F I D O N E W S -- | Vol. 9 No. 45 (9 November 1992) A newsletter of the | FidoNet BBS community | Published by: _ | / \ | "FidoNews" BBS /|oo \ | +1-415-863-2739 (_| /_) | 1:1/1@FidoNet _`@/_ \ _ | editor@fidonews.fidonet.org | | \ \\ | | (*) | \ )) | Editors: |__U__| / \// | Tom Jennings _//|| _\ / | Tim Pozar (_/(_|(____/ | (jm) | Newspapers should have no friends. | -- JOSEPH PULITZER ----------------------------+--------------------------------------- For information, copyrights, article submissions, obtaining copies and so on, please refer to the end of this file. Table of Contents 1. EDITORIAL ..................................................... 1 Editorial: Wartime blues ...................................... 1 2. ARTICLES ...................................................... 2 There we go, again... .................................. 2 Mr. Clovis Lacerda lies ....................................... 5 don't listen to him, Pablito! ................................. 6 BBS to TNC Linker Software using FOSSIL ....................... 7 Exclude killer-dog now supports RA/QBBS ....................... 8 3. FIDONEWS INFORMATION .......................................... 10 FidoNews 9-45 Page 1 9 Nov 1992 ====================================================================== EDITORIAL ====================================================================== Editorial: wartime blues by Tom Jennings (1:1/1) I just got home from a four and a half hour drive. It's late, I'm tired and cranky. I peek in my inbound directory, and see what's new for this week's snooze. Surprise. Zone wars are soooo tired. They're really personality wars, held in public, at our collective expense, and seemingly unnoticed to the participants, to their own collective embarrassment. Especially for the repeat offenders. OK, here we go again. Boy oh boy, am I glad I worked at this problem earlier. To quote ARTSPEC.DOC: ----------------------- RESOLVING CONTROVERSIES: (v3) Occasionally FidoNews is presented with a dilemma: a "controversial" article generates a seemingly endless series of responses, commentary, rebuttals, etc, and threatens to overwhelm FidoNews. How to stop the stop the flood without violating the editorial policy? Here is the somewhat complex solution: If a particular article generates a cascade of responses, the editor does two things: (1) chooses one or few of them as representative; (2) passes them on to the original author, who is asked to write a response within 2 weeks. The resulting representative response(s), and the original authors response, are run in the next possible FidoNews -- ONCE ONLY. Interested parties can then pick up the torch and march with it off the long or short pier of their choice. All parties in the Z4 wars are hereby on notice. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 9-45 Page 2 9 Nov 1992 ====================================================================== ARTICLES ====================================================================== Pablo Kleinman, 1:102/631 Hollywood, CA, USA There we go, again... ---------------------------- Fight-o-News! Fight-o-News! Will we ever change? Once again, I am the target of flames. This time, of a 7 or 8-page-long article with too many flames and very few -i.e. zero- truths. I was expecting a desperate move like this from Clovis Lacerda, after all his political ploys failed one after the other. The situation here is simple: Clovis Lacerda wants to be Zone Coordinator. He has more or less effectively manipulated his region to assure this, but not the other regions. They won't vote for him, it seems, and he's grown more and more desperate with time. Clovis has been systematically attacking every person that in reality or in his imagination disagrees with him. This way, he has offended and ridiculed most of the rest of his zone, as well as the few people inside his region who dared to disagree with him. How would any sober mind vote for him now? Charles Hirakawa Miranda, founder of FidoNet in Brazil, the RC who allowed Clovis to succeed him, and one of the more honest and generous persons I've ever met through this thing, has been branded things like "traitor," "electronic Judas," and "dirty Jap" by Lacerda, who's been trying hard and long to curb all kinds of possible criticism by means of populist -political- rhetoric, propaganda -loads of it- and ultimately intimidation (threats of excommunication). Sergio Creimer, a relatively new sysop there, was naive enough to use the standard routing -i.e. all national/international LD mail goes through Lacerda's node, you guess why...