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FIDONEWS -- 03 Jun 85 00:00:49 Page 1 Volume 2, Number 16 3 June 1985 +----------------------------------------------------------+ | _ | | / \ | | - FidoNews - /|oo \ | | (_| /_) | | Fido and FidoNet _`@/_ \ _ | | Users Group | | \ \\ | | Newsletter | (*) | \ )) | | ______ |__U__| / \// | | / FIDO \ _//|| _\ / | | (________) (_/(_|(____/ | | (jm) | +----------------------------------------------------------+ Publisher: Fido #375 Chief Procrastinator: Thom Henderson Fidonews is published weekly by SEAboard, Fido 1/375. You are encouraged to submit articles for publication in Fidonews. Article submission standards are contained in the file FIDONEWS.DOC, available from Fido 1/375. Disclaimer or don't-blame-us: The contents of the articles contained here are not our responsibility, nor do we necessarily agree with them; everything here is subject to debate. We publish EVERYTHING received. Closer and Closer Multinet Fido is slowly approaching. The local net hosts and regional coordinators should be receiving a "starter kit" in the mail from St. Louis soon, if you haven't got it already. Ken Kaplan and Ben Baker have been busily carving up the country into regions and assigning numbers to them, and I guess they've got it finalized by now. They also managed to write a couple of articles about all of this, including the promised piece on what it means to be a regional coordinator. I wound up in region 13 somehow. Good thing I'm not superstitious. Not that it matters much, since I'm really in net 107. You see, the regions only matter to independents. If I were an independent node, then I'd be in region 13. But my mail is routed through node 79 in New York, so I'onm T w0o " cFonnet, which is net 107. FIDONEWS -- 03 Jun 85 00:00:51 Page 2 If it seems confusing, don't worry about it. It's mainly just the hosts and coordinators that have to worry about the fine points. Fido will chug along as always, happily routing mail wherever it belongs, and never bothering the user about how it all works. FIDONEWS -- 03 Jun 85 00:00:52 Page 3 ============================================================ NEWS ============================================================ MIKE HAMILTON 23 MAY 1985 SYSOP 313 & 370 Over the past several months there have been some practices which the administrators of the network in southern California find very irritating. The item on the top of the list is the use of our or any network for commercial messages. I don't see why we should stand the cost of the messages for someone else's profit. Recently one such node was notified that we would no longer receive commercial messages, specifically for items for sale. This is accomplished by removing them from the accept-from list in the routing. This is a drastic step, however repeated requetes to stop were not honoured. I'm sure there are othere who feel the same way and I would recommend that they take the same action. If a commercial user of the network wants/needs to advertise then he should follow the same practices as the ones in our network and send out messages as attached files thus paying the full bill for the transmission. There have been numerous articles lately in the trade magazines and newsnoepae6out software piracy. In expressing my opinion on the subject I tend to get pretty warm around the collar. I personally resent being called a crook before I even purchase software from a vendor. I realize this is pretty strong wording but that is exactly what is being done with the currect protection schemes. A measure I recommend to any one who asks for my opinion before purchasing is simply to only buy from those companys who do not call you a crook first. If enough people follow this advise and stopped buying products like LOTUS 123, the companys in question would be forced to use other means to protect their products. LOTUS 123 isnot the best package on the market but simply using Hollywood type media hype promote themselves as being such. Similar to the media advertising blitz before the openning of a loosing movie. One more item than I'll quit blowing off steam for a while. I noticed Tom Jennings articles about the Hays 2400 baud modems and it brought to mind a problem I'm having with another companys product. I'm sure everyone has seen articles advertising CTOS the wordprocessing package in all the trade mags and newspappers. We have beena use rof CTOS for about 3 years. Last year around June we received a new update. The program had a problem in dealing with CIT80 terminals. After 9 months of asking for help, the previous release was patched to correct them problem, an attempt was made to installa new version. I said attempt because it didn't work. We were told they would be back in a couple of FIDONEWS -- 03 Jun 85 00:00:54 Page 4 days to correct the problems. Two months later, after many calls, we came to find out the person who was responsible for the installation had been sent to Europe. Letters to the presidend of the company