scott@hou2g.UUCP (Ma-Ma-Ma-Max Ma-Ma-Max Headroom) (09/09/86)
Hi. I'm not sure if all these groups are appropriate for this, so if you want to flame, go right ahead. Nonsense I'll ignore, though constructive criticism will be duly considered. My brother is looking for a public access machine in the Chicago area which will enable him to connect to the uucp network for E-mail (at least) and netnews (preferrably). He has tried chinet, but the administrator there has said that his link with ihnp4 is "tenuous" at best; he is only allowing access to usenet (and apparantly by extension, E-mail) to people he knows, even though my bro has said he will gladly pay the "subscriber" fee. I understand that ihnp4 *is* having problems forwarding mail, and with the volume they pass along, I guess I'm not too surprised. Can anybody help me out? Thanks. ========================================= "The tyranny of what seems reasonable often impedes science." Scott J. Berry packard \ AT&T-Bell Labs allegra | --!hou2g!scott Holmdel ihnp4 /
gjm@packard.UUCP (Gary J. Murakami) (09/09/86)
In article <964@hou2g.UUCP> scott@hou2g.UUCP writes: >I understand that ihnp4 *is* having problems forwarding mail, and with >the volume they pass along, I guess I'm not too surprised. Can anybody >help me out? Thanks. Due to the complaints, I broke down and nursed ihnp4 a bit. So now there isn't a backlog to a major site that is answering the phone. There were about two dozen sites that still have backlogs, but I manually tested them and found that they weren't answering their phones (NO ANSWER, NO CD, etc.). One major link (tellab5) has a huge backlog, but they call ihnp4 (it can't call them for their lack of inbound modems/dataswitch without flow control for uucp). ihnp4 is still congested, but the mail (and news) is getting through. -Gary
ask@cbrma.UUCP (A.S.Kamlet) (09/10/86)
In article <964@hou2g.UUCP> scott@hou2g.UUCP (Ma-Ma-Ma-Max Ma-Ma-Max Headroom) writes: >Hi. I'm not sure if all these groups are appropriate for this, >so if you want to flame, go right ahead. Nonsense I'll ignore, >though constructive criticism will be duly considered. > >My brother is looking for a public access machine in the Chicago >area which will enable him to connect to the uucp network for >E-mail (at least) and netnews (preferrably). He has tried chinet, >but the administrator there has said that his link with ihnp4 is >"tenuous" at best; he is only allowing access to usenet (and apparantly >by extension, E-mail) to people he knows, even though my bro has said >he will gladly pay the "subscriber" fee. : : Is that right? Does chinet charge a subscription fee to let people join the net? And is ihnp4 its link? I sort of got the idea that this was a non-commercial net. -- Art Kamlet AT&T Bell Laboratories Columbus {cbosgd | ihnp4}!cbrma!ask
mark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton) (09/10/86)
In article <5082@cbrma.UUCP> ask@cbrma.UUCP (A.S.Kamlet(Art)) writes: >In article <964@hou2g.UUCP> scott@hou2g.UUCP (Ma-Ma-Ma-Max Ma-Ma-Max Headroom) writes: >>He has tried chinet, >>but the administrator there has said that his link with ihnp4 is >>"tenuous" at best; he is only allowing access to usenet (and apparantly >>by extension, E-mail) to people he knows, even though my bro has said >>he will gladly pay the "subscriber" fee. >: >Is that right? Does chinet charge a subscription fee to let people >join the net? And is ihnp4 its link? I sort of got the idea that >this was a non-commercial net. The net is noncommercial, but that doesn't mean every host on it is noncommercial. Could a random person call Art on the phone and demand a login on cbrma for free? Of course not - cbrma has policies about who it will allow on the machine, and what they have to do in exchange for that login. (Probably involves their job at Bell Labs.) Similarly, a public access host like chinet or well might be a general purpose UNIX machine, run by a ``computer center'' like entity, which charges for access to the machine, and happens to have connections into Usenet and/or UUCP. Chinet can't charge for the right to receive or send mail or news, but they can charge for the machine resources on chinet consumed by a user receiving or sending mail or news. From the user viewpoint it may amount to the same thing, but the fundamental point is that those machine resources belong to chinet, and they can allocate them any way they see fit. Also, chinet doesn't have an exclusive franchise in Chicago to redistribute netnews, so if they charge an unreasonable fee, there's nothing to stop a user from finding someone else to connect in through instead. Mark Horton
brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) (09/11/86)
In article <2531@cbosgd.UUCP> mark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton) writes: > >The net is noncommercial, but that doesn't mean every host on it is >noncommercial. > >Similarly, a public access host like chinet or well might be a general >purpose UNIX machine, run by a ``computer center'' like entity, which >charges for access to the machine, and happens to have connections >into Usenet and/or UUCP. Chinet can't charge for the right to receive >or send mail or news, but they can charge for the machine resources on >chinet consumed by a user receiving or sending mail or news. Actually, as far as I can see, there is nothing stopping any site from charging for the right to receive or send mail and news. Many sites already have classes of users (sometimes based on how the accounting is done) some of which can use net facilities and some of which can't. This net *is* a commercial net, insofar as it is privately owned by the owners of the equipment that support it. The owners of the net have no official organization, so it doesn't seem privately owned, but it is. >Also, chinet doesn't have an exclusive >franchise in Chicago to redistribute netnews, so if they charge an >unreasonable fee, there's nothing to stop a user from finding someone >else to connect in through instead. And this is the only thing that stops somebody from charging for the mail and news. It's not very strong though, as nobody could do very well providing free net use to people who don't like the prices down the street. -- Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473
werner@ut-ngp.UUCP (Werner Uhrig) (09/11/86)
> Is that right? Does chinet charge a subscription fee to let people > join the net? And is ihnp4 its link? I sort of got the idea that > this was a non-commercial net. I think you may be confusing non-commercial and non-profit. Nothing could be further from the truth than calling USENET non-commercial. Looks like most of the commercial world has joined it "because it is worth the investment". I know people that are so addicted to being part of the net, they have their personal node. Some allow others access, free or in exchange for services or cash-contributions - I doubt anyone can make any PROFITS ... In aviation, it is legal for me to take passengers that SHARE the expenses of flying my plane and I believe we should consider a similar concept for USENET. UUCP-mail is sooner or later going to turn into a can of worms anyway, and will have to be considered an unreliable form of communications, just as hitchhiking is an unreliable (but often functional) form of transport.
graifer@net1.UCSD.EDU (Dan Graifer) (09/12/86)
I also have a friend looking for USENET access in Chicago. Could somebody please post a phone number or USnail address for "chinet" Thanks Dan Graifer graifer@net1.UCSD.EDU
james@osi3b2.UUCP (James R. Van Artsdalen) (09/12/86)
In article <5082@cbrma.UUCP>, ask@cbrma.UUCP (A.S.Kamlet) writes: > : > : > Is that right? Does chinet charge a subscription fee to let people > join the net? And is ihnp4 its link? I sort of got the idea that > this was a non-commercial net. > -- > Art Kamlet AT&T Bell Laboratories Columbus {cbosgd | ihnp4}!cbrma!ask The fee is $50/year. usenet is not a non-commercial net in the sense that there is a prohibition against charging fees. There can't be: SOMEONE has to pay the bills. AT&T is paying yours according to the Organization line in your message. Remember, in real life There Ain't No Free Lunch. Never. Somebody somewhere always pays the bills. A good analogy would be roads. Just because you don't stick a quarter in a toll both on every road doesn't mean someone isn't spending a lot of money on the roads you drive on. Here's a quick estimate of what Randy pays to run chinet. His fixed one time costs for his system are ~$12,000 for the computer, $2000 for extra RAM, $1500 for serial ports, $3500 for a tape backup, $2400 for modems and $4000 for hard disk drives. Phone installation was probably another couple hundred for the half dozen lines or so he has. And I'm sure there are other fixed expenses I missed. Ongoing expenses would include a couple hundred a month in phones line charges, service contracts and insurance. I'm sure there are expenses I'm missing here, and you can bet his boss doesn't give him paid time off to keep the thing running. I'm confident that he got the package for less than this, but you get the idea. Balance those costs against revenues of less than $5000. His /etc/passwd for contributors (non-contributors are chroot'd into a separate area) is 113 lines long, and that figure includes many uucico and administrative logins that don't count as income. chinet is run in the basement of his home. There is no big company paying for it. Try writing that check for the $25,000 up front expenses and you'll see why he charges a fee. At least it's a flat fee and not a line-time charge or some such nonsense. chinet doesn't have a link with ihnp4 by accident: I understand that chinet indirectly feeds news to much or most of the Chicago area and thereby takes a fair load off of ihnp4, which needs no more loading down. The chinet!ihnp4 link is very much to the advantage of ihnp4. For comparison, try walking into the UT computation center and asking for an account on ut-sally. They'll tell you that state law prohibits them from giving you an account. So you'd have to buy a professor a chair for $1 million or so to get your mail & news. At $50 chinet is a bargain. :-) -- James R. Van Artsdalen ...!decvax!dartvax!osi3b2!james Live Free or Die
randy@chinet.UUCP (randy) (09/16/86)
Hi. I don't subscribe to this group, so sorry this reply is so late. I guess the original posting about this has expired here, so I can only go by what replies I can see and the reports from friends that told me this was going on. I am the owner of chinet. It is my personal system, having nothing to do with any company. I have it, along with a number of other unix systems and pc's as a hobby. Myself and Ward Christensen are co- inventers of CBBS, the original bbs, and that machine is still running next to chinet. This system ( a 3b2/300 with 8 2400 baud modems) and it's older brother, a pair of Altos 586's were open for public access to any interested person with full news access and uucp capabilities for almost two years. I never charged for use or ever planned on it. Earlier this summer, I got a call from ihnp4 saying they were shutting me off, because someone had found some proprietary AT&T source code on my system. Turns out that there were a couple of AT&T types on the east coast that were calling public access systems, downloading source code, then reporting it to AT&T. The problem was cleared up, but I had a choice to make. Either