- for a message in which he criticized his RC. Creimer was humiliated and ridiculed in public by a Lacerda who stated that routed mail becomes property of the node routing it while it's sitting there. I really can't get into replying to the full eight pages of flames: I haven't the time or the will to do it. However, some important points deserve to be clarified, and that is what I will get into. 1) Uruguay: FidoNews 9-45 Page 3 9 Nov 1992 Hector Gomez -an Uruguayan sysop in Argentina- and I worked to get Uruguay into FidoNet. Juan Camps, Hector's cousin in the Uruguayan capital, installed the first node with sponsorship from a large computer distributor there. Time later, Juan had to go offline, and his region, still in diapers, more or less died. When Gamey Garcia took over as ZC, he tried to contact them. So did I, and a coupla sysops in Argentina, without success. Uruguay was then erased from the list. After reading Clovis' comments of them still being "alive," I got in touch with Juan Carlos Alonso, who said that he's getting his mail from Randy Bush. Alonso never tried to contact the ZC, and those that knew of his existence didn't help him do it or tell him to do it; they didn't inform anyone else in Zone 4 either, so no communication was possible. Result: Uruguay will probably be back in the nodelist, thanks to myself and a few others in Buenos Aires who took the time to help them get back in touch with the world. What Clovis said is a lie: the Uruguayans never had a chance to vote for ZC or anything because they were then offline. Nobody kicked them out, they did it themselves! 2) One-sysop, One-vote: It is not true that the candidate from the region with the most sysops will end up carrying the election in all cases. Actually, this wasn't true until Lacerda started sowing hatred throughout his region. When Clovis Lacerda ran against Gustavo Zacarias, there was at least one vote from Gustavo's region that went to Clovis as far as I know, though no votes from Clovis' region -Clovis always presents himself as his region's "official candidate"- went to Gustavo. I know sysops all over Zone 4 and I rarely noticed any objections in them to having a ZC in another region. The country problem started when Clovis and his gang started bashing the Argies on their regional echomail conference, reviving century-old prejudices at a time in which both countries are integrating their economies, their governments and militaries share all kinds of secrets and act more or less combined in foreign affairs. And as we talk about Clovis' gang -known in Rio as the "Xiitas," Portuguese for "Shiites," because of their fanaticism-, the reference I made to the people of Brazil's northeast -where almost all of Clovis' support is- was very much distorted by Clovis. It had absolutely no racial content -there is no chance of it since it's not ethnically very different from the rest of Brazil- but referred to the popularly-known Northeastern xenophobia and nationalism. I have family and friends in Brazil, I know about Brazil's internal conflicts and I speak the language. I'm a "civil rights liberal" who couldn't possibly advocate a racist point of view, which is indeed all product of Clovis' imagination and opportunism. FidoNews 9-45 Page 4 9 Nov 1992 3) Half-known facts and the imagined other half: Did I ever say Bill Bolton made any racist comments to me? No way! The only episode I made reference to was that of Ray Chalmers - Bill's successor as Z3C- calling me a Nazi in South America because I have a German -yet Jewish- last name. That was it. Were the election mechanisms in violation to Policy4? No way! It always asked that the person with the Policy4-given right to name whomever would occupy the position in discussion authorized a technically non-binding election and then formally appoint the winner. This was agreed by all the RCs in each ZC election, and by the ZC in each RC election. Did I ever promise a zone policy before an umbrella policy was approved? No way! It seems that Clovis waited for something that was never intended in the first place. The same with term limitations: it was never discussed, so how can he say there is something wrong going unless he's imagined the whole idea? Clovis once told his region's sysops that here in Zone 1 each node is financially supported by a corporation, which could only be a wrong deduction or an outright lie. Of course, he's now creating a corporation that will run another FidoNet-technology network and charge its member-nodes a fee to cover connection expenses. Although he has not made membership to this new net mandatory, international FidoNet traffic will be carried by this net and will only be available to paying members. Clovis has also said that he was technically prevented from being in touch with the rest of the zone, when he had actually told his region that he didn't want to do it -which is the message that I translated and posted, in which he also verbally insults the ZC and the rest of the zone as a whole in their backs. The pinnacle of all this nonsense is the suggestion that I'm in actual "control" of the Zone Coordinator and Region Coordinators in Zone 4. He's called me "PC Farias California-style," in reference to Paulo-Cesar Farias, the recently-impeached president's top fund raiser, head of Brazil's largest corruption scandal and currently Brazil's #1 public enemy. Give me a f___ing break!!! The only things I've done in relation to Zone 4 coordinators