F I D O N E W S Volume 16, Number 42 18 Oct 1999 +----------------------------+---------------------------------------+ | The newsletter of the | ISSN 1198-4589 Published by: | | FidoNet community | "FidoNews" | | _ | 1-717-732-6820 1:270/720 | | / \ | | | /|oo \ | | | (_| /_) | | | _`@/_ \ _ | | | | | \ \\ | Editor: Douglas Myers, 1:270/720 | | | (*) | \ )) | DougM@paonline.com | | |__U__| / \// | | | _//|| _\ / | | | (_/(_|(____/ | | | (jm) | Newspapers should have no friends. | | | -- JOSEPH PULITZER | +----------------------------+---------------------------------------+ Table of Contents 1. EDITORIAL ................................................ 1 Dr. Thom and Mr... hide? ................................. 1 2. NET HUMOR ................................................ 5 Seat of Power ............................................ 5 3. COMIX IN ASCII ........................................... 6 Trick or Treat Cows ...................................... 6 4. NOTICES .................................................. 7 Future History ........................................... 7 5. FIDONET BY INTERNET ...................................... 8 Fidonet-related sites .................................... 8 Fidonet Via Internet Hubs ................................ 9 6. FIDONEWS INFORMATION ..................................... 12 Masthead ................................................. 12 FIDONEWS 16-42 Page 1 18 Oct 1999 ================================================================= EDITORIAL ================================================================= Dr. Thom and Mr... hide? Prologue: Echo Holders in the Village of Fido have long relied on the machinery of Dr. Thom's Laboratory to protect their tenuous holdings. But the Holders have long been warned that vigilance is a necessary price for this protection, for certain Raiders have studied the workings of Dr. Thom's machinery, and know when an echo lies unwatched. Could the whisperings of the Elder Echo Holders be true... that one of the newer raiders, Mr. Tom, has gone into hiding rather than face the Elders who have discovered that Mr. Tom is the evil Alter Ego of Dr. Thom? Cast of Characters: Thom LaCosta - Thom is the operator of "The Other Robot," which maintains a data base of echo tags, echo moderators, and echo rules as used in Zone 1. Thom is also nodelisted as Echolist @ 1:1/21 in recognition that his echolist is considered definitive (i.e. a moderator listed in his echolist is considered official despite any claims to the contrary). Thom received this administrative node number primarily because he had the only operating echolist at the time that Adrian Walker dropped his efforts. Thom currently moderates 35 echoes himself, according to Elist 109. Tom Knowles - Tom is a user on Thom LaCosta's BBS who began moderating about 9 months ago. In the echo MODERATOR, he has become a controversial figure, known mostly for his authoritarian style of moderation. He invites critics of his moderation to leave the echo and maintains that echo participants have no say in the tone he sets for the echo. Tom appears to be in hiding right now as he is accused of being, in reality, Thom LaCosta. Tom is currently listed as moderator for seven echoes. Ruth Argust - Ruth is a famous Super-Bitch, best known for moving her net from Region 10 to Region 12 when Bob Kohl threatened to dissolve her net. Ruth has noted that Tom seems to have unusual access to Thom's equipment, including special access to the elist robot and access to Timed, a sysop editor which only operates locally on a BBS. Ruth draws her evidence from the very posts of Tom Knowles in the MODERATOR conference, so fabrication is out of the question, and maintains that the most likely explanation is that Tom Knowles and Thom LaCosta are one and the same. Neither Thom nor Tom have addressed this accusation to date. Ruth moderates nine echoes on Fidonet. Bobby