Winston Smith (1:323/120) wrote to Steven Horn at 20:22 on 22 Mar 2003:

 WS>      ...but how do I deduce that the IP address is a mailer that
 WS> shouldn't be contacted?  ...especially when new Alaskan board like
 WS> JumpStart and PolarBBS are springing up?  Most of the BBSes running

Not every system with an IP address is telnettable.  Furthermore, JumpStart
and PolarBBS are not part of Fido.

 WS> WildCat! and Synchronet do not have FidoNET nodelist lookup
 WS> capability (and those that do do not normally list flags, and to be
 WS> compliant with modem dialers, public Telnet FidoNET systems have to
 WS> use the 'PVT' private flag, which used to be used for private

The PVT flag is supposed to be used for all IP-only systems but there are
very few systems in Zone 1 that use it.  Fidonet does have a special flag
for Telnet, ITN but it is at the end of the listing.

However, a nodelist is not hard to come by.  Try
http://www.juge.com/bbs/Opus1.Html.  Once you get it, open it up with
WordPad or any reasonably competent text editor and take a look, search or
what have you.

 WS> systems...).  Your average 'Joe User' is just going to see a Telnet
 WS> address in the message footer and try it, most likely....

But it's NOT a Telnet address, it is an IP (Internet Protocol) address.  In
my case, it is the address where others using BinkP systems can reach me
but it could also serve as a Web server or for e-mail.

Take care,

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