since I resigned as ZC are to answer some general FidoNet-related questions they posed, to help a couple out with MakeNL and to act as voluntary routing point for some of their netmail. I'm sick and tired of all this crap. I am not willing to take more. I've poured thousands of hours and thousands of dollars into FidoNet because when it all started back in 87, I dreamed of seeing the whole of Latin America online and integrated. But I have not ever lied or played "dirty tricks" like he suggests. Clovis Lacerda has gone beyond all acceptable limits with his attacks, and I will proceed to file a policy complaint against him -I sent him netmail giving him a chance to apologize and forget about this but he blew it. For once, I'm taking this seriously: I might be familiar with politics, but I'm even more familiar with telling the truth. I FidoNews 9-45 Page 5 9 Nov 1992 value my name and won't let every other jerk out there defame me and get away with it. -Pablo pablito@fido.lu ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Dear Members of FidoNet: Through this text I would like to express my rejection and that of the members of my region (R90, Argentina) about Mr. Clovis Lacerda's the malicious and tendentious statements on his article in this week's FidoNews. His article is a manifest analysis of the fanaticism, politics and oppression with which he's been loading and leading his region during all these months. Let's go directly to confront his crooked charges: He says that when ZC elections were prepared, the results were known in advance because there was a majority of nodes in Argentina (in R90), which would leave no chances to his candidacy to the position. Reality is very different from that: one node one vote means that each node can vote for any candidate and not exclusively a candidate from his region. He says that Mr. Pablo Kleinman kicked the Uruguayans (ex-R85) out of FidoNet and it is not true!! I personally verified that the RC85's number had no mailer answering the phone for several months; moreover, the absence of region 85 in terms of net and echomail was complete during all that period of voluntary disconnection. That information was given to the current ZC4 for him to analyze and decide what to do. He also said that Mr. Pablo Kleinman made reference (to the Brazilians) as "ignorant because of their poverty"; false again. Mr. Kleinman declared in a message on LATIN.SYSOP that the areas of Northeastern Brazil were guilty of an "inferiority complex" because the majority of the nodes there were attacking the neighbors to the south (us), and that's it. It is evident that Mr. Lacerda misinterprets to his own interest the facts, and accommodates them to his own needs to promote disunion between his country (region) and the rest of Zone 4. In an opportunity, Mr. Lacerda threatened in the name of his region (the whole region, according to him) to leave Zone 4 and form another one if the zone does not comply with his requests, requests that only him says were pre-established. He has fed the Brazilian sysops with lies to make them believe he is telling the truth" Mr. Lacerda "deduced" that in this zone we had fixed periods for elections every year, knowing beforehand that there was nothing written or discussed about term limitations. He used this as an excuse to subsequently begin attacking the sysops in my region and to call them "authoritarian" when the only authoritarian here is FidoNews 9-45 Page 6 9 Nov 1992 himself. This is all the sad, pure and exclusive truth that any other sysop in the zone that had access to more sources of information than just Clovis will be able to attest. I'm not seeking any type of recognition by stepping into this discussion now: my term as RC90 is coming to an end, to give way to another one, with a new RC (whom, by the way, is now being chosen by direct vote of all of R90's sysops). I am writing this article only because I consider that Mr. Clovis Lacerda has taken the wrong path, in an improper and erroneous manner, for an RC who had to have the priority of promoting unity and communication between his region and the rest of us around them, instead of pursuing his very own political agenda. The nodes in region 80 will have to reconsider who they wish to have as representative as it is now more than obvious that in the view of other regions, their RC is incapable of doing that appropriately and is technically, as reflected in the periodicity of the nodelist updates, a very bad RC. Billy Coen - Regional Coordinator 4:90/0 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In reply to: Zone 4 -The sound of the whistle, originally by Clovis Lacerda by jordi murgo 2:343/401 Lleida, Catalonia (Spain) Dear SysOps, I just have read the long article which Clovis Lacerda 4:80/0 wrote on fidonews # 9-44 about Pablo Kleinman former ZC4 now just 1:102/631. after reading every single word I would really like to open another point of view on that matter, of course I am not here to say if Clovis is right or not, as I say just to state