Yo! BUD:
Friday June 27 1997 01:26, BUD JAMISON wrote to BILL CHEEK:
 ->> Now there is no net-wide gateway for anything.  There are some local
 ->> nets who port their mail in and out....but not all nor even most do
 ->> it anymore
 BJ> And the REASON there's no Net-wide gate is because the Internet is NO
 BJ> controlled.
That doesn't seem to stop any others.....   :-)
 BJ> Someone who had been booted from FidoNet used several accounts to
 BJ> anonymusly subscribe about 200 FIdoNet sysops to several thousand
 BJ> mailing lists.  Do you have any idea what they DOES to a Gate?
It happens on the Internet, too.  People tried loading up my ports.  I was 
kind of crippled for a day or two.....but instead of sniveling and whining 
about it, I just went back to the books and learned some more.....and 
immunized myself from that sort of thing.
 BJ> Because of the agreement all Gates had to agree to with Burt Juda,
 BJ> they could NOT bounce the messages, they HAD to deliver them, even if
 BJ> the sysop BEGGED them not to.  More than a few systems dropped out of
 BJ> Fido because of that.
More than a few is still a minuscule amount.  It's not significant.  But once 
again, we deal with a situation of command and control.....the more good ol' 
Fido controls things, the worse it gets porked.  And the further downhill it 
goes.  Fido just loves control.  It's populated by control phreaques.  And 
they will control themselves right into oblivion.
 BJ> Most of the people involved could NOT unsubscribe by themselves,
 BJ> because the subscribe messages came fro a different system.  It took
 BJ> several months to get the last list-owners to cut the mail, and in
 BJ> more than a few cases, the lists moved from unsecured servers to
 BJ> different ISs who provided some measure of security.  today, the vast
 BJ> majority of lists require a confirmation of subscriptions, because of
 BJ> that event.
Sure, but so what?  The only reason that was a problem was because Fido had 
to play control freak and not FULLY gate to the Internet.  So someone found a 
way around the controls.  They always do.  Unless the controls get so tight 
that nothing can get in or out.  Then whaddya got?  You ain't got a network 
anymore, that's for sure.
 BJ> So the Internet took a page from FidoNet, in regard to security.
Not the Internet.  Mail lists have little to do with the Internet.  If the 
majordomos and listservs have better security now, that's the developers 
doing it.  The Internet didn't require it....and doesn't care one whit.
 BJ> But that in NO way makes FidoNet anything like SprintNet (simply a
 BJ> dedicated section of Sprint's LD trunk lines), or ARPANet (a subsection
 BJ> of the Internet with VERY high security, or any of the rest you
 BJ> mentioned.
They are.....or were....constituent components of the Internet.....the reason 
it was CALLED the Internet.  Now it doesn't work that way anymore so the term 
is kind of moot now.  Still, there are a number of nets that are fully gated 
to the Internet......classic examples now would include AOL, MSN, and CIS. We 
don't think of those as "nets", but they are.
FidoNet could be there, too.....except it can't stand not being in control.  
So it is a picayune little country-bumpkin network rapidly headed for the 
hawgs. The Internet is growing by leaps and bounds and offering all kinds of 
power to the individual because it is not under control.
And yet......the real funny thing is.....that the power and the control are 
where they belong....in the hands of the User!!!  Look, as an Internet user, 
you could do most anything but throw atom bombs at me.  But I can defend 
anything you throw at me. So it's not worth your while to mess with trying.
Instead, you and me both are free to explore and exploit the Internet for all 
it's worth. You're a bad-ass; I'm a bad-ass.  You can't conquer me; I can't 
conquer you.  It doesn't get any better than that, Bud.
Think about it, man.
Bill Cheek ~ bcheek@san.rr.com
Windows 95 Juggernaut Team ~ Microsoft MVP
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