F I D O N E W S -- | Vol. 9 No. 40 (5 October 1992) 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) | | | Newspapers should have no friends. | -- JOSEPH PULITZER ----------------------------+--------------------------------------- Published weekly by and for the Members of the FidoNet international amateur network. Copyright 1992, Fido Software. All rights reserved. Duplication and/or distribution permitted for noncommercial purposes only. For use in other circumstances, please contact FidoNews. Electronic Price: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . free! Paper price: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $10.00US For more information about FidoNews refer to the end of this file. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Table of Contents 1. EDITORIAL ..................................................... 1 Editorial: Now less than ever ................................. 1 2. ARTICLES ...................................................... 2 Error in FidoNews 9-39 "REGION25" article ..................... 2 Did I Dream All This, or What ? ............................... 2 Private Communications... Are you listening? .................. 9 Book Review: SYSLAW, 2nd ed. - Legal Guide for Online Servic .. 11 Bucking World Trends : Powermongery in Cold Places * .......... 12 Why No Protection For Us?? .................................... 14 User Origin Door for Remote Access ............................ 19 PUBLIC_KEYS Echo is born! ..................................... 19 Of Controversey and Discovery ................................. 21 3. FIDONEWS INFORMATION .......................................... 22 FidoNews 9-40 Page 1 5 Oct 1992 ====================================================================== EDITORIAL ====================================================================== Editorial: Now less than ever by Tom Jennings (1:1/1) Look I've got nothing to say this week, so I won't say it. Well, just this one thing... I managed to screw up an article sent to me, and apparently totally garbage it. The format of the file sent didn't conform to ARTSPEC.DOC, like about 40% of all articles received here. So, I did my usual, which is to manually edit the three files into an article. Well, I mashed it. So from now on, I am going to simply BOUNCE BACK ARTICLES THAT DO NOT CONFORM TO ARTSPEC.DOC. It is *your* responsibility to get a copy of it, and read it. I'll run it as an article next week as well. Fair enough? * * * * * PRIVACY: expect to hear lots about privacy in the coming months... PGP version 2.0 is out, and it's been sufficiently improved to be useful in FidoNet. Expect *lots* of "trouble" caused by the privacy issue. I'd always assumed everyone thought the right to privacy was a good thing. Not so! Mere days ago, a FidoNet sysop wrote me, saying all this privacy stuff was fine, but he wants to be able to read all the mail passing through his system! Innaresting, huh?! POLICY4 specifically prohibits "encrypted" mail. A very naive viewpoint. We'll see... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 9-40 Page 2 5 Oct 1992 ====================================================================== ARTICLES ====================================================================== From : Peter Burnett - 2:441/80@fidonet Ref : Fidonews Vol. 9 No. 39 (28 September 1992) I would like to point out that the below article in the above mentioned version of Fidonews has some errors. On page 14, an article called "FIDONET REGION25 ( UK ) EXCEPTION POLICY" starts and ends on page 18. I would like to point out at this moment in time 2 items for your attention. 1. The 'Exception Policy' is at this current moment in time is a discussion document and holds no status other than a discussion document with Region 25. This was not pointed out by the contributor of the said document in thier footnotes. 2. The 6 paragraphs that start on line 40 of page 17 and continue through to line 29 of page 18 are not part of the draft version D.1 held here at my system and are the thoughts of the contributor to Fidonews of the said document. The list of authors contained on lines 32 to 34 inclusive of page 18 is correct, however, in the manner in which this has been presented as an article for fidonews, it would seem that Paul Dickie and myself were the contributors of the whole article to fidonews, including the 6 paragraphs identified above. This is indeed not the case on my own part and as such, I dissasociate myself with those 6 paragraphs. I really dont know why the contributor to fidonews did not point out that the closing 6 paragraphs were his/hers