pozar@hoptoad.uucp (Tim Pozar) (07/31/87)
Volume 4, Number 28 27 July 1987
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| / \ |
| /|oo \ |
| - FidoNews - (_| /_) |
| _`@/_ \ _ |
| International | | \ \\ |
| FidoNet Association | (*) | \ )) |
| Newsletter ______ |__U__| / \// |
| / FIDO \ _//|| _\ / |
| (________) (_/(_|(____/ |
| (jm) |
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Editor in Chief: Thom Henderson
Chief Procrastinator Emeritus: Tom Jennings
FidoNews is published weekly by the International FidoNet
Association as its official newsletter. You are encouraged to
submit articles for publication in FidoNews. Article submission
standards are contained in the file ARTSPEC.DOC, available from
node 1:1/1.
Copyright 1987 by the International FidoNet Association. All
rights reserved. Duplication and/or distribution permitted for
noncommercial purposes only. For use in other circumstances,
please contact IFNA at (314) 576-4067.
Three Weeks to FidoCon!
Table of Contents
1. EDITORIAL ................................................ 1
Is Echomail Doomed? ...................................... 1
2. ARTICLES ................................................. 2
The Maxum Turbo XE - A Serious Computer .................. 2
FidoNet in Japan ......................................... 6
MegaList: A Cross-System File Listing .................... 10
Public Key Encryption for FidoNet Mail ................... 11
Sirius 0.50 - A Review ................................... 18
Sports Net ECHO Conference ............................... 23
3. COLUMNS .................................................. 24
Broadcast Booth - In The Network ......................... 24
The Regular Irregular Column ............................. 25
4. NOTICES .................................................. 30
The Interrupt Stack ...................................... 30
Latest Software Versions ................................. 30
International FidoNet Conference Registration Form ....... 31
IFNA Board of Directors Ballot ........................... 32
FidoNews 4-28 Page 1 27 Jul 1987
=================================================================
EDITORIAL
=================================================================
Is Echomail Doomed?
For some time now, and even more so lately, we've been watching
the consequences of our regrettable lack of security. FidoNet is
reasonably secure about sending mail to the right people (if you
don't look too closely at mail pickups), but it's wide open when
it comes to receiving mail. In normal network mail this isn't
all that much of a problem, but with echomail we find ourselves
holding a kettle of fish of quite a different color. I have seen
two major conferences whither and almost die under what amount to
terrorist attacks.
Can we defend ourselves? Security measures can be developed,
surely, but will they do the trick? I suspect not, for a few
reasons.
1) Most of the measures proposed are for securing predefined
conference links, which leaves normal network mail wide open.
2) For good reason. Securing normal netmail is not practical.
How can you prearrange security measures with a new node
across the country that you didn't even know existed?
3) Even if we secured all links between all systems everywhere,
that still won't stop people from willingly linking in
a known terrorist.
4) Besides, anyone could fabricate messages for propagation over
a secure line that appear to originate anywhere at all.
It starts to look pretty hopeless. Is echomail doomed? Well,
not quite. When one looks at which conferences were attacked, it
becomes apparent that it is only the large national or
international conferences that really present a good target.
Terrorists thrive on attention and response, which they don't
really get in the smaller conferences. Not to mention that in a
smaller conference it is correspondingly easier to identify where
the terrorist is linking in.
Echomail will thrive. People will continue to establish new
conferences for every topic under the sun. Echomail is far too
important a part of our subculture to die out now. But I suspect
that the heydey of the large international conference may be
drawing to a close.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
FidoNews 4-28 Page 2 27 Jul 1987
=================================================================
ARTICLES
=================================================================
From 107/246
The Maxum Turbo XE - A Serious Computer
The following is an in-depth review of a fine clone that you
should consider in your shopping list if you are looking for a
new computer in the near future.
Data Sheet For MAXUM TURBO XE Personal Computer
-----------------------------------------------
MAXUM TURBO XE COMPUTER
Sold by 47th Street Photo.
The basic unit comes configured as follows:
Maxum Turbo XE system unit.
Phoenix type fast Ram test BIOS.
AT style keyboard with indicator lights built in.
256k Ram (256k Chips)-(Expandable to 1024k).
One full height 5 1/2 inch 360k floppy drive.
One disk controller for up to 2 floppy drives.
Built in game port.
8 Expansion Slots (2 Half - 6 Full Size Slots)
FCC approved slide type case.
Approved as Class B computing device.
180 Watt Power Supply.
MS-DOS 3.2 And GW-BASIC are included.
Dual speed (4.77/8 Mhz 8088-2) processor.
Socket for 8087 co-processor chip.
Built in (battery powered) clock/calendar card. Keyboard
(key operated) lock-out switch.
Power, Turbo, Hard Disk indicator lights.
Built in reset switch in rear of machine.
Internal speaker in front of system unit.
4 power plugs coming out of power supply.
Price as configured above is $499.00 plus tax.
The unit comes securely packed in a double carton and each unit
is tested before being released for sale.
There is a sticker attached to the rear of each unit with a
number to call for service and/or advice (not toll free) you
might need. We called twice and each time the phone was answered
by a polite technician who had a thorough knowledge of the
computer and was a great help in setting up the computer. Each
unit comes with a 5 book set of documentation complete with
excellent instructions for the novice as well as the experienced
user.
I would judge that anyone could have this unit unpacked and fully
FidoNews 4-28 Page 3 27 Jul 1987
operational inside of 25 minutes from opening the carton for the
first time.
The documentation is from Microsoft for the most part and is well
written and should be a great help in setting up the system as
well as utilizing the Ram from 640k to 1024k should you decide to
install the extra Ram yourself at the time of purchase or at a
later date.
The system as tested had some extra features that were user-
installed at the time of purchase. They were:
Full 1024k Ram on the motherboard.
IBM type RGB color card from Maxum.
RS-232 card from Honeywell.
One extra 5 1/2 inch floppy drive.
One 22 Megabyte Miniscribe hard drive.
Orchid Turbo 286E Card with 2 Megabytes Of Ram.
Copy II Pc copy board.
Approximate cost of system as tested is: $ 2399.00
The system runs all the usual PC software such as Lotus,
Wordstar, Flight Simulator, dBase III+, as well as Fido, Opus,
SEAdog, Telix, PC-TALK, Qmodem and Crosstalk XVI.
Lattice C, Turbo Basic, Quick Basic, Microsoft Cobol, and the
Microsoft Assembler were all tested and ran with no problems
whatsoever.
The system appears to be 100% compatible, as we have not found
any software that will not run on this system at the time this
article was written.
Below you will find some data we compiled from the various tests
we ran on the system. There are 3 results reported for each test.
1) Normal speed mode is the mode in which the computer boots up
and according to Norton's Sysinfo is slightly faster than a
normal PC.
2) Turbo speed is the user selectable speed increase gained by
typing the Cntrl-Alt-2 combination of keys. This IS NOT the
Orchid turbo speed which follows.
3) 286 Turbo speed is when the Orchid 286E card is activated and
running. In this mode you are running for all intensive
purposes an IBM AT clone at 8 Mhz with an Intel 80286 chip
handling the processing. Please note that in this mode it is
possible to access 704k for DOS to run in, as opposed to a
maximum 640k for the other two modes we tested.