Queen - Bobby has never met an echo he doesn't like, as evidenced by the fact that he is currently listed as moderator for 133 echoes. Bobby operates primarily by searching the echolist for echoes about to expire, either because the moderator forgot or is no FIDONEWS 16-42 Page 2 18 Oct 1999 longer active. He acquires the echoes by emailing a moderator update immediately after the echo expires, thereby causing the robot to accept his update as a new listing. Bobby was surprised that Tom Knowles was able to elist some of the echoes he was after, and notes that this would be possible if Thom LaCosta made the changes before the expired listings were available to the public. Bob Moravsik - Bob has nothing to do with what's going on here, but I thought I'd give him honorable mention because his reputation as an "echo raider" exceeds Bobby's. Bob, however, only has 20 echoes listed... he's just managed to raise more hell with what he has :) The Story: The history of Tom Knowles actually comes in two parts. First, his echo acquisitions as detailed by Bobby Queen recently in a public post: --------------- Elist902 Tom Knowles first appeared and elisted the following echos... BGFAX ECHOPOL MODERATOR I had been querying the robot that month and all 3 were in my list of ones to update. Then he took a break because he might have thought that someone might figure out what was going on. Then he reappeared... Elist907 Tom Knowles reappeared and elisted the following echos... REC ZEC Again I had been querying the robot and those 2 were on my list also. :) Elist909 He reappeared and this time elisted the following 3 echos... FIDONET JUNO Z1_BACKBONE Again all 3 were on my queries that month and all 3 were updated on the 1st. That is one thing about Tom Knowles that you will notice. Also that month his updates showed up funny on the eladd.txt in that months packet. :) Elist910 or as he put it out elist109 He again reappeared and elisted the echo... WORDSTAR --------------- Of course, Tom's ability to successfully raid echoes does not conclusively prove that he's an alter ego of Thom LaCosta, nor even that Thom is working in concert with him. However, there are two eye-raising points to be drawn from this record. FIDONEWS 16-42 Page 3 18 Oct 1999 Anyone who can beat Bobby Queen to an expired echo listing has to be noted as a master of the technique. And yet, Tom Knowles was never heard from prior to his first elisting. And a look at the echoes he raided indicates an uncommon interest in administrative echoes, which are normally of zero interest to non-sysops. How so odd that a new face should appear from nowhere and show mastery of techniques which would be known to Thom LaCosta and gain control of echoes which might be of interest to Thom LaCosta... The second part of the story focuses on Tom's moderation of the MODERATOR echo. There is actually more in the postings of Tom Knowles to suggest a common identity with Thom LaCosta than in the history of his echo acquisitions. In reading of the posts of the last few weeks, I am struck as to the similarities in writing style between Thom and Tom. Tom likes to quote the rules he has written as totally sufficient and completely justified on his own authority... Thom takes the same attitude in his activities. Tom likes to promote the concept of "voting with your feet" as the ultimate recourse - Thom has used the same arguments in the past. Tom uses an unusual "slashed" style in his sentences which I've noted in Thom's posting in the past. It goes something like this: "If you don't agree with/can abide by the rules..." None of these observations are conclusive, but there's enough coincidence here to raise an eyebrow. Then there are events which just don't make sense unless one suspects a ruse. Tom posts from Thom's BBS, and yet several people report that there is no Tom Knowles listed in the Baltimore area. Could Tom be posting under an