own thoughts and sign them as such instead of attaching Paul Dickie's and my own name as well as a lot of other sysops name to them. (* ED NOTE: This is at least partly my doing. The article in question came in three separate files, none of which conformed to ARTSPEC.DOC requirements. I assembled them into a single article, which looked OK to me, and ran it. Ooops. This points out *why* ARTSPEC.DOC is important. I will be more vigilant in enforcing ARTSPEC.DOC requirements. My apologies to Peter and Nick both, for allowing this to happen. *) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Did I Dream All This, or What ? FidoNews 9-40 Page 3 5 Oct 1992 I went to a party. It was held in a multi-room house built on the side of a rocky hill. The slope led down to a lake. I later learned it was my house. I remember loud music, dancing and some kind of small train ride. Was it FidoCon ? After a while, I was feeling better, finally sitting down to eat at a large table. Everyone was still there. I guess we never know quite what to expect. Well anyway -- I'd slept 3 hours Sat. morning, and 4 hours Sun. morning. I fell, asleep about 6 pm. Sunday. This was Labor Day morning. Pretty weird. Last thangs first : 92 Dallas, Tx 91 Denver, Co 90 Lyndhurst, Nj 89 San Jose, Ca 88 Cincinatti, Oh 87 Alexandria, Va 86 Colorado Springs, Co First thangs first : Thurs. afternoon : The hotel guarantee. Oh look out. This is when it gets tough. Not everyone registers early, not everyone even says "I wanna". How many mouths to feed ? How many rooms to clean ? This is definately the hard part. Check out the Fidocon planning session, S9 below. I had a list of early arrivers. Dropped in on James Smith of Online Systems, the Frontdoor folks. Boy, did we screw up. I'm going to say thanks to this guy a lot in this issue, because James hung there despite our idiocy in trying to do anything like a trade show. FidoCon is not a trade show, and should never be. Period. Thurs. evening : I was pressed. Kevin's baseball practice at 6:30 meant I had to take him, until Honey got off work and got there to relieve me. When she shows up, I'm fixing to leave, and I hear : "We need a new shortstop." Hmmm, Kevin plays shortstop. I turned around to find him bleeding at the mouth. His very first tooth had come out. Maybe it was an omen. I need another New Orleans trip to get my cards read. Hey, New Orleans for Fidocon 93 ! FidoNews 9-40 Page 4 5 Oct 1992 The lounge. Bless Saint Anthony Los Gringos from San An-tone had arrived ready to paint the town red. They hotly anticipated the Echomail Cost Sharing session and came prepared. Cooked up my little part of the formal presentations just right ! Thanks guys. Fri. afternoon The scramble. Hey Zues, Remember ? I had already stole the truck. Loading it was another thing. I took everything. Needed it too. Got checked in and oriented and then the work started. The check-in. Here they come. Walking in the suite. You get the funniest looks from, all the nerds you meet. Hey hey we're the Sysops, oh sorry. People were stopping by in droves. We were passing out schedules and name tags left and right. Eventually, things settled down, and the bunch of them took off for the local pizza joint. Fri. 19:00 Dinner Who's who. < Ron and John will fill you in on the pizza party, since I didn't go. Hey, somebody had to watch the suite and make huge business deals. > So anyway, James was real easy and I bargained Fidocon 93 down from 1 vendor to 0 vendors. Another thang to add to simply signing up for a Fidocon is to also specify to release your NAME to the world so everyone begins to get a picture of who all can make it. We knew there were some big-time-Fido-luminaries going to be there, but we hadn't made any allowance for non-privacy. You know, one of problems with working for the conference committee, is, you don't get much time to visit the gatherings. Next time we get late fees, let's hire some skirted ones to take money and make name tags. OK, tight jeans are fine too. Sat. 9:00 S1 Jeff Rush, Fidonet Newcomers. 10:00 S2 Bruce Bodger, Remote Access. 11:00 S3 Ken Rucker, IBM OS/2. 12:00 Lunch 14:00 S4 John Souvestre, Filebone panel. 15:00 S5 James Smith, Frontdoor. FidoNews 9-40 Page 5 5 Oct 1992 16:00 S6 Phil Becker, TBBS. Well, I'm pretty sure all this happened. About the time Phil was warming up, Ron and I dashed off in a mild frenzy to get computer oriented banquet prizes. It should be a rule of all FidoCons that late fees get to be spent by the accountant and the nametag maker on neat stuff that won't run under OS/2. Everytime I looked in on one of these conferences, everyone was dead silent listening to the answer of some extreme import. Cool stuff, indeed. 