Editorial

Important information from Zone 2...it is much appreciated to see that there are those who understand the purposes of the FidoNews.

For those of you making international connections to Zone 2, or to Italy in particular, the two articles should be of interest to you.

Likewise, the introduction of the inter-Zone IP link via BinkP/ARGUS is welcome news for the future of FidoNet's development.

If any.

The doomsayers are out in force once more, claiming that FidoNet is soon to die, and without realizing what it is that FidoNet offers to the world of the InterNet.

Jim Cannell, SecureMail international coordinator, and I were discussing the fact that, like routed netmail or echomail, there is no real "direct link" between one Internet node and another...all of the packets are routed, and accessible to intervention.

What we had discussed was a way to generate encrypted packets over the InterNet which securely linked mail from one IP node to another, so that the only way to intercept mail would be to delete it.

This would all but eliminate packet-ramming; it would enhance the ability of a moderator to be sure that order could be maintained in a highly volatile echo...moreover, it could even be used to bring echomail to the functionality of a UseNet newsgroup while also insuring only that FidoNet-sourced nodes could feed to it.

After all, the two largest objections to bringing Fido to the level of the InterNet is lack of moderation and the likely appearance of 'spamming' or pornography offers...encrypting the packets, as well as password-protecting connections through BinkP and ARGUS connections, would bring these down to the level where if it did happen, it would be a simple matter to locate the exact source of the mail and have it stopped, since it would be a FidoNet node making the connection.

An idea to consider, no?

-zf-

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