Subj : Re: Fido in Russia/Ukraine
To   : Wilfred van Velzen
From : John Dovey
Date : Mon Mar 07 2022 03:09 pm


WvV> Hi John,

WvV> On 2022-03-07 06:37:16, you wrote to me:

JD>>>> I'm not sure if this is the correct forum, but I was wondering
JD>>>> whether anyone knows whether Fido is still up and running in
JD>>>> Russia/Ukraine?

WvV>  WvV>> I don't know about Russia, but there is enough evidence it's
WvV> running  WvV>> as smoothly as ever.

WvV>  WvV>> I have been monitoring the connectivity of binkp systems in R46
WvV>  WvV>> (Urkaine) since the previous sunday (27-Febr.). There isn't much
WvV>  WvV>> change. There's one system no longer connectable, and 1 that has
WvV>  WvV>> become connectable since. All others are more or less unchanged.

WvV>  WvV>> But the situation on the 27th was already bad. A large part of the
WvV>  WvV>> systems was not connectable at that time. Whether that was due to
WvV> the  WvV>> war or because of the general state of fidonet from even
WvV> before the  WvV>> war started, I don't know, but I suspect the latter.
WvV> And there is  WvV>> still a large number of POTS only nodes in R46, that
WvV> I can't test,  WvV>> even I wanted to.

JD>> Thank you, that's truly helpful and good news. There are a lot of
JD>> people who are going to need communication in the area for the next
JD>> while that might not be able to use the standard channels.

WvV> Binkp still needs the internet. If that's down...

JD>> One option I've been investigating/testing is
JD>> https://briarproject.org/how-it-works/

WvV> Got that installed too. August convinced me to test it. ;)

JD>> This is how I was envisaging Fido working when I posted to Future4fido
JD>> (and got so heavily castigated for heresy).

WvV> I don't remember that, so it must not have been that bad.

WvV> One of my points supports binkp connections over tor, but I haven't
WvV> looked into it myself. Maybe I should...

WvV> Bye, Wilfred.

What I've been thinking about is that having a local node working would be useful. Without that, having a mobile node, one running on a laptop, for someone who is going into and out of the area, would allow people to connect via local wifi hotspot, exchange packets and then when the laptop is back in an area with connectivity, it could connect and deliver the packets.

Having aftershock as a client would make that trivial to configure and run.

All the best
John
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