17:00 Water Volleyball Tournament Tim Flynn, Patty Pickett : The Sportsters Tim and Patty won this sporting event hands down. But then, they are Lake Party alumni, after all. I dare say the hotel management simply declined to show support for the 'other' guests. 19:00 Banquet OK, $30 bucks was too much. Write it down so you remember next year. Actually it was $24 plus tax and tip. Also, I had the feeling that everyone was itching to do a repeat, only bigger, of Friday night. The kind of 'house party', milling about and talking I remember doing before I got married with children. Sun. 10:00 S7 Jeff Rush, Privacy. < Jeff sent this over. I imagine everyone who reads this having a differing set of opinions on each issue. > In the privacy session at Fidocon'92, the question was raised whether privacy was truly out of fashion, as some popular authors claim. An informal poll was taken to determine if the attendees believed technology was increasing or tearing down individual privacy, with a vast majority saying it was tearing it down. Also discussed was the issue of Sysop Rights versus User Rights, addressing the metaphor of a person's right to know who is at the front door of his home, versus a person's right to know all about someone coming into his store. The concept of the traditional "Sysop as Benevolent Dictator" was explored. The movement toward availability of Caller ID whereby when the phone rings you know who is calling was discussed. In Texas, where Fidocon was being held, caller id is not yet available but some of the attendees were from states where it is relatively common. They were asked what impact it had had on both their boards and their personal lives. Most present were in favor of caller id by far. This was surprising to the moderator since those with unlisted phone numbers are usually dead set against it. The use of CDROM databases combined with caller id to allow a sysop to know the name, address, marital status, income bracket, education level and names/phone numbers of physical neighbors was discussed and how the BBS community could draw upon the technology of collection agencies. Needless to say, this FidoNews 9-40 Page 6 5 Oct 1992 was not viewed as a positive development. Also covered was the pros and cons of using 'handles' or aliases on various systems. While most were against handles, some attendees had legitimate uses for them, such as to hide gender in conferences likely to attract the adolescent male element. Some of the men present did not seem to understand this issue, considering this is a male-dominated hobby. The need for handles in potentially dangerous international situations was brought up, where the rights we expect in the US are not respected. It was mentioned that most Sysops who collect information about users do not publicly state that it is only for internal use only and several pondered the possibility of Sysops making money on the side by selling mailing lists to firms. And then the hybrid case of where the Sysop knows a caller's true name but not the other users was mentioned. Lastly, there was some talk about the reading of private mail by a Sysop, the editing of mail-in-transit, and whether the Fidonet community would even tolerate encrypted messages being exchanged, with or without prior notice, across international links. In particular, between Croatia citizens who fear for message interception and those who wish to correspond with them. The FBI bill to build a backdoor into all encryption devices was discussed toward the end. The session was lively and there were very strong but diverse opinions held by all. Privacy is definitely a sensitive area for the Fidonet community and I believe, an important one for the future. If we do not take intentional steps to safeguard it, we will, by default, construct an environment hostile to privacy without realizing it. The various US agencies are pleased to see this movement toward an 'open and self-accountable' communications environment where what a person says can be directly traced back to them, for good or ill. 11:00 S8 Henry Clark, Echomail Cost Sharing. In an open discussion between members of a dozen or so networks, I started by soliciting procedures and plans for Echomail Cost Sharing. What we arrived at were two basic methods for payment of a long distance bill to receive echomail. We called them The Voluntary Sugar Daddy Methods, and The Mandatory Cooperative Methods It was noted that some nets have lots of Sugar Daddys who pay for echomail, and some nets have one Sugar Daddy who pays. Both