com/club103/
Net 203: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/8687/net203index.html
Region 11: http://oeonline.com/~garyg/region11/
Net 2410: http://www.vector.11.com/net2410/
Region 12: http://sparkys.dyndns.org
Region 13: http://www.net264.org/r13.htm
Net 264: http://www.net264.org/
Net 275: http://www.homershut.net/~mahoover/net275/
Region 14: http://www.ouijabrd.com/region14
Net 282: http://www.rxn.com/~net282/
Region 15: <vacant>
Region 16: <vacant>
Region 17: http://www.region17.net
Net 140: http://www.nwstar.com/~net140
Region 18: http://techshop.pdn.net/fido/

Region 19: http://bise.tzo.com/r19
Net 124: http://www.dallasinet.com/net124
http://texoma.net/~flv
Net 130: http://www.startext.net/homes/net130
Net 393: http://www.chatter.com/~wb/

Zone 2: http://www.z2.fidonet.org
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)
http://www.was-ist-fido.de/
Fido-IP: http://home.nrh.de/fido/ (English/German)
Region 25: http://www.literary.freeserve.co.uk/net2502/
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)
FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 30 7 May 2001

http://Welcome.to/skynetbbs/
Region 30: http://www.fidonet.ch (German)
? Region 33: http://www.fidoitalia.net (Italian)
Region 34: http://www.pobox.com/cnb/r34.htm (Spanish)
REC34: http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/4552/
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 42: http://www.fido.cz
! Net422: http://www.fido.sk (Slovak/English)
Region 50: http://www.fido7.com/ (Russian)
Net 5010: http://fido.tu-chel.ac.ru/ (Russian)
Net 5015: http://www.fido.nnov.ru/ (Russian)
Net 5028: HTTP://5028.nordnet.ru/
Net 5030: http://kenga.ru/fido/ (Russian & English)
Net 5049: http://www.n5049.z2.fidonet.org (English/Russian)
Net 5074: http://www.z2.n5074.fidonet.net
?? Net 5085: http://www.fidonet.uz/ (Russian)

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

Zone 4:
Region 80: http://fidobrasil.8m.com (Portuguese)
Region 90:
Net 904: http://members.tripod.com/~net904 (Spanish)

Zone 5: http://www.eastcape.co.za/fidonet/

Zone 6: http://www.z6.fidonet.org
Region 65: http://www.cfido.com/fidonet/cfidochina.html
(Chinese)

Fidonet Via Internet Hubs

See also: http://www.osirusoft.com/fidoip.html

a @ preceding an individual's name implies a virtual email
address. The email is translated as follows
[email protected] will automatically route to the
appropriate individual's email. Anyone in this list will
also receive routed notice of this feature. In my case, it
would still be [email protected], but you get the idea.

Also, as information is provided to me, I will be adding a
latency field to each node, which is defined as the maximum
time between when the message is received, and when it is
sent on to other nodes, or available to be sent onward,
defined in minutes. A latency of ! implies that there is an
immediate response, and an attempt to deliver immediately
after processing, or a "MinuteMail System", as it were.

v-email flag [email protected]
| email address or
Node# | Operator | Facilities (*) | Speed,| Basic Rate
| | |latency|
FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 31 7 May 2001