Maxum Turbo XE In Normal Speed Mode
FidoNews 4-28 Page 4 27 Jul 1987
-----------------------------------
SI-System Information, Version 3.10, (C) 1984-86
IBM/PC
Built-in BIOS programs dated Monday, September 15, 1986
Operating under DOS 3.20
5 logical disk drives, A: through E:
DOS reports 640 K-bytes of memory:
68 K-bytes used by DOS and resident programs
572 K-bytes available for application programs
A search for active memory finds:
640 K-bytes main memory (at hex 0000-A000)
32 K-bytes display memory (at hex B800-C000)
BIOS signature found at hex paragraph C800
Computing performance index relative to IBM/PC: 1.7
Maxum Turbo XE In Turbo Speed Mode
----------------------------------
SI-System Information, Version 3.10, (C) 1984-86
IBM/PC
Built-in BIOS programs dated Monday, September 15, 1986
Operating under DOS 3.20
5 logical disk drives, A: through E:
DOS reports 640 K-bytes of memory:
68 K-bytes used by DOS and resident programs
572 K-bytes available for application programs
A search for active memory finds:
640 K-bytes main memory (at hex 0000-A000)
32 K-bytes display memory (at hex B800-C000)
BIOS signature found at hex paragraph C800
Computing performance index relative to IBM/PC: 3.0
Maxum Turbo XE With Orchid Turbo 286E Card Installed
----------------------------------------------------
SI-System Information, Version 3.10, (C) 1984-86
This computer might be identified by this:
(C) Copyright 1986 More Computing. All Rights Reserved.
Built-in BIOS programs dated Monday, November 8, 1982
Operating under DOS 3.20
5 logical disk drives, A: through E:
DOS reports 704 K-bytes of memory:
87 K-bytes used by DOS and resident programs
617 K-bytes available for application programs
A search for active memory finds:
640 K-bytes main memory (at hex 0000-A000)
127 K-bytes display memory (at hex A040-C000)
Computing performance index relative to IBM/PC: 9.2
So as you can see from the test results above the stock machine
in TURBO mode is much faster than a normal PC and of course when
FidoNews 4-28 Page 5 27 Jul 1987
the 286E co-processing board is added the speed jumps from 3.0 to
9.2.
The Maxum XE in my Benchmark Test using PKARC to archive the
following group of files used in my ARC tests.
Filename Length Method Size Ratio
-------- ------ ------ ------ -----
AUTOEXEC.BAT 33 Crunched 31 7%
COMMAND.COM 17664 Crunched 14787 17%
CORRSTAR.OVR 57344 Crunched 28768 50%
INTERNAL.DCT 35584 Squeezed 33871 5%
LF.COM 512 Crunched 382 26%
MAILMRGE.OVR 11520 Crunched 7533 35%
PROKEY.EXE 13824 Crunched 6360 54%
WC.EXE 12288 Crunched 8315 33%
WINSTALL.COM 1152 Crunched 746 36%
WINSTALL.OVR 38528 Crunched 22784 41%
WPE.COM 21376 Crunched 16622 23%
WPEMSGS.OVR 29056 Crunched 16072 45%
WPEOVLY1.OVR 41216 Crunched 33172 20%
WS1.PRO 29 Stored 29 0%
WSCOLOR.BAS 6656 Crunched 2967 56%
---- ------ ------ -----
0015 286782 192439 33%
The following results were recorded when PKARC was used to create
an archive file from the above files.
Normal Speed Turbo Speed 286 Turbo Speed
--------------------------------------------
01:12:43 00:44:99 00:20:00
--------------------------------------------
Using Wordstar and Nodelist.184 I performed a standard move
cursor to end of file test. The length of the nodelist used was
149436 bytes.
Normal Speed Turbo Speed 286 Turbo Speed
--------------------------------------------
00:33:33 00:16:12 00:14:75
--------------------------------------------
Using PC Lab's Bench02 test which basically finds prime numbers
the following results occurred.
Normal Speed Turbo Speed 286 Turbo Speed
--------------------------------------------
00:27:00 00:17:00 00:05:00
--------------------------------------------
All in all, a fine computer.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
FidoNews 4-28 Page 6 27 Jul 1987
Yoshi Mikami, November 26, 1986
FidoNet in Japan
[Editor's note: Sorry for the unusually long delay on this
article. It came to us via a very circuitous route.]
*** DOMESTIC NEWS ***
FIDO/COLLIE SYSOPS' MEETING
The November Fido/Collie Sysops' meeting was attended by
Tatsuyuki Arai, Yoshi Mikami, Maki Ohtoh and Junsei Yamada. It
was held on 11/14/86 at 7:00, at Renoir coffee shop (phone 03-
493-1454) near the east exit of Osaki Station in Tokyo. Arai,
Jun Moriya, John Takiguchi and Yamada had started this meeting on
every second Friday of the month from last August to discuss
common FidoNet issues and concerns. For Mikami and Ohtoh, it was
the first time to meet these people.
We jointly decided that we will write to International FidoNet
Association, St. Louis, Missouri, to get the FidoNet region
number for Japan. We do not want a host node under Pacific
Region 12, out of Honolulu, Hawaii, as other Asia-Pacific
countries such as Australia and New Zealand are operating.
Mikami will write the letter.
Arai wants to use the POLL and PICKUP functions on the receive-
only FIDO node in Tokyo from his FIDO at home. Those functions
do not work properly for him. Tom Jenning's 8/85 documentation
that he has does not explain in sufficient detail how to use
these functions. We will get assistance from Fido operators in
U.S.
We know that there is a Usenet gateway, run by Bob Hartman, on
FidoNet 101/101, according to the 8/86 Fido documentation. Does
anyone know how to contact a Usenet node in Japan?
Before switching to Fido, Arai ran Collie in October to find that
Collie handles the Japanese Kanji characters nicely. (Ohtoh and
Mikami have some Japanese messages in their systems.) However,
Collie has a minor problem in handling Japanese characters, in
the sense that some Japanese characters are interpreted as
Collie's control characters. We will write to D. Plunkett when
Jun Moriya returns from his trip to Australia to get the author's
help (because he knows the technical details).
Arai wanted to confirm, and all the meeting attendees agreed,
that FidoNet in Japan will be operated on a non-profit basis,
without discrimination of any kind.
The name of FidoNet Japan was authorized to be used on
Takiguchi's Fido BBS by Tom Jennings earlier this year, according
FidoNews 4-28 Page 7 27 Jul 1987
to Arai. (The Newsletter Editor doubt that this has any
significance, but it is documented here as this was discussed at
the meeting.)
Any would-be Fido/Collie sysops are welcome to attend this
monthly meeting. The next meeting is on December 12, at the same
time, at the same place. If English assistance is needed, help
will be provided.
COLLIE NET TEST IN KANSAI AREA
After some pioneering work in April and May 1986, the Fido/Collie
activities picked up in the Kansai area recently. Geki Hagiwara
provided the following experience report:
* * * * * * *
A BBS network FidoNet was formed and tested in Kansai area in
Sep/Oct 1986. Actually the software was Collie (Colossus)
which simulates FidoNet packet transfer protocol. One of the
reasons we chose Collie, not Fido, was that Collie resets the
modem every time the session is over. It is believed that
some modems cannot detect 1200/300 and CCITT/BELL in
particular sequences. In such case resetting the modem may
be effective. Through our experience Hi-Modem 1200C looked
working satisfactorily.
The members of TMCNET and their equipments are:
NET NODE Name Area Phone H/W
--- ---- ------------- ----- ------------ --------
001 001 Joe Takemura Osaka 06-674-1933 JX-5+HDD
002 K. Sawaguchi Osaka 06-XXX-XXXX JX-4
002 001 Geki Hagiwara Yasu 0775-86-0919 JX-4+HDD
002 Ken Iwamoto Kyoto 075-XXX-XXXX JX-5
003 Junji Tanaka Shiga 0778-XX-XXXX JX-5
First, each node operator entered messages to several members
and the other sysops; then we set Net mail time and watched
how Collie sends and receives packets. We had a hard time to
find the best combination of modem initialization commands
and DIP switch setting. (We were helped by Maki Ohtoh.)