are voluntary payment methods. On the other hand, the Cooperative approach generally divides the echomail cost amougst the participants of the cooperative with a mandatory payment plan. You don't pay, you aren't a participant. There were arguments for flat-rate and pay by the volume. FidoNews 9-40 Page 7 5 Oct 1992 Prior to the session, I had received from the San Antonio bunch a draft of their new cost sharing plan, and they had decided on the flat-rate approach at 3 dollars per month. About 10 cents per day. Then we heard about the highly successful Denver net plan, also, 3 dollars per month. What was it about this figure ? It is very important to realize that 10 cents per day is about what it would cost to make a one minute long distance call every day. So that the question for any sysop becomes, "Do I go get echomail myself, or do I join the co-op". Well, is that such a hard question ? If your echomail volume fits into one minute, or you don't need to have daily responsiveness, then you might save money compared to the co-op's rate. Looking at the cost from the other end, it was estimated that at 1600 characters per second, about 1 hour per day was required to get ALL the backbone echos; ie. about $150 per month. At 3 dollars per sysop, you can see how having 50 people in your co-op would be perfect. Everyone agreed that long distance costs were the primary costs to recover regardless of the sharing method chosen. When you get sufficient support for the cost sharing plan, the group can decide to purchase hardware, such as a hard disk or even an entirely dedicated machine. Historically, the equipment used was rarely counted as a part of the cost because that equipment belonged to the echomail hub, and usually would be in use anyway by the sysop. The advantages for having a dedicated machine include security, responsiveness and easier accounting for usage. I did receive a note suggesting that a "Flat rate promotes a 'get my monies worth' attitude that increases the distribution workload unnecessarily". There were other concerns about low speed modems and their affect on the distribution system and responsiveness. Local networks may or may not have free local calling available for local distribution. There is ample room for differences in the way any local plan is implemented. The Backbone Operating Procedures document was mentioned with reference to a sysops ability to choose between a sharing plan and getting a separate feed for him/herself. The backbone seems to desire a structured routing plan for the purpose of problem solving. A related issue concerning 'unauthorized' distribution was raised. The basic question is "If a sysop pays the coop for mail, can he/she then route it to other sysops, who do not participate in the coop". Here we have the essential echomail question, and it should be obvious to everyone that no definitive answer is available. Perhaps this a part of the evolution that we haven't gotten to yet. Certainly with respect to Policy4, a sysop's membership in Fidonet, and inclusion in the nodelist, should be completely independent of these echomail cost sharing issues. FidoNews 9-40 Page 8 5 Oct 1992 Having worn out the 'receive' side issue, we attacked the 'transmit' side. How significant are the costs to send the upstream side? Estimates ranged from none ( using a bi-direction protocol ) to about 5%. When you send echomail to someone else, they probably incur a cost to forward it on towards the backbone. Most participants felt that this cost was negligible and could be included and accounted for more easily in the flat-rate. Now the picture emerges. The coops that have reached sufficient size locally to support a full feed, are in a natural position to begin providing regional hub functions. Rising closer to the backbone systems provides better responsiveness ( turnaround ) for their echomail. There is no doubt that the Souvestre backbone system is well supported by the sysops of the New Orleans area. In terms of reliability, the cooperative stands a better chance of remaining in place than the individual who is acting on behalf of the members of a voluntary plan. Finally, we entered into the dark realm of business, taxes, the IRS and Accounting 101. Hold on to your checkbook. In fact, keep records of everything. While we didn't have any tax theologians available, it was pretty well understood that keeping good records was of primary concern. It may be harder for the keeper of the voluntary fund to maintain proper records than it would be for a separate and legal 'cooperative entity'. It is definately harder for an individual to claim the income and report the expenses than it would be for a separate legal entity. 