shut the system down, or come up with some method of keeping that from happening again. The first was not acceptable. I could make the system strictly pay-for-use, like many bbs's, but I want a *public access* system. So a friend and myself came up with a "sublogin" system on the 3b2. Basically it is a complete unix subsystem with everything that the 3b2 and SysV offers, except for off site communications and usenet. It is completey open to anyone interested in unix. I also run the PicoSpan conferencing system witch is also completly open. Again, this is a personal system, and with 12 fone lines, 3b2, 2400 baud modems etc., I had been taking donations (unsolicited) from regular users to take care of the fone expenses. So we came up with a scheme to be able to keep track of the users who had off-site access and to provide an incentive to "contribute" to chinet's existance. There is a "contributor" fee if $50 a year to have full access to the system, including off site uucp, special "contributor" only lines and usenet. I don't really see where $50 a year is being "commercial" None of the contributors do either, as most think that is too low, and send a lot more. I have over 30 uucp connections (with their own uucp only line) and feed a number of large commercial sites a full news feed. The majority of the users, contributors and guest alike, consider chinet a service, and their ownly access to unix and news. Because I feel chinet should not be an embarasement to the net I feel it is my right and responsibility to make sure that anyone that has access to usenet acts in a responsible manner. I believe the person that started this whole discussion off (I don't really know, as I can't find the original posting) signed on here as guest and immediately made a pest of himself via mail postings and comments in the conferencing system. From his postings, it seemed that he "demanded" the right to usenet and wanted it "now". It happens that during the time of his impatience, I had some other things to do, and could not reply to him immediately. He took this as personal affront, and became more obnoxious. I finally told him that usenet was restricted, and that there were other systems were available. That was the last I heard of him. In article <663@looking.UUCP> brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes: >In article <2531@cbosgd.UUCP> mark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton) writes: >> >> >>Similarly, a public access host like chinet or well might be a general >>purpose UNIX machine, run by a ``computer center'' like entity, which >>charges for access to the machine, and happens to have connections >>into Usenet and/or UUCP. Chinet can't charge for the right to receive >>or send mail or news, but they can charge for the machine resources on >>chinet consumed by a user receiving or sending mail or news. I believe this is what I am doing. > >>Also, chinet doesn't have an exclusive >>franchise in Chicago to redistribute netnews, so if they charge an >>unreasonable fee, there's nothing to stop a user from finding someone >>else to connect in through instead. I *don't* charge anything for feeding news. > >-- >Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473 I am really concerned that this came up without anyone informing me of what was happening. If the time for my type of system has come and gone, than I can shut it down. It sure won't hurt me or cause me any financial hardships, just the opposite. But I like providing a service and really enjoy UNIX and the net. This is a way I can share it with others, but if it causes too much anxiety to the net community, it will be a lot easier to shut it down than it was to bring it up. -- .. that's the biz, sweetheart... Randy Suess chinet - Public Access UN*X (312) 545 7535 (h) (312) 283 0559 (system) ..!ihnp4!chinet!randy
larry@jc3b21.UUCP (Lawrence F. Strickland) (09/16/86)
In article <663@looking.UUCP>, brad@looking.UUCP writes: > In article <2531@cbosgd.UUCP> mark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton) writes: > > > >The net is noncommercial, but that doesn't mean every host on it is > >noncommercial. > > > >Similarly, a public access host like chinet or well might be a general > >purpose UNIX machine, run by a ``computer center'' like entity, which > >charges for access to the machine, and happens to have connections > >into Usenet and/or UUCP. Chinet can't charge for the right to receive > >or send mail or news, but they can charge for the machine resources on > >chinet consumed by a user receiving or sending mail or news. > > Actually, as far as I can see, there is nothing stopping any site from > charging for the right to receive or send mail and news. Many sites already > ... As long as we are discussing this, how about colleges and universities? In most cases, a student may only gain access to a computer by taking (and paying for) classes. Does that mean the college is charging for access to UseNet? If the answer is NO, they are just paying for the class, anyone can access UseNet, then try and get a User ID on some computer if you are not: a) taking classes, b) in a specific department (CS, CE, ...), or c) your parents OWN the college. Its almost impossible! Lets face it, UseNet is a 'free', 'non-commercial', 'non-profit' source ONLY in its distribution. What happens after that may include any of the above or NONE of them. -----Lawrence F. Strickland (larry@jc3b21) --------------------------- Dept. of Engineering Technology + Cthulhu + St. Petersburg Jr. College + R`lyeh + P.O. Box 13489 + wgah`nagl + St. Petersburg, FL 33733 + fh`tagn + Phone: +1 813 341 4705 --------------------------- UUCP: ...akgua!akguc!codas!peora!ucf-cs!usfvax2!jc3b21!larry