another point of view. "in every realationship there are always a victim and an executioner, it seems like the victim here is Clovis who has been seriously offended by the executioner Pablo". I had the chance to personally meet Pablo Kleinman here in Spain at home this summer, he was not very much time here however this time was quite enough to start something which I consider a good friendship. in despite we disagree in the past on several fidonet related matters, we talked quite a lot about zone 4 and I think that every fidonet SysOp have the right to know about another version of the facts. I sincerely cannot believe most of Clovis Lacerda says in his article about Pablo, BTW. I believe that certain psychotic problem arise on someone's head. if not what kind of man can keep track of every movement done by someone else with the only purpose to attack him later? perhaps it is admiration? who knows. FidoNews 9-45 Page 7 9 Nov 1992 I think I know enough about that matter to certify that all what I can see is clear manipulation to manage a political purpose, the thoughts of Clovis IMHO are reduced to: "since SysOps of one country will vote to SysOps from the country even being against P4, I am going to promote fidonet in here giving a node number to everyone around me in order maths do not fail this time and next one without any doubt *I* will be proclamed ZC4 and I will destroy `Dictatorship' established by my predecesors to save all my fellows SysOps. I know it is not very policy 4 compliant, but since it fills my needs it is fine, thus this way to apply democracy will not be ludicrous as it was when Pablo did it" It is clear that what Clovis want is to become ZC4, and it seems that Pablo is being an obstacle to him, I cannot understand how but Clovis seems to feel that way. Why Clovis accused Pablo to remove from nodelist all Uruguay region if it is not true? since I see Clovis is not very well informed, I will explain that Uruguayan SysOps one day simply stopped to do their Job properly and after several weeks of failure to communicate they were removed from Nodelist. BTW, Uruguay was formed by one Pvt system and just two SysOps. the reasons they are not in Z4? I think that ZC4 will be able to inform better than me on that matter. Resuming: I would like to bring all my support to Pablo Kleinman. don't leave words like those from Clovis discourage you, it's easy understand that it is what Clovis look for attacking you on that way, and if there is also quite clear for everybody is that the way Clovis play his Campaign was not very clear, all his comments are based on just hearsay, and fortunately it is not good enogh to convince all of us. Please Pablo keep working on WorldPol, if there is something sure in FidoNet right now, is that we need newer rules than obsolete P4. jordi murgo ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Fredric L. Rice, The Skeptic Tank, 1:102/890.0, (818) 914-9551 BBS-TNC.LZH is a Door program which will allow the User to call in on the MODEM and access the BBS systems Terminal Node Controller which is on a different serial port than the BBS. This is typically done on a FidoNet system which is Ham Radio related and who's SysOp is a licensed HAM willing to allow Third Party Access to the HAM Radio Packet environment from his or her FidoNet system. FidoNews 9-45 Page 8 9 Nov 1992 Alternately, if the SysOp would wish to connect to the packet environment from a remote location through a MODEM, not allowing Users to access the TNC, the SysOp could either apply a security level to the access of the Door or may employ the application of the BBS-TNC programs password facility. The way it works: Upon invocation, BBS-TNC reviews the configuration file which specifies whether a password is required to run the program or not and whether a HAM Radio Call Sign should be requested from the User The program will ask for a password if required and then ask for a Call Sign if required. If access is granted, the program will configure the TNC with the Call Sign if it was required and it will also configure the TNS's ALIAS name to what's specified in the configuration file if the SysOp so desires. The TNC is checked to see if there is power applied at all times. The BBS is checked to make sure that there is carrier present at all times. The local keyboard maintains full control of both the BBS and the TNC, allowing complete control of the interface and the User activities. The program uses a FOSSIL driver of your choice (not provided with the distribution file) so that buffering is performed, allowing uploads to be performed (within reason. Recall that your TNC is probably 1200 baud.) If there is no activity on either the BBS or TNC after 4 minutes, the program will exit and control will resume with the BBS. The program: As usual, the source code is provided so that if you wish to make any changes to the project you have the original source. A Turbo C MakeFile and Response File is provided as is a sample configuration file. BBS-TNC.LZH, 33K ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Fredric Rice, The Skeptic Tank, 1:102/890.0 (818) 914-9551 The Exclude project now supports RA/QBBS message base systems and will be supporting Squish type message bases within a few months. This project scans through selected *.MSG EchoMail sub-directories or through selected RA/QBBS Message Folders looking for messages to either erase or MOVE to another sub-directory (for *.MSG type systems) or to another message Folder (for RA/QBBS type systems.) It will erase or move messages from individuals, to individuals, and from systems, depending upon the configuration file you create/modify. It has the ability to scan through the nodelist for specified keywords within the names of FidoNet systems and for specified nodelist Flags, compiling a list of system from which network mail should be erase or moved. (This is a feature which can be ignored entirely.) FidoNews 9-45 Page 9 9 Nov 1992 [There are more features which would be too lengthy to delve into now.] The project is offered to automatically remove posts both from and to individuals within EchoMail conferences and to reject inbound network mail from individuals by either erasing it without ever having to be looked at or by moving it to another directory for the creation of automatic archives of hostile messages you wish to keep. Moderators and various gateways will find this project useful for extracting and/or erase of messages from individuals who have been ejected from the conferences they moderate or gate. Since ejected individuals typically draw messages long after they have been 'deleted' from reality, the Exclude project can also erase messages to ejected individuals. Since some systems maintain a *.MSG message base as well as an RA/QBBS message base, Exclude will now accept a command-line argument which bypasses the 'FORMAT' command in the configuration file, allowing Exclude to be executed twice after inbound mail is tossed; once for *.MSG and once for RA/QBBS. Exclude version 3.1 is available from 1:102/890.0 as EXCLUDE3.LZH and is 42K in size. As usual, it comes with the source code as well as documentation and a Turbo C MakeFile. Fredric. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 9-45 Page 10 9 Nov 1992 ====================================================================== FIDONEWS INFORMATION ====================================================================== ------- FIDONEWS MASTHEAD AND CONTACT INFORMATION ---------------- Editors: Tom Jennings, Tim Pozar Editors Emeritii: Thom Henderson, Dale Lovell, Vince Perriello "FidoNews" BBS FidoNet 1:1/1 Internet fidonews@fidosw.fidonet.org BBS +1-415-863-2739, 300/1200/2400/V.32/HST (Postal Service mailing address) (have patience) FidoNews c/o World Power Systems <---- don't forget this Box 77731 San Francisco CA 94107 USA Published weekly by and for the members of the FidoNet international amateur electronic mail system. It is a compilation of individual articles contributed by their authors or their authorized agents. The contribution of articles to this compilation does not diminish the rights of the authors. Opinions expressed in these articles are those of the authors and not necessarily those of FidoNews. Authors retain copyright on individual works; otherwise FidoNews is copyright 1992 Tom Jennings. All rights reserved. Duplication and/or distribution permitted for noncommercial purposes only. For use in other circumstances, please contact the original authors, or FidoNews (we're easy). OBTAINING COPIES: The-most-recent-issue-ONLY of FidoNews in electronic form may be obtained from the FidoNews BBS via manual download or Wazoo FileRequest, or from various sites in the FidoNet and Internet. PRINTED COPIES may be obtained from Fido Software for $10.00US each PostPaid First Class within North America, or $13.00US elsewhere, mailed Air Mail. (US funds drawn upon a US bank only.) BACK ISSUES: Available from FidoNet nodes 1:102/138, 1:216/21, 1:125/1212, 1:107/519.1 (and probably others), via filerequest or download (consult a recent nodelist for phone numbers). INTERNET USERS: FidoNews is available via FTP from ftp.ieee.org, in directory ~ftp/pub/fidonet/fidonews. If you have questions regarding FidoNet, please direct them to deitch@gisatl.fidonet.org, not the FidoNews BBS. (Be kind and patient; David Deitch is generously volunteering to handle FidoNet/Internet questions.) FidoNews 9-45 Page 11 9 Nov 1992 SUBMISSIONS: You are encouraged to submit articles for publication in FidoNews. Article submission requirements are contained in the file ARTSPEC.DOC, available from the FidoNews BBS, or Wazoo filerequestable from 1:1/1 as file "ARTSPEC.DOC". Please read it. "Fido", "FidoNet" and the dog-with-diskette are U.S. registered trademarks of Tom Jennings, Box 77731, San Francisco CA 94107, USA and are used with permission. Asked what he thought of Western civilization, M.K. Gandhi said, "I think it would be an excellent idea". -- END ----------------------------------------------------------------------