[Extracted from....] F I D O N E W S -- | Vol. 8 No. 24 (17 June 1991) The newsletter of the | FidoNet BBS community | Published by: _ | / \ | "FidoNews" BBS /|oo \ | (415)-863-2739 (_| /_) | FidoNet 1:1/1 _`@/_ \ _ | Internet: | | \ \\ | fidonews@fidonews.fidonet.org | (*) | \ )) | |__U__| / \// | Editors: _//|| _\ / | Tom Jennings (_/(_|(____/ | Tim Pozar (jm) | ----------------------------+--------------------------------------- Published weekly by and for the Members of the FidoNet international amateur network. Copyright 1991, Fido Software. All rights reserved. Duplication and/or distribution permitted for noncommercial purposes only. For use in other circumstances, please contact FidoNews. Paper price: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $5.00US Electronic Price: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . free! For more information about FidoNews refer to the end of this file. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Table of Contents 1. EDITORIAL ..................................................... 1 A smorgasbord of possibilities ................................ 1 2. FIDONET NEWS .................................................. 6 3. ARTICLES ...................................................... 12 The 2nd Asian BBS Sysops' Conference in Taipei, 1991 .......... 12 By Vince...and Thanks ......................................... 14 Who *are* these guys? ......................................... 16 Public Key Encryption Standard Anyone? ........................ 20 Message Master - a Classic Window's Message Editor ............ 21 SIGN FRIENDS PROGRAM-New Version Released ..................... 22 WorldCon 1991 Important Announcement .......................... 23 A Draft Elections Policy ...................................... 32 A Word from the Bible - The Re-Birth of Water IS Baptism ...... 35 4. RANTS AND FLAMES .............................................. 38 Fidocult: Occult Mania Hits FidoNews .......................... 38 Speaking In Verse: Desired Editorial Policy for FNews ........ 39 5. CLASSIFIEDS ................................................... 42 6. NOTICES ....................................................... 43 The Interrupt Stack ........................................... 44 7. LATEST VERSIONS ............................................... 46 Latest Software Versions ...................................... 46 [The bulk of the above-described material has been deleted.] Who *are* these guys? Another Cautionary tale by Charles Herriot (1:163/110) (Special Note to Editor-Being: This article has absolutely nothing to do with Crunch 'N Munch, God, or the ruinously high cost of Jolt. For those who wish to benefit from the full effect of this article; either play sappy violin music as you read about the pathetic demise of the COMMODORE echo; or else put Ina Gada Da Vida on autorepeat on your CD player. There is little in this article that would give a Technoid wet dreams. Roll da flick, Tom.) Corresponding from a secure hiding place deep within the uncharted recesses of Policy3 and Policy4, "Doc Logger" lashes another missive into the jaws of the high speed paper tape punch and then throws untold thousands of toggle switches to get the Imsai 8080 to transmit to Visage's Church of The Dayglo Black Velvet Paintings. Dear Reverend Visage, Your secretary is shrieking at me concerning the small problem with the Porsche we borrowed to deliver last night's echomail. How were we supposed to know that the drawbridge was up and that we would land six counties away in the middle of a sheep pasture? I hate to tell you this, but she's gonna be in a king hell rage when you show up again with lanolin on your breath. I'm sure you can remember the movie "Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid". I have been reminded of that movie in the recent past concerning the sad plight of the Commode D'Or echo. As Butch & Sundance traversed sagebrush and mountains they were pursued relentlessly, and they kept asking each other: "Who *are* those guys?". As you are well aware, we've made a few underestimations in our time, not the least of which was the time you bet almost our entire stuffed armadillo collection on the recent ZEC election, but I don't think we missed hearing the speeding train as badly as we did when the California Spam 'N Timmies invaded the Commode D'Or echo. Okay, so maybe using an areatag name like COMMODORE in recognition of the fact that the afformentioned piece of hardware was adopted as our mascot and is also the boat anchor of serious sport fisherman everywhere. And maybe, just maybe, if we'd been firmer with the mongol hordes who descended on the echo and attempted to talk techie to us... perhaps we wouldn't be in serious echomail withdrawal at the moment. Perhaps I wasn't paying as much attention to the messages as I should have... and this has almost nothing at all to do with the fact that I played AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" on the other serial channel as I patiently waited for the cassette deck to load the echomail into my trailing-edge technology BBS running on the Sinclair ZX81. I saw the first couple of messages and pondered to myself: "Who *are* these guys?" and left it at that. When was it that we started the Commode D'Or echo? It must have been at least four years ago and possibly longer because I recall you foolishly losing our entire dental floss ranch on a silly bet concerning the longevity of disco music. We started the echo as a local effort so that we could discuss the more serious issues facing computer users in the frozen tundra... the high cost of whale blubber to keep the hard drives lubricated was a frequent topic of debate. The echo gained a loyal following and by some act of NEC/REC magic it found it's way onto the International Backbone. Nine months after the echo was placed on the backbone, the very first non-local message arrived. It was from some guy in New Jersey who quoted *everything* and appended very little of his own. Remember how riled he got when it was suggested that he book into the Betty Ford Clinic For The Criminally Uninspired to cure his rampant Quotaholism? In no time, he had marshalled more of his buddies to join the echo and, again, I asked myself: "Who *are* these guys?" As politely as we could, we pointed the New Jersoids to the CBM echo where *serious* Commodore techies could do whatever it is that