Articles

• Echomail Terrorism
• Latency of Echomail, and why we need
• Ex-Soviet Fido Is Alive And Kicking

ECHOMAIL TERRORISM
by David Hallford 1:208/103

There is a new breed of terrorist here in Fidonet - the EchoMail Terrorist. You probably know some of them. You know, the ones who only write in echomail and will never respond to your netmail. Ever wonder why? They're cowards. What they write in echomail is not covered by P4 at least here in Zone 1 (and the ZC who made that ruling is now the IC so it is logical to assume that it covers all of Fidonet).

Most of us are in a quandry about what to do with these folks. Some (like me) choose to no longer participate in echomail. Some choose to leave Fidonet. Many go to either the Internet or to other FTN networks.

Through our inaction these terrorists are in fact now running Fidonet. What can we do? Force the issue! If a moderator allows these actions in their echo - start another echo and ban the terrorist from it on day one! Before the "free speech' people get up in arms - these terrorists have no rights in an echo except those granted by the moderator so it is the moderators right to "refuse service". If these terrorists can't play nice then don't let them on the playground.

It really is that simple - let the old echos die a natural death and refuse to allow terrorists in the new echos.

Maybe then they can overcome their aversion to netmail and 'step up to the plate' like everyone else instead of cowardly hiding in the echos.

Latency of Echomail, and why we need
* By Joe Jared, 1:103/301 joejared@osirusoft.com

A couple weeks ago, I started campaigning heavily to improve thruput on the fidonet backbone. With George Peace leaving fidonet, latency will be a major issue, as nets find that their feeds for echomail have dried out. It also means that many of us at different levels of the backbone will have additional work to do, and unfortunately, that latency will increase. Currently, many of the FTP server hubs have scheduled events that occur once an hour, or once every 1/2 hour. Depending on your position, this can translate to as much as an hour for each hop along the backbone, and ultimately producing lags of a day or more. Until this problem is minimized at the top level hubs, we will experience slower traffic, which also translates to less messages. If it's not addressed promptly we will also see a loss of nodes, nets and possibly be watching one of the single worst disasters for fidonet, as people scramble to get their feed switched. Finding a new feed for echomail isn't difficult, but finding one that is responsive to your needs may be. For this reason, I have added yet another field to the list I have been maintaining, which will reflect also the responsiveness of the hub. