ab@i2unix.UUCP (Alessandro Berni) (02/03/89)
Like most of you site administrators know, it's sometimes hard to find
the time to read the news: anyway i have found myself in the position
of being forced to read the news.admin group to find out what's going
on in the far land of Italy.
The fairy tale.
In these weeks i have learned of the existence of a place called
i2unix, which is supposed to be the seat of the C.O.T.E.B.A.Ho.N.
(Conspiration Of The Eunet Backbones Against Honest Networking).
That i2unix seems to be run by greedy and ignorant people whose main
concerns are to:
1) steal as much money as they can to their
poor users
2) offer a very_low_quality service to their
users as it would be very uneconomical to
do the contrary
3) mail out fake maps so that nobody will be
able to contact their users by e-mail
"Oh! Gosh!" "Someone has to stop them!" "Italy wants free networks!"
"Please stop i2unix!!"
If this were a film with Robert Mitchum, the person in charge of
making justice would have been called "The big Executor".
In our case our "justice maker" is called "the BAPman" (Best Anarchy
Producer).
The crude reality.
I know that horror films are often more interesting than love stories,
but real monsters are difficult to be found nowadays: our "BAPman" is
another boy who has gone around crying wolf after he had seen the
shepherd's dog...
Since i'm a merciful guy i won't tell you about the campaign set up by
the "BAPman" using false information and will go straight to the point.
Months ago Joy Marino (who is in charge with me of the italian backbone)
offered the "BAPman" (which you should have identified by now as Paolo
Ventafridda) to enter EUnet paying the fee usually paid by non-profit
sites (that is about $750 per year): they had to pay for ONE site but
they could have hooked up their whole network (six sites at the time).
That fee also included news.
This made $10 per month per site.
I would call this a good offer.
Unfortunately Paolo never took the trouble of letting us know he had
accepted the offer made by Joy: he preferred knocking at someone
else's door, we don't know why.
What is clear to me now is that he enjoys a lot the role of the victim.
He keeps telling you of i2unix users who are not satisfied with our
service, but he NEVER tells you their names and their organizations...
Just think why...
I'll stop here for the moment.
Let's wait for the news news article from the "BAPman".
Let's see what will be the next scandal discovered by this guy...
The end.
I would like you to remember that EUnet is the biggest network for
research and developement in Europe.
We bill our users for the service they demand us: fast and reliable
mail.
You cannot have your wife drunk without making the barrel empty (old
italian proverb). You cannot offer a high quality service without
making people pay for it (and the italian PTT is the most expensive in
Europe, a recent study made by British Telecom has just stated it).
I will welcome your feedback on all these topics.
Prejudice is not welcome.
=
= Alessandro Berni
=== = = === DIST Universita' di Genova
= == == = Via Opera Pia, 11a - I-16145 Genova, Italy
=== == == === EUnet: ab@i2unix.uucp or {foo,anywhere}!i2unix!ab
Bitnet: AB@ICNUCEVM.BITNET ARPA Internet: ab@icnucevm.cnuce.cnr.it
Tel: +39-(0)10-310223 Fax:+39-(0)10-310086 Telex:272399 DIE GE I