have gone unanswered. The only comments are from the sales representives who keep saying give us time. This is all well and good except that a new maintenance renewal period is approaching. I would not and could not in good concience recommend to anyone the purchase of this product, CTOS. There are other wordprocessing packages that work on the entire line of DEC computers that are fully supported and whose vendors respond to problems in a more timely manner. Well that is all for now. Hope this will help someone. Any responses should be addressed to the SYSOP of #313 or #370. ------------------------------------------------------------ FIDONEWS -- 03 Jun 85 00:00:55 Page 5 "Compu-peater" a new concept by Dan Taylor, Sysop Fido 411 I may have coined a new term "Compu-peating". As you may have guessed, it is simply adding one or perhaps more computers in between you and whatever system your ultimately communicating with that is at the end of the chain. A Computer Repeater if you will. Why you would ever want to do this, I'll leave up to you. I'm sure this concept is not one that everyone can or will use, but for those who can benefit from it, I'll share my experience. I have an IBM-PC at home that I use like most any other person that has a computer at home. I have fun with it! I run a Fido board (411), I write my mother letters, I play with BASIC, Turbo Pascal and a number of other things. One thing I really like doing is calling up other bulletin boards and up/downloading files. I do that alot at and for work too, where I use an IBM-XT. Now, I save my company money on their phone bill by making calls to bulletin boards at night when I'm home. I also benefit because I can use many of the same programs that I'm collecting for my use at work. Enter the Compu-peater. Here's how I've gotten the concept to work for me. I've installed 2 Hayes 1200B modems in the XT at work. With Fido running on COM2, that leaves COM1 for MINITEL. It's obvious that I have 2 phone lines at work with which to do this. I set up Fido at work such that I can use the "0" command to exit to DOS. I do have WATCHDOG running so as not to leave things in a mess if carrier is lost between home and work. After calling in to Fido at work and exiting to DOS, I bring up MINITEL. It looks a bit strange on my screen, because of the direct cursor addressing MINITEL does. One thing you have to NOT do is TYPE AHEAD of any prompts. Keep in mind that you do not have a keyboard type ahead buffer to help you out. One thing you'll need to do is patch or just set the Terminal setting in the Compu-peater's MINITEL to NONE. If you leave it set to emulate VT-102, You won't get any line feeds. But beyond that, it works fine. Once MINITEL is up, you should set it's modem to respond to an online escape charactor other than the default of '+++'. I set it to look for '@@@', with the command string "ATS2=64". 64 is the decimal value of the ASCII charactor '@'. That way, if you call into a system (as I did while testing it out) that won't disconnect the phone when you say goodbye, you will have control of the remote MINITEL's modem, and can hang up the remote modem's phone line by then using the Hayes command "ATH". All I can say if you omit this step is "YOU'RE ASKING FOR PROBLEMS". I have tried downloading THROUGH the Compu-peater from a FIDONEWS -- 03 Jun 85 00:00:57 Page 6 public BBS. I've found that using XMODEM, MODEM7 and TELINK no work so good! However, KERMIT seems to work just fine. An alternative is to simply download to the Compu- peater using any of the methods above, and later, download from it to you. Again, this may not be for everyone, but for me, it's become an invaluable tool... Any questions or comments may be addressed to me Dan Taylor on Fido 1/411. ------------------------------------------------------------ FIDONEWS -- 03 Jun 85 00:00:58 Page 7 The Duties of a Network or Region Coordinator by Ben Baker -- Fido 76 and Ken Kaplan -- Fido 22 This article defines the duties of a network or region coordinator. First, the coordinator accepts application for, and assigns applicants node numbers. In the case of region coordinators, the applicant should be located within the region. If he is not, he is referred to the appropriate coordinator. (A temporary node number, something awful like 32767 can be assigned to permit sending him mail.) When applicable, a region coordinator may also refer an applicant to a network host. Applications will be accepted only via FidoNet mail. This verifies that the applicant's board was at least running once. An application must contain board name, sysop's name, board phone number, sysop's voice phone number, sysop's mailing address, board's city and state if different, highest baud rate supported if not 2400 and hours of operation. We recommend that the coordinator place a message in his BULLETIN.BBS file that can not be skipped, telling users not to request a node by leaving a message on his board, and that such a message will not be acknowledged. The