12:00 Lunch The checkout. Those fool Washington 'Sunburns' football, they think, playing team were wanting their little hospitality suite. Oh, dear. I'm glad the Cowboys kicked their butts. Anyway, it was all I could do to stack everything on a cart and push it down to the lobby by 1. Then, of course, the 'Final Bill Settling'. Probably like getting an echomail hubs long distance bill. The real question is would they have us back. I'll call 'em sometime and ask. 14:00 S9 Ron Bemis, Planning FidoCon '93. Early planning. Earlier planning. Earliest planning. We didn't do things far enough in advance. Change the name of Late Fee to Normal price, and change Normal Price to Early Discount. Tie all other revenues directly to costs. It works. You can put together a good convention with 40 good man- ( uh-hum) person-hours. 15:00 S10 Question and Answer Where's the door ? Where's my keys ? How do I get home ? Did I survive ? FidoNews 9-40 Page 9 5 Oct 1992 Sun. evening. The sleep. The dream. See you next year. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Privacy - Do you have when you think you do? by: G. K. Pace 1:374/26@Fidonet Welcome to the future... new technology abounds! Today we have the ability to see and hear further than man could have imagined a mere hundred years ago... We cook our food with RF energy... we command huge databases of information from our homes with little gagits that give us the ability to communicate around the world in minutes... Life is wonderful for those of us fortunate to live in the "developed world". This technology advances at an ever increasing rate... as engineers and scientists around the world continually build upon the dreams of yesterday. But is it all for the good of the people? What about those scientists and engineers employed by those who feel a need to insure that the people are obeying laws, living as they would have them, those who would manipulate public events if they could? Is there a technological void in the tool kits of those who would invade the privacy of an individual? NO! The tool kits of those interested in monitoring the lives and actions of private individuals find themselves armed with a virtual array of sophisticated tools that enable them to monitor communications of any type, undetected. There are ways to make such eaves-dropping more difficult. The use of "Public Key encryption" to protect private files and E-mail is one method that can make the job of monitoring such communications more difficult and add a degree of "privacy"! A new Echo-Conference named "PUBLIC_KEYS" has been formed for the purpose of discussing and promoting the use of Public Key encryption schemes. The echo-conference is being monitored by Chrisopher Baker @1:374/14, and myself. If it isn't being carried in your area, it can be obtained from either of us (my system runs a 2400 baud, Chris has 9600+) just ask...! For you that have a copy of PGP 2.0, I have drafted an encrypted story as an example (the rest of you may want to get PGP 2.0). To read this story you should edit the following block to a separate file and run PGP on it. PGP will ask you for the password used to encrypt it, you would then enter the word: "privacy" (that is privacy without the "") The story follows: -----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE----- Version: 2.0 FidoNews 9-40 Page 10 5 Oct 1992 pgAADWAYQxuuL+CZSMwWA7mTNsUoRVabojZGymIRr5dQDffMFBxw3Cn3iz87b3zK PYNgnrVgTmoj74mLWfDmelKzDOKzFHBJtA67yEUHZgKOIsLlQ0abRcKDxZKdzMN6 hWMWew6ik1fUaQEUCwERX7sRl1b2zzQJQGkgHd2Aham6p4nanaGIrblNzKpnYc2N nU23oLE+ldoBu+kITvs8iTX8lQGw4FX6SHXRgzaXFG8+M2AODR/+8G8PoZPXhcUv N5TzCNDL8DeJxC6wLSlNgW5KS6T09B1eXT93VCJ0o1lEUZsWsYe3lEZZn77xi3u/ 94X6aorf5R89BMqhVZojavpzFyeW4qHVr2P7outduHpJjNH1LhLyISqVJjjQ47Rq 0hmHCzFdSIYuUl9G1ZnYpOfc7nVLmF5d/6Q14t0aGGfqaAI9oHiqhcX+JZbGCtf1 DXge0Jp4ZpMazkTxhT/W7NmazBe2SQ+Jkk/iprJ8k/aSPKmGXST0Q9ypUPsCOOBN rISDyTFPoDmRvxfqFKZkVxSRQwETWvB6vSqZnyTY8fV6ZMsxq2kpRoAvfGZ45+NR B1JQxjoN2qk8qC1UNT7hI+ZrV9TelUnPRFugbg2O/XKrEyifFaZfbWml+p4kETGW VRNC6CwZFmRzBu3nMPSFD3fzFgd157kS2am08+1nZKteWj2aFY+HR1laCKXOP3sQ Tk+S8jAUXNHbQJL1vgkbpLFpRyYassMjfsZPmRdXg31lpXmso7ewhwraIOLxf8oN 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H4oA2WE7mcHTjxFejoEm3PY0Po1Wc6YKg9FyG+CfiaffdkL8UdwomCoNF/ROPBPU ggXyp+SLc+smY0qHsXljvUI24wMEo5hWINh5dxxMKOYqG5eiRRmOLmLi8lmGYlbF reXkkBDusmmXewGfXnf58TCS+bgGmYexYIrdCozbpcNcpAjjmOXV3JFhoxLMZqfD 1x4bYVwNm9iRH2uxw+cFlVtGZeI6QAgT9PkVI36mr1zHdc2cKodnKrsIywdn+pnV U4HkeRWZ9Yu9YjqtfhylM1s/gOhTs1f+JGDzTPBPAMtZbbqmUc/Nmq5T/Yx1VMag vkZwCHBfFq+OUXsG0/k44wJr0f8FbCnDyT3uB3QYPdXXuWmQaxbgHuu6Sdm+8LZz