We used the following MODMINIT.BBS file:
ATX1
ATH1
(one blank line - wait 2 seconds)
ATS0=1
ATV0
ATH0
FidoNews 4-28 Page 8 27 Jul 1987
The Collie startup command was:
A>COLLIE /2 /M2 /I1200 /C32
| | | |____ Carrier mask bit
| | |____ Modem init. baud rate
| |____ Modem type
|____ COM2 port
The modem DIP switch setting was:
SW1 DTR OFF
SW2 Result no effective
SW3 Return ON (should have no effect)
SW4 Echo no effective
SW5 Answer no effective
SW6 CD OFF
SW7 Tel.line OFF (depends on phone line)
SW8 Command ON
Although the modem operation was unstable like trying to call
while the modem is off hook, the test resulted in a great
success. We just tested the network formed by JX systems,
but this network would not be open to public until the mail
charge system is established.
* * * * * * *
For other details, contact Hagiwara or Joe Takemura at the BBS
sytem number (at night only) listed above.
FIDO/COLLIE SYSTEMS IN OPERATION
To our knowledge, the following five Fido/Collie BBS systems are
currently operating on regular basis:
017-653-5181 ext. 226-7408, Loki BBS (Fido), by Jon
Spelbring, 24 hours, 1200/300 (CCITT & Bell)
045-761-9406, SurfSide Net (Fido), by Tatsuyuki Arai,
24 hours, 2400/1200/300 bps (CCITT & Bell)
045-894-7656, Collie Yokohama, by Maki Ohtoh,
24 hours, 1200/300 bps (CCITT & Bell)
0466-27-2077, Big Blue BBS (Collie), by Yoshi Mikami,
10:00-11:30 PM Japan Std Time, 1200/300 (C&B)
082-842-6401, Strawberry Doughnut Net (Collie), by
Hitoshi Sugimoto, 10:30-11:55 PM JST, 200/300 (C&B)
Fido Japan 03-432-0185 by John Takiguchi is temporarily closed.
Mikami, Ohtoh and Sugimoto have been exchanging net messages very
successfully at 10:45-11:00 PM time slot, since early October,
between Fujisawa/Yokohama and Hiroshima, a distance of 500 miles.
After much experiment, Infotech's Hi-Modem 1200C among the
several JATE-approved Hayes-compatible (AT-command compatible)
modems was found to handle the Fido/Collie net message
transmission. They would like to hear other people's experiences
FidoNews 4-28 Page 9 27 Jul 1987
on other modems, because there definitely is a need here for good
modem competition.
Ken Sugimoto has translated most of the Collie .MNU files into
Japanese for easier operator interface, and has been operating a
Collie node since October, somewhere near the Fish Market in
Tsukiji, Tokyo. We'll get his phone number shortly.
We do not claim to know everything happening in Japan regarding
Fido or Collie. Please contact anyone of us to let others know
what's going on.
LETTER TO REQUEST JAPANESE REGION NUMBER SENT
A letter was sent 11/16/86 by Mikami to International FidoNet
Association requesting a region number for Japan, with copies to
Tom Jennings (author of Fido BBS software) and Dan Plunkett
(author of Colossus BBS sofware). A fifty dollar check was
enclosed as our donation. Copies were also sent to people
mentioned in Item 1.a. above.
*** INTERNATIONAL NEWS ***
MESSAGE EXCHANGE WITH HONG KONG
Katsu Shintani called FIDO BBS in Hong Kong 00852-5-893-7856 in
October. This is the nearest Fido/Collie BBS overseas that we
know of. In return, Fido Japan and Collie Yokohama received a
few messages from Hong Kong.
ASSISTANCE TO OTHER ASIAN COUNTRIES
There are several FidoNet systems running in Australia and
Indonesia according to the 3/86 nodelist. We would like to
identify other Fido systems that may be operating in this region
of the world. We also offer assistance if help is needed to set
up Fido or Collie BBS in the Asia-Pacific countries.
For those who may not know, Colossus ("Collie") is Fido-
compatible software that is beginning to be used this year.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
FidoNews 4-28 Page 10 27 Jul 1987
Chris Irwin
Miami Shareware, 135/68
MegaList
A Cross-System File Listing
(YOU can easily join!)
I was in one of my more creative moods the other day; I've
finally written a system that I've wanted to for quite some time
now: MegaList. The "MegaList" is an alphabetized file listing
that combines the files from ALL PARTICIPATING Fido/Opus systems.
If you've ever needed a file, but didn't know where to find it,
the MegaList is a good place to look; scan down the list for the
file you need, and listed next to it are the BBSs that have it
online.
The MegaList is available for download or SEAdog file
request from 135/68. The following files are online now:
MEGALIST.ARC/TXT The National (unfiltered) MegaList
MEGA-ARC.ARC/TXT The National ARChive MegaList
MEGA-TXT.ARC/TXT The National TXT/DOC MegaList
ML-UPD.ARC MegaList Update Software
YOUR system can be added to the NATIONAL MegaList if you
simply run the update program, ML-UPD. This program will create
an update file based on YOUR system information and FILES.BBS
contents. This data is then ARCed and Net-mailed to 135/68 for
central collection. The NATIONAL MegaList is updated each day at
6:15AM and posted for download or file request.
Placing your system in the MegaList will let the rest of the
world know what's on your system without everyone having to call
and look. The ML-UPD program is easy and only takes about 1-2
minutes to run. All you must do is send a MegaList update to
Miami at least once every 45 days, and you will be in the daily
MegaList update.
As of this writing, I haven't released ML-COL, the "host"
processing/collection program. I will be releasing this system
in its entirety before the end of August. If you're interested
in creating a LOCAL MegaList for YOUR area, please contact me for
the list creation software.
Chris Irwin, Miami Shareware, 135/68
(305) 232-9365 (300/1200/2400/9600-HST)
Other Miami Shareware releases: (as of July 14th)
ARCMSG17.ARC ARC and Purge message bases (Fido/Opus)
MS-AR25.ARC Accounts Receivable System
MS-IC25.ARC Inventory Control System
-----------------------------------------------------------------
FidoNews 4-28 Page 11 27 Jul 1987
AUTHENTIC SECURE SECRET FIDO MAIL WITH PUBLIC KEY ENCRYPTION
INTRODUCTION
============
This article was written by Prodex Labs, for examination and
comment by IFNA (International Fidonet Association) Sysops,
members, Fidonet users, and others interested in electronic mail
and security. Prodex Labs (Lee Rothstein, Phil Zimmermann &
Steve Welch) is very much interested in your comments and
suggestions.
PRODEX LABS, PUBLIC KEY ENCRYPTION & FIDO
-----------------------------------------
We are now about ready to deliver C-based modules that can carry
out public key encryption.
We are writing this article because of the extreme relevance we
see of public key cryptography to electronic mail. We assume
electronic mail is near and dear to your hearts, and we think you
might be interested in the application of public key encryption
to Fidomail and Fidonet transfers. The discussion, we provide
here, on public key cryptography aims specifically at electronic
mail applications.
Public key encryption technology allows the convenient
distribution of messages through an electronic mail system secure
against other users, sysops ("superusers") and even systems
programmers. It allows this security in the face of inherently
insecure networks and hosts. This we think is a feature whose
time has come. We think it lends itself well to the expansion of
Fidonet services, as well as the opportunity for Fido sysops to
unobtrusively draw revenue from a subset of Fido services--
specifically those that have to do with private and commercial
mail.
Specifically, we suspect the lack of privacy of messages (from
Sysops and technotwits) has discouraged the use of Fido as a
national distribution medium for personal mail, and business
mail. Second, the lack of an authentication mechanism has
discouraged commercial concerns from using Fidomail as a
distribution mechanism for authentic marketing programs and
documents such as ads, coupons and purchase orders. By adding
these commercial services to Fido, the revenue produced could be
used to subsidize other Fido services such as mass storage
(downloads) and Techline distribution (long distance charges).
The authentication capability mentioned in the previous paragraph
might also be of use directly to Fidonet as it grows.