alias... or telenetting in from some other location? Is Thom's BBS even telenettable? Tom has Thom post the echo rules in his behalf, ostensibly because he can't figure out how to upload a text file to the BBS. But is it logical to believe that a user who shows a complete command of elisting procedures and may even have access to Thom's operating system could be too clueless to upload a text file? Even if Thom's BBS doesn't support this capability, terminal programs such as Telemate can accomplish this. Of course, none of these speculations are conclusive... but one item seems conclusive to this editor... as posted by Ruth Argust in the MODERATOR echo: --------------- Tom Knowles wrote in a message to C.A. Klingel: TK> @MSGID: 1:261/1352.0 80315d81 TK> @REPLY: 1:2410/351.0 380094be TK> @PID: timEd 1.10+ TK> @TID: GE 1.11+ TK> @CHRS: IBMPC 2 FIDONEWS 16-42 Page 4 18 Oct 1999 Hey I didn't know that a user on a BBS could use TimEd! Wow, news to me. How do you have that configured since it's impossible! TimEd can only be used locally. Did you know that Thom LaCosta also uses TimEd to post under the same node number? Watch it, neither of you have updated for the Y2K bug. I think that the jig is up. *ruth* --------------- Though one echo participant pointed out that a remote user could conceivably use TimEd through a Doorway program, this is unlikely. First, most Doorway programs launch a secondary copy of COMMAND.COM to give a remote user access to MSDOS while the BBS is still running. This secondary copy of COMMAND.COM has much less conventional memory available to it than is required by many programs, so it may not even be possible to run TimEd through such a program. Secondly, giving a remote user access to MSDOS enables them to do such things as formatting the hard drive, downloading the user passwords, installing themselves as sysop... in other words, Thom would be unlikely to give such access to anyone unless his BBS security is incredibly lax. It's more likely that Tom Knowles was sitting at the keyboard of Thom's system in order to use TimEd to quote a message to C. A. Klingel... a likely event if, indeed, Thom and Tom are actually the same person. Epilogue: The most likely outcome of this story is a weakening of the echolist system as a means of identifying the actual moderator of a system. Certainly, Tom Knowles authority as a moderator is non-existent by now, and Thom's credibility as echolist keeper is diminished by the knowledge that he'll use his position for the trivial acquisition of echoes. At this point, it almost doesn't matter whether Thom posts on the subject - his silence won't cause the growing conviction that he posed as Tom Knowles to diminish. The evidence supporting this seems too conclusive. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 16-42 Page 5 18 Oct 1999 ================================================================= NET HUMOR ================================================================= Seat of Power (Thanks to Roy Reed) Bill Clinton, Hillary, and Al were in a plane crash, and ascended to heaven. They appeared in a large white room in which God was sitting on a great, white throne. God addresses Al first. "Al, what do you believe in?" "Well I believe that the combustion engine is evil and that we need to save the world from CFC's and if any more freon is used, the whole world will become a greenhouse, killing all humanity" God thinks for a minute and says "Okay, that's acceptable, come and sit at my left." God then addresses Bill. "Bill, what do you believe in ?" Bill replies; "Well, I believe in power to the people, I think people should be able to make their own choices about things and that no one should be able to tell someone else what to do ." God thinks for a second and says" Okay, that sounds good, come and sit at my right." God finally addresses Hillary; "Hillary, what do you believe in?". Hillary replies, " I believe you're in my chair ." ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 16-42 Page 6 18 Oct 1999 ================================================================= COMIX IN ASCII ================================================================= Trick or Treat ( ** ) Cows... |e e| \ / ____*===*______* (__) OO * Givenchy *\ |oo| | * * * \ /----|-|__|-| /**************** * / | || // ************* * ||----|| || || \_/|| ^^ ^^ || || || || Frankenstein's v| v| v| v| Moonster Haute Cowture ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 16-42 Page 7 18 Oct 1999 ================================================================= NOTICES ================================================================= Future History 26 Oct 1999 Thirty years from release Abbey Road album by the Beatles. 31 Dec 1999 Hogmanay, Scotland. The New Year that can't be missed. 1 Jan 2000 The 20th Century, C.E., is still taking place thru 31 Dec. 1 Jun 2000 EXPO 2000 World Exposition in Hannover (Germany) opens. 15 Sep 2000 Sydney (Australia) Summer Olympiad opens. 21 Sep 2000 10 years of FidoNet in +7 (xUSSR) 1 Jan 2001 This is the actual start of the new millennium, C.E. -- If YOU have something which you would like to see in this Future History, please send a note to the FidoNews Editor. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 16-42 Page 8 18 Oct 1999 ================================================================= FIDONET BY INTERNET ================================================================= . -- -- -- -- --- -- -- -- -- . | FIDONET-RELATED SITES | ` -- -- -- -- --- -- -- -- -- ' Last update: Oct 8, 1999 FidoNet Homepage: http://www.fidonet.org FidoNews: http://www.fidonews.org [HTML] ftp://sstar.com/fidonet/fnews/ WWW sources: http://travel.to/fidonet/ FTSC page: http://www.ftsc.org/ General: http://owls.com/~jerrys/fidonet.html List server: http://www.onelist.com/subscribe.cgi/fidonet-discussion Zone 1: http://www.z1.fidonet.org Region 10: http://www.psnw.com/~net205/region10.html http://www.tnl-online.com/andy/rgn10.htm Net 103: http://www.webworldinc.com/club103/ Region 11: http://oeonline.com/~garyg/region11/ Region 13: http://www.net264.org/r13.htm Net 264: http://www.net264.org/ Region 14: Net 282: http://www.rxn.com/~net282/ Region 17: http://www.nwstar.com/~region17/ Region 18: http://techshop.pdn.net/fido/ Region 19: http://members.home.net/hbh3/r19 Net 124: http://www.startext.net/np/net124 http://texoma.net/~flv Net 130: http://www.startext.net/homes/net130 Net 393: http://www.chatter.com/~wb/ Zone 1 Elist http://members.xoom.com/echolist/ Zone 2: http://www.z2.fidonet.org Region 20: http://www.fidonet.pp.se (in Swedish) Region 23: http://www.fido.dk (in Danish) Region 24: http://www.swb.de/personal/flop/gatebau.html (German) Fido-IP: http://home.nrh.de/fido/ (English/German) Region 25: http://www.literary.freeserve.co.uk/net2502/ Region 26: http://www.nemesis.ie REC 26: http://www.nrgsys.com/orb Region 27: http://telematique.org/ft/r27.htm Region 29: http://www.rtfm.be/fidonet/ (French) Region 30: http://www.fidonet.ch (German) Region 33: http://www.fidoitalia.net (Italian) Region 34: http://www.pobox.com/cnb/r34.htm (Spanish) REC34: http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/4552/ Region 36: http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/7207/ Region 38: http://public.st.carnet.hr/~blagi/bbs/adriam.html Region 41: http://www.fidonet.gr (Greek/English) Region 42: http://www.fido.cz Region 47: http://www.autostop.lt (Lithuanian) Region 50: http://www.fido7.com/ (Russian) FIDONEWS 16-42 Page 9 18 Oct 1999 Net 5010: http://fido.tu-chel.ac.ru/ (Russian) Net 5015: http://www.fido.nnov.ru/ (Russian) Net 5030: http://kenga.ru/fido/ (Russian & English) Net 5085: http://www.fidonet.uz/ (Russian) (No netscape) Zone 3: http://www.z3.fidonet.org Zone 4: Region 80: http://fidobrasil.8m.com (Portuguese) Region 90: Net 904: http://members.tripod.com/~net904 (Spanish) Zone 5: http://www.eastcape.co.za/fidonet/ Zone 6: http://www.z6.fidonet.org Region 65: http://www.cfido.com/fidonet/cfidochina.html (Chinese) ---------------------------------------------- Please send updates, corrections and suggestions to Joe Jared, 1:103/301, joejared@osirusoft.com, and complaints to jarhead@osirusoft.com . ----------------------------------------------------------------- Last Updated: 10/11/1999 Fidonet Via Internet Hubs A new feature has been added to this list. a @ preceding an individual's name implies a virtual email address. The email is translated as follows firstlast@osirusoft.com will automatically route to the appropriate individual's email. Anyone in this list will also receive routed notice of this feature. In my case, it would still be joejared@osirusoft.com, but you get the idea. v-email flag firstnamelastname@osirusoft.com Node# | Operator | Facilities (*) | Speed | Basic Rate -----------+-------------------+----------------+-------+------------ Zone 1 | | | | 10/3 @ Brenda Donovan | FTP,UUE,BinkP | T1? | $??/$10 12/12 | Ken Wilson | FTP | T1 | $24mo. 13/25 @ Jim Balcom | FTP | 56k | $20mo. 103/301 @ Joe Jared | BinkP | aDSL | n/c 105/8 | Russ Johnson | FTP,BinkP,VMoT | 384k | n/c 105/72 @ Larry James | FTP | aDSL | $5/$15 mo. 106/1 @ Matt Bedynek | BinkP, FTP | 128k | n/c 106/6018 | Lawrence Garvin | FTP, VMoT | 64k | $5/mo 140/1 @ Bob Seaborn | FTP | T3 | $5/$16 167/133 | Stephen Monteith | BinkP | 128k+ | n/c 211/417 @ Korombos | BinkD,UUE,FTP | T1 | n/c 270/101 @ George Peace | FTP | 6mbps | $20mo. 271/140 | Tom Barstow | UUE | T1 | n/c FIDONEWS 16-42 Page 10 18 Oct 1999 280/169 | Brian Greenstreet | FTP | 33.6 | $2mo. 342/3 | Richard Dodsworth | BinkP,FTP | 128K+ | n/c 345/0 @ Todd Cochrane | FTP | T1 | n/c 396/1 @ John Souvestre | FTP,VMoT | T1 | $10/mo 396/45 | Marc Lewis | UUE | 33.6 | $26/yr 2401/305 | Peter Rocca | FTP,UUE | T1 | unkn 2424/101 | Kari Suomela | FTP,VMoT,BinkP,UUE| T1 | n/c 2604/104 | Jim Mclaughlin | FTP,VMoT,UUE | 33.6 | $1mo 2613/404 @ David Moufarrege | BinkP,FTP,VMoT | 128k+ | n/c 2624/306 @ D. Calafrancesco | VMoT | 33.6 | n/c 3632/84 | Robert Todd |FTP,VMoT,UUE,BinkP | 57.6k | n/c 3639/93 | Ross Cassell | FTP, BinkP | 128K+ | n/c 3651/9 | Jerry Gause | FTP,VMoT | 33.6 | $3/$6 3803/1 @ Ben Ritchey | UUE | 56k | n/c -------------------------------------------------------------- Zone 2 | 20/11 | Henrik Lindhe | BinkP | ??? | n/c 23/999 | Michael Kaaber | BinkP | ??? | n/c 31/1 | Gabriel Plutzar | BinkP | ??? | n/c 203/600 | Mikael Karlsson | UUE | 64k | n/c 221/360 | Tommi Koivula | BinkP | ??? | n/c 246/2098 | Volker Imre | BinkP | ??? | n/c 284/800 | Jeroen VanDeLeur | FTP,UUE | 64k | n/c 292/626 | Filip Ruymen | Binkp, UUE | 128K+ | n/c 292/2003 | Eric Vaneberck | BinkP | 768k | n/c 301/1 | Peter Witschi | BinkP | ??? | n/c 332/807 | Roberto Mascolo | BinkP | ??? | n/c 335/535 @ Mario Mure | BinkP,VMot,UUE | 64k | n/c 335/610 | Gino Lucrezi | UUE | 33.6 | n/c 344/201 | Julio Garcia | BinkP | ??? | n/c 346/3 @ Carlos Navarro | UUE | ??? | n/c 382/100 | Sinisa Burina | BinkP | ??? | n/c 406/555 | Marius Kaizerman | BinkP | ??? | n/c 406/555 | Ofir Michaeli & | BinkP | ??? | n/c 423/81 | Milos Bajer | BinkP | ??? | n/c 464/4077 | Serguei Trouchelle| UUE | 19.2 | n/c 465/204 | Va Milushnikov | BinkP | 33.6k | n/c 469/84 | Max Masyutin | VMoT | 256k | n/c 480/112 | Adam Sarapata| FTP, VMoT, UUE,BinkP| 128k | n/c 2411/413 @ Dennis Dittrich | UUE,BinkP | 64k | n/c 2446/301 | Lothar Behet | BinkP,VMoT,UUE,FTP | 64K | n/c 2474/275 | Christian Emig | UUE | 64k | unkn 5030/115 | Andrey Podkolzin | BinkP | ??? | n/c 5100/8 | Egons Bush | BinkP | ??? | n/c 5020/1159 | Gennady Kudryashoff | UUE | 33.6 | n/c -------------------------------------------------------------- Zone 3 633/260 | Malcolm Miles | FTP,BinkP | 64K | n/c 640/954 | Rick Van Ruth | FTP,VMot,UUE,BinkP| 56K| n/c 