mnNrf8Y4cFzVXBkifvF3zWufnWV8AX8BN6J4zho9d68/5PUuapBqFZd/E2lHRrBU krTcLie7kE5s05KtFO27FSwyso4gLZC11CepJ4Miu724+1ix2XyuU+RrSiTZQtj5 DHPuN0Hjwv8yBYQgVoqoZrrrLydEONxV2JnIcQJMvfMHlLn5iTr6UR2/k80pS6pE ax15u6FGEotojP3B/RUVErbGRr8rdp7643R8jUo8dLxU/Zd8tRWOyxem69ZR4R07 HqcDZGZ1onlUIExYn7ilPWvqsNHm9ocilNACdjblNQvDbDxBWtPhjXsC5PQD8Gd8 BPGVclj8vB1aStHpD41KaIKtJ5TfmNVeRCqf0czEnx5EMZmqx16uPn3HXECJWRpm bfR7/n1pu+IH04zAr4APoVVgAxRS3HOxvYYTCSJDrDxNSDJcePBfgHIKPmbk1WIv vzAS4ip3gpLhHKN6DaQyyis9BdrDJT5qf13lx1hgNpEapqAdm8k6bMvoc8jZtoXA HwgNQWfBjENPBmfVYqPllG8RnrfjKxU1wOh2M6oX/D8Cn4GgIncGUiOAl+VS0nYm ZAFhtG9k2wHtEK+TGYk5En49BfS1 =7mJt -----END PGP MESSAGE----- Privacy is a right every person should have... but to have it you must often demand, and hold it. Once lost it is not easy to regain! -gk (* ED NOTE: you'll need to edit out page breaks if they occur in the middle of the PGP block. If for some reason PGP won't digest this FIDONEWS formatted article, you can filerequest it from the FidoNews BBS as magicfilename "PRIVACY.ART". *) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Michael H. Riddle, Esq. Riddle Law Office 1:285/27.151 SYSLAW, 2nd Edition A Legal Guide for Online Services First, an announcement: > Newsgroups: misc.int-property > From: elrose@well.sf.ca.us (Lance Rose) > Subject: SysLaw, 2nd ed. - Legal Guide for Online Service Providers > Date: Thu Oct 1 16:27:51 1992 > > NEW SYSLAW BOOK! MASSIVELY REVISED AND EXPANDED! > > SysLaw, Second Edition: The Legal Guide for Online Service > Providers > by Lance Rose, Esq., and Jonathan Wallace, Esq. > > SysLaw provides BBS sysops, network moderators and other online > service providers with basic information on their rights and > responsibilities, in a form that non-lawyers can easily understand. > Subjects covered include the First Amendment, copyrights and > trademarks, the user agreement, negligence, privacy, criminal law, FidoNews 9-40 Page 12 5 Oct 1992 > searches and seizures, viruses and adult materials. SysLaw not > only explains the laws, it gives detailed advice enabling system > operators to create the desired balance of user services, freedom, > and protection from risk on their systems. > > SysLaw is available from PC Information Group, 800-321-8285 or 507- > 452-2824, and located at 1126 East Broadway, Winona, MN 55987. You > may order by credit card or by mail. Price is $34.95 plus $3.00 > shipping and (if applicable) sales tax. Price is subject to change > after January 1, 1993. For additional information, please contact > publisher Brian Blackledge at 800-321-8285. Second: I have the book at my office, and (third?) have actually read it. Messrs. Rose and Wallace have done an excellent job in explaining the law as applied to BBSes, including the places where the law is "unsettled." In the places where the law is unsettled, they do a good job explaining the legal, social and sometimes moral considerations that a court would consider if the question arose. They sometimes tell you what they think the result might be, or what they think it should be. They caution at the start that until courts consider several cases, and/or until we get appellate decisions, the users and operators incur some degree of risk in engaging in certain activities, such as XXX.GIF. Overall, well worth the cost. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- By: Gordon R.V. Chapman Sysop, Grace and Danger, 1:163/150, Ottawa, Canada It snowed here yesterday, Unseptember the 30th, 1992. This represents a couple of firsts as far as I know - even in this cold part of the world, the snow usually holds off a few more weeks. And, we usually have September this time of the year, but this year we seem to have missed it. Not that it isn't cold here a lot, but it's getting much colder up here all of the sudden, and a lot of us aren't too happy about it. This has nothing to do with the weather, either. This has to do with the removal of our democratic privileges. Here in Net163 we happily elect an NC, and, in Region 12, we've elected our RCs in the past. Democratic traditions are mixed blessings. Up here we know that you folks below the 49th parallel (I believe you call yourself "Murricans") are rabidly democratic, voting on everything that moves, or doesn't - everything from county sheriff to proposition 13 to installing your president. We folks up here (you can call us "Canajans") vote a lot too, even if our political system is incomprehensible. In Region12, we've traditionally held a one-vote per sysop election for our RC. We *have* had some bad luck with RCs, though. FidoNews 9-40 Page 13 5 Oct 1992 One RC experimented