Authentication would allow nodes that are operating in a store
and forward sub-net to prove their legitimacy prior to a relay
operation. Since we are not familiar with the daily operational
problems of Hosts, we do not know if we have proposed a solution
to a non-existent problem.
Finally, we think that the recent introduction of "Dutchie" may
be one of the key ingredients to the success of the introduction
FidoNews 4-28 Page 12 27 Jul 1987
and use of public key encryption in Fidonet. For those of you
not yet familiar with it, Dutchie is the private delivery point
implementation for Fidonet by Henk Wevers.
SINGLE KEY ENCRYPTION: WHY PUBLIC KEY ENCRYPTION IS REQUIRED!
--------------------------------------------------------------
Public key encryption technology differs from the more well-known
single key technology in that each person has two keys associated
with him/her--a public key, and a private key. (DES--Data
Encryption Standard--is the most well-known example of single key
encryption.)
In public key encryption, the public key is known by everyone and
either can be looked up by the user from a table of keys versus
user names or automatically looked up by the applications
software (e.g., electronic mail software).
In single key encryption, Fred encrypts file 'nerd.msg' with the
key "secret_potion". When Bill wants to decrypt the file, he
must have been told by Fred what the key for decrypting (i.e.,
encrypting) 'nerd.msg' is. Specifically, Bill must supply the
key "secret_potion" to decrypt 'nerd.msg'. If "secret_potion" is
always associated with Fred's files, then Bill knows the key for
those files that Fred does not want him to see. More succinctly,
the decryption and encryption functions are inverses of each
other. Symbolically:
(1) encrypted_file <- sk_encrypt(file, key)
(2) file <- sk_encrypt(encrypted_file, key) i.e., decryption
is encryption
and the key is
the same going
in both
directions
The above notation assumes that objects with the same name
and only objects with the same name are identical.
Let's look at the consequences of the logic of single key
encryption within an electronic mail system. Anyone that wants
to send secret messages to someone else must either know the
recipient's one and only secret key, or relinquish their own
secret key, or maintain a list of secret keys by recipient or
file; not a very attractive alternative.
What's worse, if the key information is exchanged by users
through the mail system, then the sysop has a crack at the key.
This seems very likely when you consider that you probably want
the mail system itself to automatically monitor, maintain and
administer the keys because of the previously described problems.
PUBLIC KEY ENCRYPTION
=====================
PUBLIC KEY ENCRYPTION EXPLAINED
-------------------------------
FidoNews 4-28 Page 13 27 Jul 1987
These and other problems can be made to disappear with a public
key encryption system. The public and private keys make a
matched, idiosyncratic set. A file encrypted with the public key
can only be decrypted by the private key. A file encrypted by
the private key can only be decrypted by the public key. These
properties can be used to significant advantage in an electronic
mail system. The obvious advantage of the public key technology
over the more normal single private key technology such as DES,
is that a user does not have to give away his/her private key.
Secrecy
-------
If you want secrecy in a message that you send us, you encrypt
the message with our public key and then we decrypt it with our
private key.
Signature Function
------------------
If you want to authenticate a message as really coming from you,
you encrypt it with your private key and then we decrypt it with
your public key. If your public key does not make the message
intelligible then it wasn't encrypted with your private key and
therefore it didn't come from you--the one and only person who
has access to your private key.
Secrecy & Authentication
------------------------
The secrecy and authentication encryptions outlined above can be
combined sequentially to provide a complete framework of security
for electronic mail.
Symbolically, we could describe these properties as:
If A were sending a message to B:
(1) encrypted_file <- pk_encrypt(file, public_key_B)
(2) file <- pk_decrypt(encrypted_file,
private_key_B)
(1) Would be used by the sender to achieve privacy.
(2) Would be used by the receiver to achieve
"legibility."
AND
(3) encrypted_file <- pk_encrypt(file, private_key_A)
(4) file <- pk_decrypt(encrypted_file,
public_key_A)
(3) Would be used by the sender to achieve
authentication.
(4) Would be used by the receiver to prove
authentication and achieve "legibility."
If we wished privacy and authentication in a message from A to B:
FidoNews 4-28 Page 14 27 Jul 1987
(5) double_encrypted_file <-
pk_encrypt(pk_encrypt(file, public_key_B),
private_key_A)
(6) file <- pk_decrypt(pk_decrypt(double_encrypted_file,
private_key_B), public_key_A)
(5) Would be used by the sender to achieve privacy and
authentication.
(6) Would be used by the receiver to achieve
"legibility", and prove authentication.
In the above notation we again assume that objects with the
same name and only objects with the same name are
equivalent.
OTHER REQUIREMENTS & PROPERTIES
-------------------------------
Several other properties of public key encryption require
explanation to fully understand how security can be maintained
and how a mail system can work.
First, the program that generates the key pairs can be widely
distributed so that it can be used by each user privately and
securely.
Second, the algorithm that generates the public key from the
private key is not reversible either by the generating program or
by any other program a hacker would write.
Third, the kinds of keys generated and required by the encrypt /
decrypt function(s) are on the order of a 1000 bits. This is
what makes trial and error computation of the private key
extremely unlikely to the point of impossibility, and also what
makes users generating like public keys unlikely.
Fourth, the electronic mail nodes (for Fidonet, Fido nodes) would
have to provide a key server function. Once a user had
calculated his public key from a private key he would have to
submit it to a node to be paired with his/her user ID. The
server function would also have to supply the public key to
private mail sent to the corresponding user ID. Another major
function of the key server is an automatic certification process
that is beyond the scope of a first release product or this
paper.
Finally, for performance sake, any reasonable implementation of
public key cryptography would transparently (unknown to users)
invoke an internal method of single key encryption. However, all
user and crackers would ever (or could ever) see is the public
key mechanisms.
IMPLEMENTING PUBLIC KEY ENCRYPTION WITHIN THE FIDO ENVIRONMENT
==============================================================
THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM
--------------------
FidoNews 4-28 Page 15 27 Jul 1987
If we were to directly implement an automatic, public key
cryptography security system into Fido mail that would avoid
sysops having any possibility of access to the private keys or
the mail prior to encryption, we would have to accomplish the
following:
(a) We would have to add a secure mail option to the terminal
emulation program. We would further have to modify the
user's terminal emulation program so that all mail text
entered was encrypted before each line was sent by the user
to the mail edit/entry function on the BBS.
There are some outs here, but they are pretty well
invalidated by several properties of BBS software. First,
mail entry is designed to be an online editing activity
rather than via upload. Second, the mail entry function is
designed to handle pure text and not the binary files that
result from encryption. Third, most mail input software
strongly limits the length and format (e.g., line length,
blank lines, use of tabs) of input messages. If one uses
"ASCII transfer" capability there is a possibility the file
will fail the length test or be modified by the format
assumptions, because it was not edited with the length and
format tests operative. Fourth, the prompting feature of
the mail editor very often interferes with ASCII upload.
(b) We would have to make modifications to the BBS mail
edit/entry function so that some text was accepted in
unencrypted format (i.e., 'To:' and 'From:' information) and
the remainder was in encrypted format (i.e., 'Subject:' and
body of message. ('From:' can be hidden if BBS Sysops do not
object.)
(c) We would have to add a public key server function to the BBS
that would maintain and service public keys. This would
also have to allow for the distribution of keys from node to
node.
(d) We would have to make sure that encryption did not interfere
with Fidomail routing line additions to the text body.
This theory will not work or rather will not work without a
ground swell of support for private mail. We cannot get control
of all of the following simultaneously: (a) user terminal
emulation software, (b) Fido mail entry software, (c) Fido
general BBS software, (d) Fido networking and mail exchange
software. How do we create the ground swell, then?
FIRST STEPS
-----------
Step 1
------
We develop two program functions (they may or may not actually be
separate programs) that can be distributed via Fido. Currently,
we estimate we can have these two programs done within two
FidoNews 4-28 Page 16 27 Jul 1987
months.