new applicant is assigned a node number. For the first month or so, we ask coordinators to assign numbers of 600 and up to avoid conflicts with nodes still running old versions of Fido. After that, any convenient assignment scheme may be used, provided only that all node numbers within the coordinator's region or network are unique. Via FidoNet mail, the coordinator sends the applicant notification of his new node number and instructions on how to use the '4' command to set up his Fido Net & Node. This step verifys that the phone number is correct, and that the net/node is receiving mail. He may also provide any special routing instructions for his network, if applicable. Once notification has been successfully mailed, the coordinator moves the new node entry into the permanent node list for his region or area. From time to time the coordinator will receive and process requests from existing nodes for changes to phone number, board name, temporary change of status (up or down), etc.. If, for unknown reasons, a node stops receiving mail, the coordinator will replace his phone number in the node list with the -DOWN- flag and make a reasonable effort to determine the cause and necessary actions. When "dissappearing" nodes fail to reappear within a month or so, they may be removed form the node list. FIDONEWS -- 03 Jun 85 00:01:00 Page 8 Once each week, if and only if his permanent nodelist has changed, the coordinator will send a copy via FidoNet file attach to Fido 1/0. The file will be named REGION.nnn or NETWORK.nnn, where nnn is the region or network number. Each Friday Fido 1/0 will assemble for distribution, a new NODELIST, using the most current file from each region or network. Finally, the coordinator will be the first point of contact for questions related to Fido and FidoNet. He will make every effort to answer questions and solve problems in a timely manner. He will be provided a list of "experts" on various subjects to whom he may refer questions he can't handle. Thus the right person to answer any question can be found quickly. It sounds like a lot to ask, but remember, the typical coordinator will be handling only a few to about thirty nodes. Ken Kaplan has been doing this and more for 300 nodes! And a new coordinator will have all the help he needs to set him self up to take care of business. If you have any questions you can request help from Fidos 22, 51 or 76. We look forward to working with you and having a sucessful decentralization of the new multinet Fido. ------------------------------------------------------------ FIDONEWS -- 03 Jun 85 00:01:01 Page 9 Scott Ashcraft Fido #50 As many of you know, Tim Meyers has written a Fido look-alike in Turbo Pascal for CP/M, and has sent it to Doug Good, a remote sysop on Fido #50, and I to look over. Right now, all we have is the preliminary version, which is quite bare (no download or upload protocols or FidoNetting), and he has notified me that he will send the new version soon. Many of you have asked for a copy of the source code, but right now, as I understand it, I am not to even give out a compiled version, so I will be holding back on that until Tim informs me otherwise. This BBS (called TotoBBS) looks very Fidoish, and should start pulling some CP/M systems into the net. Doug has had some problems running TotoBBS on his Kaypro, and he thinks it has to do with the fact that Turbo Pascal dislikes working with BYE. Anyway, Doug and I had been working on our own BBS in Turbo Pascal for CP/M and MSDOS before we knew about Tim's BBS, and we have sort of taken it as a challenge to make our BBS better than his (which could turn out being a chore). Our first project is to get rid of BYE, so we are looking for a decent I/O driver for CP/M (we already have one for MS-DOS) that will poll for a character at the serial port, and handle buffered I/O. If you know of one, please mail me some info on where I can get my hands on it. If there are any features that you think we should include in our BBS, please tell us, and we will try to comple trw0toject by the end of the summer. ------------------------------------------------------------ FIDONEWS -- 03 Jun 85 00:01:03 Page 10 COMPUTER CONFERENCE - MAUI HAWAII JIM KNEPLER (808) 546-2196 FIDO 488 - UNCLE SAM'S BBS Several of the government agencies in Hawaii are sponsoring an information processing conference on the island of Maui September 23 thru 25. We're lining up a host of top speakers on topics ranging from lap computers to artificial intelligence. Commodore Grace Hopper will be addressing the conference (and answering questions) via satellite- linked CCTV from Washington, D. C. Also, lots of vendor exhibits with the latest hardware and software goodies. The conference fee is $195, which includes two free lunches. The conference is being held at the Intercontinental Maui and they are offering some terrific rates: $60 single or double. The hotel also offers free activities for conference attendees and spouses; scuba, horseback