with a Fax machine on his line to the point that many local sysops wore out their nerf bats and bit the arms off their mirror shades. Another RC suddenly resigned last June, leaving us RC-less a few months prior to our usual election. Strangely, despite the inconvenience of democracy, our region works well. The mail gets through, the nodelist gets updated, and, all sysops are, or rather, *were* franchised by their right to vote. June is a funny time for it to start to get cold, even up here, but as soon as the ZC appointed an interim RC, it started getting chilly. The interim RC indicated that he was only an interim appointment, and that he would attend to sorting out a problem in one of the nets, keep the nodelist working, and, sooner or later, we'd have an election. This lack of commitment on a time for an election did not go down well. The regional sysop echo has been peppered for months with messages from sysops in all our nets to request an election. We were told that something would be done about it in September. While much grumbling ensued, most of us hunkered down to wait. A straw poll was taken among NCs as to whether or not an election was wanted at this time. It was reported that fully three quarters of the NCs did not want an RC election at this time. Then we found out that not all NCs had even bothered to ask us grunt sysops what we thought. My NC did, and 26 to 1 voted in favour of an election. We also found out that some NCs did ask grunts, and decided that "I don't care" votes should be lumped in with the "No" votes. NCs from nets with only a few nodes were given one vote, the same as nets with hundreds of nodes, entirely distorting the response. Whether or not this obviously flawed poll was used to impress George Peace, we grunts will never know. What is certain is that September never arrived, because on Unseptember 29, our interim RC posted a message stating that he had put the mechanism in place to have an election, but that the ZC, George Peace, had declined to call it, and that the ZC would wait another 30 days to see "what happened." We, of course, only have the messages of Mr. Peace transmitted to us via the interim RC, so we have to assume that George actually said such things. (Yes, I've tried, but Mr. Peace doesn't answer the netmail of mere grunts.) It looks like we'll have a cold winter here in Region12. All over the world, democracy is flourishing. The USA will hold a Presidential election this year, Canada will vote on its constitution, France voted to join the ECM, the entire Warsaw Pact has collapsed for the chance to become democratic, but here, in Darkest Region12, the palace coup is complete - our democratic tradition has evidently been ordered out of existence by the whim of George Peace. I hope my snowblower works. FidoNews 9-40 Page 14 5 Oct 1992 It's hard to imagine that the ZC, a citizen of the USA, Home of the Brave, Land of the Free, Bastion of Democracy would be the one to stomp democracy out in our region. I'd have thought you folks south of the border would send the Marines in to preserve democracy, if anything. Say it ain't so, George. Call an election. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- By Janis Kracht IC Programmer's Distribution Network, 1:272/38 After I survived the assault on my BBS described in this article, I thought the rest of FidoNet might profit from hearing of my experience. One thing I've realized from this episode and the resulting court case is that there is really very little "protection" or "recourse" for the sysop of a BBS. The legal system (at least in this part of the country) needs to be made computer literate to a much greater degree, especially at lower levels (i.e., the police departments) and that some type of legislation encompassing the rights of Sysops who run BBS systems might benefit us all. Towards the middle of March, 1992 (or there about) I agreed to take over the Programmer's Distribution Network from Erik VanRiper. By the beginning of April, 1992, my hook-ups were in full swing, enabling me to distribute and receive files for the PDN as well as other file areas on the FileBone. On May 25th, 1992, I received a disturbing call on my BBS on Node 1 (my mailer node with Dual Standard). I watched as a "user", who logged on with an obvious phony name, proceeded to leave me an obnoxious and obscene message. Now, obscene messages don't bother me per se; I just delete them and take appropriate action with the author of such nonsense, but this one drew my attention because he was so malicious in his language. Insults in this message were directed at myself and specifically to