The first program is a DOS (Unix style) filter. It has two
functions. First, given one file that contains the private key
and a second file that contains the text to be encrypted, this
first program, which I will call 'pk_crypt', provides an output
file that is encrypted and can be decrypted with the public key.
This serves the authentication function. Second, 'pk_crypt' can
encrypt a file with public key so that it can be decrypted with
the private key. This provides the privacy function.
The second program generates unique key pairs.
Step 2
------
Sysops provide a message section and a coordinated file section.
The message section allows users to notify each other that there
are secure messages that have been uploaded to the respective
users that have been notified via standard Fido text message.
The file section is not only a safe (reliable, not secure) port
for uploaded secure message files but also for a single text file
that contains a list of the mapping of user IDs to public keys.
Users upload their public keys as they generate them and the
sysops collate these standard format subfiles into a single
standard format public key-user ID list.
We will provide documentation not only for the use of the
program, but also for how users can "certify" new users and new
keys, since we will not at this stage be able to provide a key
server automated certification process.
Step 3
------
Sysops provide a standard service that allows binary files to be
"attached to" Fidomail messages. Nothing automatic is implied by
the previous sentence.
Step 4
------
We would have to provide a mail function that from the same level
of menu allowed the entry of a text tag message into the message
system, followed by the immediate upload of an encrypted (perhaps
archived) file to the secure message file section.
The inverse of these two processes would also have to be
provided. Users would have to be able, from the same level of
message menu, to first read a tag message, and, then,
immediately, download the associated secure binary message file.
.
.
.
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
==================
This is a lot to lay on anyone in one swell foop. What do you
FidoNews 4-28 Page 17 27 Jul 1987
think about practically any of this? We are especially
interested in your views and ideas as to how (or if) it can fit
into Fidonet. We await your responses.
Lee Rothstein, Phil Zimmermann, Steve Welch
Prodex Laboratories
------ ------------
COMPUTER AND COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS
PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT CONSULTING
o Computer and communications system product development:
Software, Hardware & Integration
o Marketing requirements, product, business & strategic
plans
o Market research
o New venture evaluation
o Technical marketing, marketing programs, seminar
development
o Product definition, architecture development, systems
engineering, human interface design
o Strategic information systems & computerized marketing
Lee D. Rothstein
Prodex Laboratories
7723 Arlington Drive
Boulder, CO 80303-3207
(303) 499-8716 (Voice)
We can be contacted via any of these BBSes, or via FidoNet at one
of these BBSes:
o Microlink B Fido. Fido 104/108. (303) 972-4181.
o Eighth Sea Fido. Fido 104/610. (303) 252-9235.
o Day's End Fido. Fido 104/ 20. (303) 650-5636.
o Mile Hi Tech Fido. Fido 104/ 56. (303) 973-9338.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
FidoNews 4-28 Page 18 27 Jul 1987
Patrick McDonald, 109/657
Sirius v0.50 - The FOS-Compatible Message Base Manager
"... and all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by"
--- Masefield
Sirius, a star in Canis Major also known as the dog star,
has been guiding mariners in the Northern hemisphere for
centuries. Sirius, the message base manager by Bob Klahn of 150/1
will now add a new twist to the common definition by helping
solve your message base manipulation and navigation problems. No
matter what software you currently use to interact with your
Fido/Opus/SEAdog message base, Sirius has features that will help
make it the message manager of choice on your system.
In particular, Sirius 0.50:
* Provides universal context-sensitive help via the "?" key.
* Adapts its prompting to your needs and level of expertise
while keeping required keystrokes to a minimum.
* Supports one hundred message areas.
* Recognizes EchoMail and NetMail areas, and allows them to be
addressed by name as well as by number.
* Edits new or existing messages with the configurable outside
text editor of your choice, or with its own line-oriented
editor.
* Quotes replied-to message text with prefixing that YOU choose,
and with the option to prefix the quoted author's lines only.
* Moves and copies messages to flat files, to the printer, to
other message areas, low or high, up or down, and with or
without "stamping".
* Groups messages logically, in ways YOU define, using a library
of over three dozen Boolean, integer, and string functions.
Operations may be performed on a message group as a unit, or
group definitions may be used to filter the retrieval of
individual messages.
* Can record your interactive keystrokes in script form for
later playback. Yes, Sirius will write your scripts for you!
* Allows its complete functionality to be accessed locally,
remotely, or through its automated scripts.
* Provides access to DOS from within the Sirius environment.
The Basics
~~~~~~~~~~
FidoNews 4-28 Page 19 27 Jul 1987
The entire interactive interface of Sirius is designed to
minimize the number of keystrokes entered. Many of the main menu
commands have lower submenus, and commands may be stacked as
appropriate, with white space needed only when ambiguity might
otherwise result. In addition, the "?" character is available at
all menus to provide context sensitive help to guide you along.
As a message base manager, Sirius provides you with all the
usual functions, and then some. You may select a message area
not only by the usual method of area number, but by the
associated EchoMail area tag as well. If you have many message
areas or are in the habit of occasionally reorganizing your
message areas, this feature makes it easier to jump into an echo
area. The entire area name need not be specified when utilizing
this feature, but only enough to uniquely identify it.
Messages may be retrieved in a number of ways (forward,
backward, and by links), and when retrieving messages it is not
necessary to view the entire text. You may tell Sirius to only
view message text until a given text string is encountered (such
as 'SEEN-BY: '), and as indicated in the example, this is usually
used to squelch the EchoMail routing information.
Shifting into 2nd Gear
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You can do a lot more with messages than just retrieve them
and display them to your screen. Sirius provides features for
moving messages around to various locations. You may copy
messages to a file (optionally either appending or overwriting
the file), to your printer, or to other locations in the message
system. These "other locations" encompass copying the message to
another area as well as different spots within the same area.
When moving a message, you may optionally ask Sirius to include a
"stamp" line in the copied message (much like the Opus forwarding
information but much more concise).
The Doctor's Office
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So, you want to change something about a message? The Doctor
function provides the means of changing virtually every aspect of
a message IN PLACE, including message header fields, body text,
flags, and attach filenames. The Body doctor is also a powerful
tool all by itself, providing a full-featured line-oriented text
editor for the message body. The line editor makes extensive use
of PC editing keys while providing control key mapping for remote
usage and local keyboards that don't have these keys. Selected
portions of the message body may be re-wrapped at will and to any
line width that you like. You may also import text from external
files. As powerful as the editing features inherent to Sirius
are, you may need to do something to a message body not provided
by Sirius, or may simply have a preference for a full-screen
editor. This is no problem since Sirius provides support for
editing message bodies with the external text editor of your
choice.
FidoNews 4-28 Page 20 27 Jul 1987
... And you may quote me on that!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When replying to an existing message, Sirius provides a
quoting feature that is unsurpassed by any other message system.
You are not locked into any particular reply prefix, but rather
may specify your own "designer quote" to be used for prefixing
selected portions of the text of the replied-to message. Sirius
does not just blindly prefix the entire original message text
when forming the reply-quoted message (although it can if you
desire) but actually has the ability to prefix only those
portions of the original message that ARE NOT ALREADY PREFIXED!
This becomes especially useful when responding to a message that
already has text reply-quoted from one or more authors.
Join the Group
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sirius provides a group definition facility that is perhaps
the single most powerful capability in its arsenal. Using an
extensive set of message-oriented functions and an expression
formation language similar to many general programming languages,
you may define up to twenty-six different message groups. A
group definition may be used in one of two different ways.
First, a message group may be used as a retrieval filter. That
is, by virtue of a group definition being in force, the message
area appears to only contain messages that match the group
specification. This might be used for something as simple as
only considering messages addressed specifically to you, for
example.