consenting Commodore users do... and I really don't wanna know. We could tell they were a repressed and unhappy bunch when they chose to disbelieve us when we mentioned that most of our echomail traffic was carried by dog-teams across the frozen ice-flows. The Commode D'Or echo took on a special meaning when one of our parka pals actually operated a Fidonet BBS (163/227) on his C128, using software written by himself in Basic. (Basic is a programming language preferred by C programmers who have learned how to count, and thus don't get confused by line numbers...ahem.) Even Nanook's pet seal clapped her flippers in admiration that a C128 could be browbeaten into Fidonet mailer compliancy. Alas (please note: not "a lass"), the universe never seems to unfold as it should and the echo was soon invaded by the California Spam 'N Timmies. These new participants in the echo, if they had any reading comprehension at all, quickly announced that it was a "Commodore" echo. "No. No." we said "Commode D'Or... Commode D'Or... as in Golden Toilet." but they wouldn't listen. The reared up on thier hindpaws and *demanded* that we cease talking about 'frivolous' things immediately, or else. Now up here in the frozen north we've always been a friendly bunch and willing to accomodate almost anyone. (Tell Nanook that I'll return his wife later this week.) We figured that the California Spam 'N Timmies bunch could co-exist in the echo with us. We'd ignore their techie-talk, and they could ignore our exchanges about edible underwear, Caribou migrations, and the occasional C128 Fidonet mailer test message. One fellow, who was linked into the net via one of the gateways, announced that he would either change the echo, or destroy it. As usual, we didn't take him all that seriously since he kept signing his name by appending "President, Commodore User's Club". I mean really, a Commodore User's Club... it is to snicker. What we missed in our good hearted attempts to humour these fire-breathing intruders, was that Commodore users are probably the larval stage of Amiga users. You *know* how touchy the Amagatroids are about their toy computers. I guess it must have been Nanook who suggested that they either needed to have more fibre in their diet, or at least to get out and play on the freeway more often. Remember how excitable everyone got that time you brought your pet skunk to the wedding reception? Well, this situation wasn't much different. The California Spam 'N Timmies went hypercritical. We're talkin' major modem meltdown here. One of them, in an effort to show us what *real* Commodore messages looked like, cross-posted about 50 messages from the CBM echo and then proceeded to use some words that had something to do with an act of self-procreation. Another one of them, a fellow who identified himself as the NC of a Fidonet BBS, keep bleating for a ruling from the moderator. I spoke to the moderator and his response was as laid back as could be expected from someone whose front lawn is covered with snow for 11 1/2 months of the year. "No problem" he said, "The dweebs who are whining all live in California. We'll just be patient and let continental drift take care of them." It seemed like a wise course of action, and hey, if an earthquake took them out earlier then that was all the better. In an effort to make them feel welcome I participated in their new game of cross-posting messages. The one I chose happened to be about a yuppie-babe on a date with some vegetables.... a completely on topic and appropriate message for the Commode D'Or echo. I have no idea why a paragraph such as: "She poured a small splash of Genadine into the juicer followed by an over-ample dash of white rum. The pineapples which had rested upon smooth linen napkins winked up at her. She grasped a cherry by it's stem and gently teased the seed from it's depths with her tongue. Using both hands, she plunged the cherry pitter deep into a second cherry and carefully allowed the juices to run across her wrist before she raised her arm and sucked the delicate drops." ... could cause these people to be driven to near-apoplexy. As they went variously insane, they also netmailed all parts of the known Fidonet admin structure with whimpers of outrage. I don't know about you Visage, but it strikes me that these people must have suffered horribly as children by being forced to remain at the supper table until they'd finished all their vegetables. Faster than you could say "There's a skunk in the fridge", incoming WhineMail(tm) from *serious* *C-beings was filling my netmail directory. "Excuse me?" I rejoined, "You want to do what?" I asked incredulously. "You want all of us who have fun in the Commode D'Or echo to desist?" And just for old times sake, I asked myself: "Who *are* these guys?" I didn't worry all that much because as far as I knew at the time, no *EC in his right mind would blunder into an echo and try to enforce content rules, particularly since we were breaking no laws. But, and you'll be amazed by this, those *EC-beings have suddenly gotten religion in a major way. So much religion, in fact, that godlike powers have descended upon their able shoulders. Some of them, and this would have *really* impressed the crowds a coupla thousand years ago, some of them can actually walk and chew gum at the same time. I know, I know... we couldn't really expect any *ECs to read the echo which they were poised to incinerate... the comprehension levels alone would have precluded that, but surely one of them could have asked a few questions of us? Without the courtesy of a message entered in the echo telling us, the echo was taken out behind the ZEC's computer and quietly garrotted. They didn't even return the corpse for a decent burial. I don't really fault the *EC-beings, they're as likely to join a lynch mob as any other mortal, but the people I just cannot understand, are the ones who rode into the echo with their Policy4 Six-guns blazing for no real purpose. So I guess, if I were to ask myself again, "Who *are* these guys?", I'd have to respond that they are humourlous savages... more inclined to destroy than to create. They're the pioneers of a new era and their Policy-legimitimized thuggery is making a real mess of FidoNet. I must go, Visage. I was due at the studio an hour ago. "Dread Zeppelin" is doing a reggae version of "Baa Baa Black Sheep" and I've been hired to play the tuba solo. Regards, Doc Logger