774/605 | Barry Blackford|BinkP,VMoT:10023,ifcico,FTP |33.6| n/c -------------------------------------------------------------- Zone 4 905/100 | Fabian Gervan | VMoT,UUE,BinkP | 128k | n/c 902/18 | Javier Tejedor | UUE | 33,6 | n/c FIDONEWS 16-42 Page 11 18 Oct 1999 -- * FTP = Internet File Transfer Protocol * VMoT = Virtual Mailer over Telnet (various) * UUE = uuencode<->email type transfers * BinkP = front end mailer for TCPIP networks ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 16-42 Page 12 18 Oct 1999 ================================================================= FIDONEWS INFORMATION ================================================================= FIDONEWS MASTHEAD Fidonews Staff: Editor: Douglas Myers, 1:270/720, DougM@paonline.com Webmaster: Jim Barchuk, jb@fidonews.org Columnist: Joe Jared, 1:103/0, jarhead@osirusoft.com (Fido Via Internet Hubs column) Editors Emeriti: Tom Jennings, Thom Henderson, Dale Lovell, Vince Perriello, Tim Pozar, Sylvia Maxwell, Donald Tees, Christopher Baker, Zorch Frezberg, Henk Wolsink ------------------------------------------------------ FidoNews is 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 and/or the Editor. Authors retain copyright on individual works; otherwise FidoNews is Copyright (C) 1999 Douglas Myers. All rights reserved. Duplication and/or distribution permitted for noncommercial purposes only. For use in other circumstances, please contact the original authors, or the Editor. =*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*= OBTAINING COPIES: The most recent issue of FidoNews in electronic form may be obtained from the FidoNews Editor by file-request, or from various sites in FidoNet and the Internet. STAR SOURCE for all past issues: Available for FReq from 1:396/1 or by anonymous FTP from: ftp://ftp.sstar.com/fidonet/fnews/ Each yearly archive also contains a listing of the Table-of-Contents for that year's issues. The total set is currently about 13 Megs. INTERNET USERS: FidoNews is available via: http://www.fidonews.org ftp://ftp.irvbbs.com/fidonews/ ftp://ftp.nwstar.com/Fidonet/Fidonews And in non-English formats via: http://www.fidonet.pp.se/sfnews (Swedish) FIDONEWS 16-42 Page 13 18 Oct 1999 *=*=* You may obtain an email subscription to FidoNews by sending an email as shown: ======== To: majordomo@fidonews.org Subject: help lists end ======== A return message will explain the details of three possible distribution list formats. * You may retrieve current and previous Issues of FidoNews via FTPMail by sending email to: ftpmail@fidonews.org with a Subject line of: help FTPMail will immediately send a reply containing details and instructions. When you actually make a file request, FTPMail will respond in three stages. You find a link for this process on http://www.fidonews.org/ftpmail/. *=*=* You can read the current FidoNews Issue in HTML format at: http://www.fidonews.org and http://www.fidonet.dynip.com/public/fidonews/default.htm and in the FIDONEWS echo. =*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*= SUBMISSIONS: You are encouraged to submit articles for publication in FidoNews. In general, send your articles in ASCII (text) format via netmail or email to the addresses listed above for the editor. The exact article submission requirements for the Fidonews software are contained in the file ARTSPEC.DOC, available from most Fidonet hubs. However, you should concentrate on what you wish to say, as the editor will normally take care of the technical requirements. "Fido", "FidoNet" and the dog-with-diskette are U.S. registered trademarks of Tom Jennings, P.O. Box 410923, San Francisco, CA 94141, and are used with permission. "Disagreement is actually necessary, or we'd all have to get in fights FIDONEWS 16-42 Page 14 18 Oct 1999 or something to amuse ourselves and create the requisite chaos." -Tom Jennings -----------------------------------------------------------------