The second use of a group definition is in conjunction with
group operations. Group operations mirror, in some respects,
those functions available for single messages (such as copying to
a file, deleting, moving elsewhere) but act on the entire group
of messages as a unit. Some of these group operations are
unavailable in 0.50, but will be there in 0.51. The built-in
functions for use in group definitions include the following:
Boolean (Message Flags):
@Private @Xpress @Received @Sent
@FileAttach @InTransit @Orphan @KillSent
@Local @Hold @FileReq @AuditReq
@ReceiptReq @UpdateReq
Boolean (Other):
@FromYou @ToYou @NoBody @ReadOnly
Integer Functions:
@DaysHere @DaysOld @FileSize @Zenith
@HighMsg# @LowMsg# @Msg# @MsgCount
@NetFrom @NetTo @NodeFrom @NodeTo
FidoNews 4-28 Page 21 27 Jul 1987
String Functions (case insensitive):
@From @To @Subject @Header
@Body @Msg @Keyin
Sirius provides the usual conditional operators (EQ, NE, GT, LT,
GE, LE, AND, OR), as well as some additional ones:
CO contains
NC does not contain
IN is contained in
NI is not contained in
A few simple examples of Sirius expressions will make clear the
power intrinsic in their usage:
1. @ToYou OR @FromYou
This expression will match only those messages that are to you or
from you.
2. @ToYou AND @Private
This expressions will match those messages addressed to you which
are private.
3. @From CO 'arcmail' AND NOT @Local
This expression would match your inbound ARCmail attach messages.
4. @DaysHere GT 7 AND @InTransit
Suppose you are a hub and want to identify those messages that
have been sitting waiting for delivery for more than a week (a
possible indication of trouble)? This will do it.
5. @Msg CO 'Heinlein'
A science fiction fanatic? This will find those messages related
to your favorite author.
As is the case elsewhere, the Sirius expression parser is
built with the user in mind. When entering a Sirius group
definition, you need only type enough to uniquely identify the
token, and Sirius will fill in the rest automagically.
Shifting into High Gear
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
What has been mentioned before, but which might not have
been truly appreciated until now, is the fact that Sirius
provides a scripting language that allows you to do anything from
a script that can be done online (including creating new
messages, replying to old ones, etc...). The script language
uses a Lisp-like syntax, and the verbs match exactly the menu
FidoNews 4-28 Page 22 27 Jul 1987
commands which you use online, including a conditional and a
while loop construct driven by the same types of expressions
listed above. Sirius scripts may call other Sirius scripts in a
nestable fashion, and I/O commands allow you easily design menus
and other forms of interaction with the user at the keyboard. In
combination with DOS parameterized batch files, your Sirius-
driven system can almost run itself in some respects. As a
simple example, consider the following script:
(View (Xpertise (High))
View (Continuous)
Area (NetMail)
Group (Define (@ToYou AND NOT @Received))
0 Next
! (While (@Msg# LE @HighMsg#))
Copy (Flat file ('NEWTOME.TXT'))
Next
! (End)
Quit (Bbs))
This simple script will append all of the new messages to
you in your netmail area to the file NEWTOME.TXT in your current
directory. For the new Sirius user who might want to dive right
in writing Sirius scripts, there is a recording option that you
may use to allow Sirius to write the script for you, simply by
recording in the proper format operations that you enter
interactively.
Winding Down
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sirius is still a growing project. Many enhancements are
planned and there is an active national Sirius echo being
coordinated by 150/1. The Sirius author, Bob Klahn, is quite
receptive to user suggestions for Sirius enhancements. There are
subtleties and details to Sirius that were not appropriate for
inclusion in this brief introduction. At the time of this
writing, there does not exist a single, comprehensive, set of
documentation for Sirius. This problem is being addressed by the
Beta Test Group and hopefully will be remedied shortly. In the
interim, there does exist a complete set of release notes for
Sirius that cover major features, and these combined with the
online help and sample scripts shipped with Sirius serve to
offset the lack of formal documentation. The best bet for a new
Sirius user is simply to dive in and try it (and to join the
Sirius echo where experienced users will be able to lend some
help). Bob's practice in the past has been to release new
versions of Sirius on a regular schedule. Due to the major
enhancements in version 0.50 (most dealing with the group
definition facility), this latest version has been almost four
months in development and testing, and we are sure you will find
it worth the wait.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
FidoNews 4-28 Page 23 27 Jul 1987
Mike Brisson
The Augusta Forum 360/1
THE SPORTSNET ECHO CONFERENCE
The SportsNet Echo Conference was started by the Augusta Forum in
February of this year to give FidoNet boards a chance to talk
coast to coast about their favorite sports topics. Almost
everyone has at least a little interest in sports of one type or
another, either as a participant or a spectator ... if you do,
this conference is for you.
SportsNet is NOT just a "my team's better than yours" conference!
It is a place for discussions about WHY teams or players are
better ... or worse. On SportsNet you have to be prepared to
discuss your choices for the World Series, Super Bowl, or
whatever ... someone's bound to differ with you.
You'll find a place for participants, spectators, and media. The
net has had discussions among bicycling racers ... and also has
heard from a TV station director.
Of course, the obvious sports (football, baseball, etc.) are
discussed but there's also lively discussion about the lesser
known ones (we've even gotten into snake handling and buffalo
chip throwing)! What-ever the sport, we'll discuss it.
SportsNet can be a learning place, too. If you don't know what
an ERA (base-ball) or a blue line (hockey) are, you can learn
those things there. Also, the conference has a weekly trivia
quiz, possibly the first of its kind among echo conferences.
Football fans will find a place, this fall, to test their
prediction skills on NFL games, and possibly selected college
games as well.
If you're not already a part of SportsNet, this is your
invitation to give us a try. We aren't one of those 100-message-
a-day conferences that sometimes can overwhelm a newcomer ...
we're still small enough for anyone to fit right in. We do have
boards in New York, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Dallas, Indiana,
Arkansas, and Oklahoma, as well as most of the Southeastern
states. If you're interested in SportsNet, drop me a NetMail
message. We'd like to have you join us!
SportsNet Host: Mike Brisson
Host Sysop: Ed Meloan
Host System: Augusta Forum (360/1), N. Augusta, SC
Host System Numbers: (803) 279-4124 or 279-5392
-----------------------------------------------------------------
FidoNews 4-28 Page 24 27 Jul 1987
=================================================================
COLUMNS
=================================================================
Glen Jackson
Broadcast Software
SEAdog/Fido 100/517
Where are we at Now ?
We're still at it, going strong in the echos. We've added some
more nodes. Colorado is a real busy state with the Broadcasters.
If you know of any BBS's (in the net or not) that address
themselves to the broadcasting Industry, drop us a line at
100/517.
If you are in the industry, we welcome your call and feedback.
We'll point you to the closest node involved in our echos.
We're here to encourage communications among the industry. Here
we are, a communuications group, and we rarely talk to each other
across the country. Why would we want to?
To exchange information. Information on what we use our computers
at work for. How we use them. Programs that benefit all of us.
How about issues that will be or do affect us? In such a highly
competetive market, are we so afraid we'll help someone else
grow???
We want to invite you to become a part of our growing echos. One
of the echos is not limited to broadcasters only. It is a place
that the public can talk with the people in the industry. The
decision makers. People with the answers.
If you'd like to become a part of our growing family in the
Broadcast Echos, let us know. You don't need to run a broadcast-
specific board to do so. We can be reached by routing a message
to us at 100/517 - or calling direct at 314-928-2501.
Broadcast Software Industries
> Home of the Broadcast Echos <
-----------------------------------------------------------------
FidoNews 4-28 Page 25 27 Jul 1987
-- The Regular Irregular Column --
Dale Lovell
1:157/504.1
Things are going very well this past week. I've found some
more programs that will run with SIMCGA (Ancient Art of War and a
few others by Broderbund). In addition, I'm finally getting used
to this new keyboard. My old XT had an original PC style layout,
but with 10 function keys at the top and a cursor pad as well as
a numeric keypad. The keyboard with the AT is one of the "new"
101 key style keyboards, 12 function keys and such. I'm still not
entirely used to it, but things are a lot easier after a few
weeks of use (and some customizing with SuperKey). Just goes to
show how flexible the human mind can be when it has to adjust.
