Michiel van der Vlist (2:280/5555) wrote to Steven Horn at 15:09 on 11 Dec 2002:

 MvdV> But it is me who decides when and who to call.

As it is me who decides when I want to send e-mail over the Internet and to
whom.  Similarly, I decide when I want to buy something and from whom I
want to buy it.  But all my transactions flow over the same twisted pair of
copper that my voice calls also use.

 MvdV> The operative word is /more/. Intelligence agencies monitor
 MvdV> e-mail. Not netmail AFAIK.

The spooks monitor e-mail through methods like Carnivore with limited
success.  One supposes that if they had reason to believe netmail was
carrying any kind of sensitive traffic, they might monitor netmail as well.


 MvdV> Maybe. Fact is that contrary to the InterNet, FTN technology was
 MvdV> not intercepted.

The interception would not be easy but "our" spies have always
had access to better technologies than their Russian counterparts.  And if
they found trying to deal with packets being transmitted over telephone
lines by protocols such as ZModem too difficult, they would scoop the
computers at both ends.

 MvdV> Was it done by actually tapping the lines or was it done by just
 MvdV> reading the echomail?

Jerry Schwartz has given his response.  All I can add is that in the Steve
Jackson Games case it was done through seizure of equipment after some
tapping which appears to have happened in the Tony Davis case as well. 

 MvdV> Note that tapping a telephone line and intercepting and decoding
 MvdV> the modem signals is much more cumbersome than tapping e-mail.

You won't get any disagreement from me on that point.

 MvdV> It can't be less effort than it is now. I just type in the
 MvdV> messages and the system does the rest. I don't see how a
 MvdV> permanent connection to the InterNet will make it even less of n
 MvdV> effort to communicate with FidoNet systems.

All I do is type in messages, exit the reader and let Irex take care of the
rest.  What I don't have to do is piddle around with a 'phone connection. 

 MvdV> Yes, that's it. Plus that international calls are relatively
 MvdV> cheap here. Making a call to the US costs only three times as
 MvdV> much as a local call. So getting my FidoNet echomail via POTS
 MvdV> would be cheaper than getting it via IP, even if I had to make a
 MvdV> daily call to the US for it.

I think tht our long distance calling charges have now fallen to the point
that calling the U.S. for Fidonet mail would be affordable.  But there
never have been charges for local calls over here so calls to my ISP cost
nothing.

 MvdV> Yes, but that was in the very early stage when there was just a
 MvdV> handful of sysops that all used the same programme: TJ's Fido.
 MvdV> They could all go to a new version overnight. Trying that today
 MvdV> would surely make a lot of nodes lose contact.

Technically it might be possible but the support nodes now give other nodes
loeaves somrthing to be desired.:-)

 SH> And does your advocacy of old technology include
 SH> the advocacy of 300 baud or 1200 baud modems?

 MvdV> Indeed it has. Up until 1995 we still had mechanical exchanges
 MvdV> here that supported pulse dial only. Now it is all digital. But
 MvdV> downward compatibility is 100%. All my old telephone equipment
 MvdV> from 30 years ago still works on the modern exchanges.

That backward compatibility works only to a point because your old
equipment simply will not do things the modern equipment does.

Take care,

Steven Horn (steven_a_horn{at}yahoo.ca)
Moderator, ALASKA_CHAT 
--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+