riding, tennis, etc. For information on the conference call Jim Knepler at (808) 546-2196 or Burl Pepper at i8t c2la Ba,o36. You can also leave a message on our FIDO board at (808) 546-3719. We'll call you back or mail you the registration and info package. ------------------------------------------------------------ FIDONEWS -- 03 Jun 85 00:01:04 Page 11 Obtaining a Fido Net Number by Ken Kaplan -- Fido 22 When several existing Fido Node's make the decision to form a network, ie. several clustered nodes, the proposed host must send a FidoNet mail message to his Region Coordinator with the following information in order to obtain a Net Number: (1) The region number(s), and/or network number(s) affected by the formation of the new network. The region coordinator will inform Fido 1/0 and the hosts of any affected networks of the formation of the new network. (2) The name of the proposed network. The name should be descriptive of location. For example SOCALNET for nodes in the Southern California Area and MassNet for Massachusettes Area. DOGNET doesn't help others know what your interested in or what area of the country your group lives in. (3) A copy of the proposed network's nodelist. The nodelist file should be named Frrr-nnn.NET where rrr is the proposed host's current region or net number and nnn is his current node number. This file should be sent attached to the message of application for a Net Number. When Fido 1/0 receives the above items from the Coordinator, the information received will be verified and a net number assigned. A FidoNet mail message will be sent to all affected with the assigned net number. If there are any questions on the above procedure please send a FidoNet mail message to Fido 22, 51 or 76. ------------------------------------------------------------ FIDONEWS -- 03 Jun 85 00:01:05 Page 12 Fidonet Regions The following is a listing of the multinet Fido regions. This only applies to independant nodes. If you are a part of a local network, then your network will be assigned its own network number. +----------------+ |Sorted by Region| +----------------+ Region State Area Codes Calif Nevada California 209, 213, 408, 415, 619, 714, 805, 818, 916 Mexico 706, 905 Nevada 702 Central Illinois 217, 309, 312, 618, 815 Indiana 219, 317, 812 Kentucky 502, 606 Michigan 313, 517, 616, 906 Ohio 216, 419, 513, 614 Ontario Canada 416, 519, 613, 705 Wisconsin 414, 608, 715 Hawaii Hawaii 808 Mid Atlantic Delaware 302 District of Columbia 202 Maryland 301 New Jersey 201, 609 New York 212, 315, 516, 518, 607, 716, 718, 914 Pennsylvaina 215, 412, 717, 814 Virginia 703, 804 West Virginia 304 Mid West Iowa 319, 515, 712 Kansas 316, 913 Manitoba Canada 204 Minnesota 218, 507, 612 Missouri 314, 417, 816 Nebraska 308, 402 North Dakota 701 Ontario Canada 807 South Dakota 605 Mountain Arizona 602 Colorado 303 New Mexico 505 FIDONEWS -- 03 Jun 85 00:01:07 Page 13 Utah 801 Wyoming 307 New England Connecticut 203 Maine 207 Massachusetts 413, 617 New Brunswick Canada 506 New Hampshire 603 Newfoundland Canada 709 Nova Scotia Canada 902 Quebec Canada 418, 514, 819 Rhode Island 401 Vermont 802 North West Alaska 907 British Columbia Canada 604 Idaho 208 Montana 406 Alberta Canada 403 Oregon 503 Saskatchewan Canada 306 Washington 206, 509 South East Alabama 205 Caribben Islands 809 Florida 305, 813, 904 Georgia 404, 912 Mississippi 601 North Carolina 704, 919 South Carolina 803 Tennessee 615, 901 Texarkana Arkansas 501 Louisiana 318, 504 Oklahoma 405, 918 Texas 214, 409, 512, 713, 806, 817, 915 +------------------------------+ |Sorted alphabetically by state| +------------------------------+ Region State Area Codes South East Alabama 205 North West Alaska 907 North West Alberta Canada 403 Mountain Arizona 602 Texarkana Arkansas 501 North West British Columbia Canada 604 Calif Nevada California 209, 213, 408, 415, 619, 714, 805, 818, 916 South East Caribben Islands 809 Mountain Colorado 303 New England Connecticut 203 FIDONEWS -- 03 Jun 85 00:01:09 Page 14 Mid Atlantic Delaware 302 Mid Atlantic District of Columbia 202 South East Florida 305, 813, 904 South East Georgia 404, 912 Hawaii Hawaii 808 North West Idaho 208 Central Illinois 217, 309, 312, 618, 815 Central Indiana 219, 317, 812 Mid West Iowa 319, 515, 712 Mid West Kansas 316, 913 Central Kentucky 502, 606 Texarkana Louisiana 318, 504 New England Maine 207 Mid West Manitoba Canada 204 Mid Atlantic Maryland 301 New England Massachusetts 413, 617 Calif Nevada Mexico 706, 905 Central Michigan 313, 517, 616, 906 Mid West Minnesota 218, 507, 612 South East Mississippi 601 Mid West Missouri 314, 417, 816 North West Montana 406 Mid West Nebraska 308, 402 Calif Nevada Nevada 702 New England New Brunswick Canada 506 New England New Hampshire 603 Mid Atlantic New Jersey 201, 609 Mountain New Mexico 505 Mid Atlantic New York 212, 315, 516, 518, 607, 716, 718, 914 New England Newfoundland Canada 709 South East North Carolina 704, 919 Mid West North Dakota 701 New England Nova Scotia Canada 902 Central Ohio 216, 419, 