-- Ventura Publisher Version 1.1 (Xerox, List $895.00) --
Some of you may recall how much I liked version 1.0 of
Ventura Publisher when I got to try it out a few months back.
Well Xerox has been busy working on an update, and it improves a
product I wouldn't have thought could be improved. On the surface
it still looks (and acts) the same, but once you get beyond the
initial pull down screens it has a lot of new (yet familiar)
functions and improvements. While it costs $100.00 to update to
the new version of Ventura, it is money well spent (the list
price is still the same, it didn't go up). Even the manual
appears to be written better than the version 1.0 manual.
I still thinks it's amusing that Xerox's DeskTop Publishing
program supports PostScript printers better than Xerox's own
printers. PostScript users will greatly appreciate some of the
new features in 1.1. The font names now match the names you're
used to calling them, and Ventura lists all of the Adobe
supported fonts. If you have something like the QMS PS800+ (or an
Allied Linotronic typesetter), you won't have to do anything to
make Ventura know about your additional fonts. Instead of the box
selections of fonts and sizes in 1.0, you now see something that
resembles the box you're used to using to select files (only they
aren't files, they're several dozen fonts). You are also free to
enter the point size of the font, no limitations under PostScript
(other than those your printer has built into it). If you're
using download fonts to your PostScript device, it's very easy to
tell Ventura about them. Once told, it will download the fonts
you're using automatically. While Ventura still doesn't take full
advantage of PostScript's powerful capabilities, it brings it up
a step from the previous version (and while I'm not sure, I think
it beats PageMaker's PostScript support).
In version 1.0 there were some wonderful features when
bringing in a short text file, or some form of art. Ventura 1.1
increases it's list of generally useful features by being able to
make these frames follow a specific part of the main text around.
Xerox calls this "anchoring" a frame to text and may be reason
enough for many people to spend the $100 on the upgrade. The
reasoning behind anchoring a picture to text is that pictures are
meant to go along with the text. An example would be a business
FidoNews 4-28 Page 26 27 Jul 1987
report with several graphs, each graph goes along with a specific
part of the report. You certainly wouldn't want the employee
attendance graph to be above the section of the report dealing
with quarterly sales, would you? Yet this is exactly what could
happen if you added a few paragraphs of text or added the company
logo to the top of the report. Ventura 1.1 puts an end to having
to manually readjust every graphics (or text) frame when you
change an earlier part of the publication. The frame will follow
the text around every time you make a change and Ventura allows
you to anchor frames to text so that the frame will appear above,
below or on the same page as the text it accompanies. I can see
this having a large impact on the educational community as thesis
papers (especially in the sciences, maybe even the arts as I
think about it) won't have to be such monumental efforts.
Including a relevant graph in the text of the paper becomes
trivial, and it will always show up where it belongs.
One of the nicer additions to me personally is the support
for Macintosh MacPaint and PICT files. The MacPaint file support
is nice because I have several of these already on my system. You
may know them better as READMAC pictures. All of these can be
brought right into Ventura. I no longer need to find a program to
convert them into PC Paintbrush or GEM Paint files. Sysops may
see a renewed interest in their READMAC file area as people start
looking around for digitized pictures to put into their work. I
know I've spent quite a bit of time the past week looking around
several of the local boards and downloading such files.
There are a few disappointments in Ventura 1.1. In the front
of the manual there is an errata sheet. While support for
Hewlett-Packard DDL printers and Windows clipboard line art were
not able to be included in this release of Ventura. It seems HP
still hasn't finalized the specification for DDL (not to mention
not shipping any printers that use DDL) and until the
specification in finished and the printers shipped, Ventura won't
support it. The Windows clipboard line art is supposedly missing
because Xerox has been unable to obtain the complete
specifications on the metafile format. Support for both of these
items is promised however, and Xerox gives you a number to call
if you need support for DDL or Windows clipboard line art. As
soon as it is ready, they'll send it out to you.
Overall I am still impressed with Ventura Publisher. Version
1.1 includes enough new items (as opposed to bug fixes, which
weren't to many from what I hear) to make it a solid improvement
over version 1.0. The new features only add to an excellent
product. I may be prejudiced, but I think this product is an easy
winner over PageMaker. Most of the people in the LASERPUB
echomail conference also seem to think the same way. The only
complaint I can recall on Ventura was due to someone not knowing
how to do something (as opposed to not being able to do
something). If you're going to have to buy a page composition
package in the near future, do yourself a favor and go find a
dealer who really knows how to use Ventura and have him give you
a demonstration.
FidoNews 4-28 Page 27 27 Jul 1987
-- WordPerfect 4.2 (WordPerfect Corp., list price $495.00) --
I'll admit it, I've been using WordPerfect for the past few
weeks and haven't admitted it until now. I conned my boss into
buying it for me at work and have been getting used to it before
I "reviewed" it. I didn't want to say anything right away because
it takes me awhile to become accustomed to a new word processor.
I didn't want to make the mistake of saying it's a poor product
just because I hit control-K Q to exit (Wordstar style commands)
when it wants F7 Y Y (WordPerfect). I must admit that I hated it
when I was still becoming accustomed to it, but am now a
WordPerfect convert and am seriously considering buying a copy
for home as well. After getting used to how the function keys
work (WordPerfect uses all 40 combinations on the function keys;
alone, alt-key, ctrl-key, and shift-key) it is a remarkably easy
word processor to use. My boss also purchased the WordPerfect
Library, although I won't start going over it until next week.
One of the first things I noticed about WordPerfect is that
it is fast. Supposedly this is because WordPerfect is written
completely in assembler while many other word processors,
Microsoft Word included, are written in a mix of C and assembler.
I don't know if this is actually true, but I do know that it is a
lot quicker than Word. While it doesn't do some of Word's nice
displays, in many cases it's easier to use WordPerfect than
Microsoft Word. In Word I could only spell check the entire
document and that could take a long time (go to the library, tell
it I want to do a spell check, etc.). WordPerfect let's me check
either a word, page or entire document. I've become very
accustomed to hitting Ctrl-F2 1 and checking the word I just
entered.
While it doesn't have Word's style sheets, it does have
built in macros; either the Alt-key variety or as an eight
character name. The only thing it is sadly missing is an editor
for the macros (they aren't stored in a straight ASCII format
like Superkey's macros). In order to get a macro editor you must
purchase the WordPerfect library. The macros aren't hard to
learn, and in many cases are much more flexible than Word's style
sheets. One of the first things I did when I started playing with
it's macros was create one for the start of these columns and
another with the complete signature. I used a variety of Superkey
macros to do this in Word and while they were very similar, I
decided to learn how to do it in WordPerfect. If you aren't
familiar with keyboard macros, it's basically a way of turning
several keystrokes into one (although that's a weak comparison,
it's the best I can do for now).
Overall I've been very impressed with it. While I haven't
really gone into it very deeply, bear with me over the next few
weeks while I keep learning more about it. Right now I can tell
that it's going to become my word processor of choice (at least
until I come across something I like better). I just wish I been
using it when all I had was a 4.77 mhz XT, the difference in
speed would have been very nice. If you're looking around for a
new word processor, I would definitely say try out WordPerfect.
FidoNews 4-28 Page 28 27 Jul 1987
It is fast, powerful, and fairly easy to use. My biggest advice
is to give yourself a chance to get used to it before you decide
against it. I'll still probably use Word when I'm looking for a
variety of fonts (especially if I ever get a laser printer) since
Word handles different fonts better than WordPerfect, but for all
my other work I'll be using WordPerfect.