-----------+-------------------+----------------+-------+------------
Zone 1 | | | |
10/3 | Brenda Donovan | FTP,UUE,BinkP | 384K,30| n/c
10/345 @ Todd Cochrane | FTP,BinkP,VMOT | T1,! | n/c
13/25 @ Jim Balcom | FTP | 56k | $20mo.
18/500 @ Ross Cassell | FTP, BinkP |128K+,!| n/c
103/5 @ Mark Luetger | BinkP | 384k,!| n/c
103/153 @ Michael Box | BinkP | aDSL,!| n/c
103/301 @ Joe Jared | BinkP,FTP,NFS | 384k,!| n/c
103/401 @ Warren Bonner | BinkP | aDSL,!| n/c
105/8 | Russ Johnson | FTP,BinkP,VMoT | 384k | n/c
105/72 @ Larry James | FTP, BinkP | aDSL | $50/yr
106/1 @ Steve Loupe | BinkP, FTP | 128k | ???
106/6018 | Lawrence Garvin | FTP, VMoT | aDSL,60| n/c
107/453 @ Jeffrey Estevez| FTP,BinkP,VMoT,UUE| 56k,60| $10 mo.
140/1 @ Bob Seaborn | FTP,BinkP | T3,30 | $5/$16
167/133 | Stephen Monteith | BinkP | 128k+ | n/c
211/417 @ Korombos | BinkP,UUE,FTP | T1 | n/c
220/10 | [email protected] |BinkP,FTP,UUE|1.5M+ | n/c
218/109 @ Matt Munson | BinkP,UUE | 33.6k | n/c
246/160 @ Mason Vye | FTP, UUE | 56K | n/c
249/116 | Carl Austin Bennett | FTP, UUE |ADSL,60 | n/c
280/169 | Brian Greenstreet | FTP | 33.6 | $2mo.
342/3 @ Richard Dodsworth | BinkP,FTP | 128K+ | n/c
395/670 | Arthur Stark | BinkD,FTP | CABLE | n/c
379/1 @ Dale Ross | FTP, BinkP,UUE | 256K+,! n/c
396/45 | Marc Lewis | UUE | 33.6 | $26/yr
396/48 | Ben Ritchey | UUE:BFDS | 33.6k | n/c
2604/104 @ Jim Mclaughlin | FTP,VMoT,UUE | 33.6 | $1mo
2613/404 @ David Moufarrege | BinkP,FTP,VMoT | 128k+,!| n/c
2624/306 | David Calafrancesco | VMoT | 33.6 | n/c
3407/4 @ [email protected] | UUE,FTP | 28.8 | n/c
3632/84 | Robert Todd |FTP,VMoT,UUE,BinkP | 57.6k | n/c
3651/9 @ Jerry Gause | FTP,VMoT | 33.6 | $3/$6
--------------------------------------------------------------
Zone 2 |
20/11 | Henrik Lindhe | BinkP | ??? | n/c
31/1 | Gabriel Plutzar | BinkP | T1+ | n/c
203/600 | Mikael Karlsson | UUE | 64k | n/c
221/360 @ Tommi Koivula | BinkP,UUE | ??? | n/c
236/205 @ Michael Kaaber | BinkP | ??? | n/c
246/2098 | Volker Imre | BinkP | ??? | n/c
280/1601 @ Jeroen VanDeLeur | FTP,UUE | 64k | n/c
292/620 | Eddy Missoul | VMoT, UUE,BinkP| 64k |N/C
292/624 | Steven Leeman | UUE | 64k | N/C
292/907 | Bart Verhaeghe | BinkP,VMoT,UUE | 64K | n/c
292/2003 | Eric Vaneberck | BinkP | 768k | n/c
301/1 | Peter Witschi | BinkP | 768k | n/c
332/807 | Roberto Mascolo | BinkP | ??? | n/c
335/535 @ Mario Mure | BinkP,VMot,UUE | 64k | n/c
335/610 | Gino Lucrezi | UUE | 33.6 | n/c
344/201 | Julio Garcia | BinkP | ??? | n/c
346/3 @ Carlos Navarro | UUE | ??? | n/c
382/100 | Sinisa Burina | BinkP,ifcico | ??? | n/c
406/555 | Ofir Michaeli & | BinkP | ??? | n/c
406/555 | Marius Kaizerman | BinkP | ??? | n/c
FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 32 7 May 2001

423/81 | Milos Bajer | BinkP | ??? | n/c
465/204 | Va Milushnikov | BinkP | 33.6k | n/c
469/84 | Max Masyutin | VMoT | 256k | n/c
480/112 | Adam Sarapata| FTP, VMoT, UUE,BinkP| 128k | n/c
550/4077 | Serguei Trouchelle| UUE | ----- | n/c
2411/413 @ Dennis Dittrich | UUE,BinkP | 64k | n/c
2446/301 @ Lothar Behet | BinkP,VMoT,UUE,FTP | 64K | n/c
2474/275 | Christian Emig | UUE | 64k | unkn
5030/115 | Andrey Podkolzin | BinkP | ??? | n/c
5100/8 | Egons Bush | BinkP | ??? | n/c
5020/1159 | Gennady Kudryashoff | UUE | 33.6 | n/c
--------------------------------------------------------------
Zone 3
633/260 @ Malcolm Miles | FTP,BinkP | 64K | n/c
640/954 | Rick Van Ruth | FTP,VMot,UUE,BinkP| 56K| n/c
774/605 @ Barry Blackford|BinkP,VMoT:10023,ifcico,FTP |33.6| n/c

--------------------------------------------------------------
Zone 4
801/161 @ Renato Zambon | UUE | 33.6 |n/c
905/100 | Fabian Gervan | VMoT,UUE,BinkP | 128k | n/c
902/18 | Javier Tejedor | UUE | 33,6 | n/c

--
* FTP = Internet File Transfer Protocol
* VMoT = Virtual Mailer over Telnet (various)
* UUE = uuencode<->email type transfers
* BinkP = front end mailer for TCPIP networks
* NFS = Linux Networking
----------------------------------------------
Fidonet oriented news servers

news.osirusoft.com
news.tardis.net

Fidonet oriented chat rooms.

room #fidonet 5PM (PDT 11AM GMT) Sundays
irc.osirusoft.com (Peers wanted)

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

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most especially, email addressed to [email protected]
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FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 33 7 May 2001

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FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 34 7 May 2001

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FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 35 7 May 2001

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