513, 614 Texarkana Oklahoma 405, 918 Central Ontario 416, 519, 613, 705 Mid West Ontario Canada 807 North West Oregon 503 Mid Atlantic Pennsylvaina 215, 412, 717, 814 New England Quebec Canada 418, 514, 819 New England Rhode Island 401 North West Saskatchewan 306 South East South Carolina 803 Mid West South Dakota 605 South East Tennessee 615, 901 Texarkana Texas 214, 409, 512, 713, 806, 817, 915 Mountain Utah 801 New England Vermont 802 Mid Atlantic Virginia 703, 804 North West Washington 206, 509 Mid Atlantic West Virginia 304 Central Wisconsin 414, 608, 715 Mountain Wyoming 307 FIDONEWS -- 03 Jun 85 00:01:13 Page 15 ------------------------------------------------------------ FIDONEWS -- 03 Jun 85 00:01:13 Page 16 Fido Message Security Loophole by Lloyd Miller, Fido #418 I have discovered what I believe to be a small security loophole for Fido systems who are running w " e public access allowed. If a user logs in giving the name "ALL" that user can then wreak havok with the public message base. "All" can then proced to kill any message addressed to "All", and just by reading "his" mail it will be marked as (RECV'D) and if the sysop uses the (undocumented) "2" command then the sysop could be killing the messages himself. Of course if you validate users before letting them into the message section there is no problem with this. Don't go rushing off to make your system (semi) private quite yet, there is a (fairly) easy solution. The solution to this is simple once you know about it. Use sysop.exe to enter a user named "all" BEFORE some twit tries it. Set the password to a long string of random keystrokes and give the fake user $1 credit so sysop.exe won't expire the entry in 30 days (or whatever you use). For extra security you can give "All" twit priv. level so even if the password is found it probably can't be used to spend the $1. Hope you sysops out there see this before any malicious users find it. (My system has taken care of it of course). There is a possible problem with the $1 credit in that the proposed user directory utility will think "all" is a paid up network user. This is easily repaired at several stages. There is still one (very small) problem left. Public messages do not have to be addressed to "all". They can be To: anyone or everyone or hey you or whatever your users fee like. (Tom will claim this is a feature so you can send mail to someone who hasn't registered yet.) About all you can do about this is warn your users or ignore it till someone gets burned. Good luck however you treat this warning, I still think Fido is extremly secure for the amount it does. Lloyd Miller, Sysop of the Calgary_Fido #418 ------------------------------------------------------------ FIDONEWS -- 03 Jun 85 00:01:15 Page 17 ------------------------------------------------------- New Fido Utility Software ------------------------------------------------------- David Purks Sysop #456, FIDO-FHLMC I have written a new Fido Sysop's user utility that is ready for distribution. Originally I wrote it because I am forced to work on our Fido from remote a majority of the time. The old utility is screen oriented and very difficult to work with from remote. The new version offers a number of enhancements that make it worth using even if you don't do any modifications of the users file from remote. The utility I've written looks and works much like Fido itself and runs 25-30% faster. From the tests we've run, I think it's pretty much machine independent (works on IBM and Rainbow 100). In order to do the final testing on it, I'd like to hear from people who would be interested in giving the routine a try. The first 20 or so Sysops that notify me of their interest, I'll Fidomail the routine and documentation to you. I am especially interested in hearing from Sysops who run Fido on equipment other than IBM & Rainbow. Give it a try and let me know if you have any problems, sug-gestions, etc. After the initial distribution, everyone else can pick the routine up from our board in the \FIDODIST area or any where else you can find it. [Editor's note: It is also available from 1/375] FIDONEWS -- 03 Jun 85 00:01:16 Page 18 ============================================================ NOTICES ============================================================ Fidonews Bugs In the last issue of Fidonews, it was stated that the "list of nodes in a file" feature no longer works in Fido. That turns out to be only partly correct. It does not work in version 10i due to a program bug, but in version 10j it works as documented. ------------------------------------------------------------ *** Calendar of Events *** 6 Jun 85 at 8pm; Next Fido meeting for SoCalNet, in the office if the sysop of Fido 370. 9 Jun 85 Submissions deadline for next issue of Fidonews. 12 Jun 85 Start of Multinet Fido; Make sure you have Fido version 10i. Stay in net 1 until this date, then switch over to your new net number. If you have any event you want listed in this calendar, please send a note to node 1/375.