-- Winding Down... --
I've found a book that may help many of you as you break
away from BASIC into Pascal or C. It's called "Puzzled
Programmers" by Michael Wiesenberg (Microsoft Press $12.95). It's
a little different as it has several short stories accompanying
each problem (of which there's fifteen) and while the problem
doesn't actually relate to the story, they make for cute reading.
Also included are hints to every problem as well as the solution.
The solutions are presented in BASIC, Pascal and C. One of the
things Wiesenberg was trying to accomplish was to aid those
learning a new language. All three solutions to each problem use
the same basic algorithm, so you can examine the solution in the
language you already know and compare it to the one you are
trying to learn. This is supposed to help you see how they are
similar, and how to take advantage of the special techniques or
principles of the different languages (like being able to
initialize several variables at the start of a loop in C). Since
I already know all three of the languages used, I wasn't able to
really learn anything with this book, but I can see how it might
help someone learn about a new language. The problems are all
mathematical problems, several of which could be solved without
the aid of a computer. The hints rarely tell you how to write a
program, they merely guide you along the way by helping you
figure out how to solve a problem.
I really support this method of learning. I've seen too many
Computer Science or MIS people graduate with honors and yet have
no idea on how to solve problems. To many courses on computers
only deal with syntax and modifying an existing program, often
given to the students in a lecture or text, to do something
slightly different. To much of programming is determining HOW to
do something to ignore teaching the students how to solve
problems (or as I call it, thinking...but I'm fairly sarcastic in
my attitudes these days). Books like this can help out those of
you trying to learn how to program more than many of the other
books I've recommended in this column. Most of the books I
recommend already assume you can determine the steps necessary to
accomplish a task, I think "Puzzled Programmers" will help teach
you this necessary skill. As I look over this paragraph I realize
that I starting to climb up on my soapbox again, so I'm going to
wind up by giving high marks to MIchael Wiesenberg on this
excellent book.
As always down below you'll find my US mail address, uucp
address and FidoNet address. If you're sending me mail through
FidoNet, please have your sysop route it through 157/1 (or 157/0)
as I am a private node. I'd like to thank any of you I missed
answering. While I try to answer every message (electronic or
FidoNews 4-28 Page 29 27 Jul 1987
otherwise) I receive, I'm not the most organized person and I'm
fairly certain I missed a few somewhere. I'm still waiting to
hear from the person using the pseudonym "Ender Wiggin," unless
you're worried about Jane eavesdropping? (for an understanding of
this read "Ender's Game" and "Speaker for the Dead" by Orson
Scott Card). I'd like to thank you for the package you sent,
although I don't have much use for it now. Hope to see all of you
at FidoCon.
Dale Lovell
3266 Vezber Drive
Seven Hills, OH 44131
FidoNet 1:157/504.1
uucp:
decvax\
>!cwruecmp!hal\
cbosgd/ \
>!ncoast
ames\ /
talcott \ /
>!necntc/
harvard /
sri-nic/
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FidoNews 4-28 Page 30 27 Jul 1987
=================================================================
NOTICES
=================================================================
The Interrupt Stack
1 Aug 1987
Third Annual BBS Picnic in Edison, NJ. Please register before
July 10th. Admission is $7 for adults, $4 for 12 and under,
free for 5 and under. Contact John Kelley at 107/331 for
details.
20 Aug 1987
Start of the Fourth International FidoNet Conference, to be
held at the Radisson Mark Plaza Hotel in Alexandria, VA.
Contact Brian Hughes at 109/634 for more information. This is
FidoNet's big annual get-together, and is your chance to meet
all the people you've been talking with all this time. We're
hoping to see you there!
24 Aug 1989
Voyager 2 passes Neptune.
If you have something which you would like to see on this
calendar, please send a message to FidoNet node 1:1/1.
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FidoNews 4-28 Page 31 27 Jul 1987
OFFICIAL REGISTRATION FORM
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL FIDONET CONFERENCE
RADISSON MARK PLAZA HOTEL
ALEXANDRIA, VA.
AUGUST 20 - 23, 1987
Name _________________________________ Date _____________
Address ______________________________
City & State _________________________
Phone (Voice) ________________________
Net/Node Number ______________________
Phone (Data) _________________________
Number in Your Party _________________
Staying at the Radisson? _____________
Number of Rooms? _____________________
Arrival Date? ________________________
Departure Date? ______________________
Registration Fees: How Many Total
Full Conference $60.00 each ________ $________
Late registration $10.00 each ________ $________
(after Aug. 1)
Friday Night Banquet $30.00 each ________ $________
Saturday Luncheon $16.50 each ________ $________
Total Amount Included (Registration and Meals) $________
IFNA MEMBERS ONLY:
How many in your party will
be attending the Sunday morning
Board of Directors meeting? ________
Send your registration form and a check or money order to:
Fourth International FidoNet Conference
212 E. Capitol St., Washington, D.C. 20003
Attn: Brian H. Hughes -- voice: (202) 543-4200
This registration form does not include hotel accomodations. If
you wish to stay at the Radisson Mark Plaza Hotel, please contact
them directly and mention you are with the FidoNet Conference.
Conference room rates are $80/night for single or double
occupancy, and $20/night for an extra cot.
Radisson Mark Plaza Hotel
5000 Seminary Rd., Alexandria, Va. 22311
1-800-228-9822
-----------------------------------------------------------------
FidoNews 4-28 Page 32 27 Jul 1987
Bob Morris 141/333
Chairman, Elections and Nominations Committee
The next two pages are your Official ballot for the Election of
the IFNA Board of Directors. The following are the few rules
which must prevail in this election:
1. You must send a legible copy of this ballot to the address
listed on the ballot. It must be signed and bear your
net/node number.
2. You may vote for any one person in your region for the
position of Regional Director. This vote is to be cast in the
LEFT column of the ballot.
3. You may vote for any eleven people in any regions for the
position of Director at Large. These votes are to be cast in
the RIGHT column of the ballot.
4. Voting will continue until the end of registration at the
Conference in August. The results will be read during the
opening of the business meeting on the first day of the
conference.
5. Write-in Votes will be accepted and are requested during this
election.
FidoNews 4-28 Page 33 27 Jul 1987
IFNA Board Of Directors
Ballot
Regional At Large
Region 10:
Steve Jordan _________ ________
Region 11:
Ryugen Fisher _________ ________
Theodore Polczynski _________ ________
Region 12:
Region 13:
Don Daniels _________ ________
John Penberthy _________ ________
Thom Henderson _________ ________
Gee Wong _________ ________
Brian Hughes _________ ________
Region 14:
Ben Baker _________ ________
Ken Kaplan _________ ________
Brad Hicks _________ ________
Region 15:
David Dodell _________ ________
Larry Wall _________ ________
Region 16:
Bob Hartman _________ ________
Hal Duprie _________ ________
Region 17:
Rob Barker _________ ________
Bob Swift _________ ________
Region 18:
Wes Cowley _________ ________
FidoNews 4-28 Page 34 27 Jul 1987
Region 19:
Mark Grennan _________ ________
Wynn Wagner _________ ________
Region 2:
Henk Wevers _________ ________
Write-in candidates:
___________________ _________ ________
___________________ _________ ________
Name ______________________________ Net/Node ___________
Signature______________________________ Date ___________
Please complete this and mail it to:
Robert Morris
IFNA Elections Committee
210 Church Street
West Haven, Ct. 06516
or bring it with you when you come to the conference in August.
These ballots will be counted by myself since with 200 members
the charges for a CPA would be very high. Hard copies will be
made available to anyone wishing to insure that their vote was
included.
Thank You
Bob Morris
Elections and Nominations Committee
-----------------------------------------------------------------
--
Tim Pozar
UUCP pozar@hoptoad.UUCP
Fido 125/406
USNail KLOK-FM
77 Maiden Lane
San Francisco CA 94108