members of my family, causing me to wonder who could know such details of our life. I disconnected this person, figuring someone was having a bad day ;-) At least three more calls were logged that day, obviously from the same person, since reference was made to earlier messages. I deleted his messages and his accounts. The next morning around 7:00AM the same nonsense started again. At this time, I was polling for new files three times a day - my 5:30PM and Midnight polls were not getting through since the "activity" of this caller had intensified dramatically. He alternated calling (and immediately disconnecting from) both nodes of my BBS attempting to disrupt all functioning of my BBS. As the calls continued, my husband decided to get a trace on the phone lines to find out where the calls were originating. FidoNews 9-40 Page 15 5 Oct 1992 Around the same time, the caller started calling my voice line and screaming obscenities at whoever picked up the phone when both nodes were busy with legitimate users... I put an answering machine on that line, and recorded some choice ones... Initiating a phone trace in New York requires that a complaint be filed with the police. My husband took a day off from work to take me to the phone company (to get the appropriate forms), the police station to file the complaint and get the forms filled out, and back to the phone company to initiate the trace. I found it interesting that the police officer who took the original complaint thought that all we really needed to do was to "change the phone number". The trace was activated by the phone company at 1pm on May, 27th, 1992. To prevent any more grief than had already been caused, I made node 1 available to high speed callers only (I'd noticed that this person always called at 2400). Later, the phone company told me that on the day that the trace was initiated 28 calls had come in from same source. I was told when I initiated the trace that if the calls did not originate from our local phone company (GTE) I'd be out of luck. In our area we have a number of different companies serving a fairly small area. The calls to my BBS might be 'local' with respect to billing but originate with another company. If they were from a neighboring telephone company, the other phone company would have to agree to trace the calls as well. The other phone company was under no obligation to trace these calls. Two days after initiating the trace, the GTE repair service, which handled "nuisance calls", told me that they had determined the calls were 'local' but were originating from another phone company. They were very sympathetic to my plight and indicated they would contact the neighboring company to extend the trace through their lines. My board is, foolishly some may think, a very open system in that I don't really mind if all you want to do is download, or all you want to do is read messages, or use Online games or whatever. I put up <. This had to change during the course of this assault, and bothered me more than I suppose anything else did... Callers had to be validated, like I didn't trust a single human on earth, and severe limits had to be put on first time callers. I successively disabled new user capabilities as I watched this caller upload 'trojans', leave insulting messages to other users in local message areas and doors, and try to send ANSI keyboard remapping codes via my message area (thank you Scott Dudley for filtering out ANSI). His obscene and insulting 'new user' messages and disruptive calling patterns continued. FidoNews 9-40 Page 16 5 Oct 1992 He actually did let me know in a few of his inane messages that he intended to continue until I was 'old and gray' or I took my board down. He also stated clearly his intent to tie up the board in ways that would (1) make it impossible for me to function as an FDN head, and (2) frustrate my users so much they would stop calling. As the calls continued, I was informed by GTE that the other phone company had agreed to trace the calls, and we'd have some results (they hoped) in a few days. These calls had now been going on for over 7 days and I was wearing thin trying to limit the damage he could do. Figuring his unmasking was near, I temporarily made my board a private board, restricted to only those who had previously been validated. This didn't stop him from trying, however, and my BBS logs filled with his inane messages in the User name field. My log caught it all. He asked if I had read any messages in SWASHNET or in MagNet, two other networks to which I did not belong. He had left messages in these networks inviting "pirates" to log onto <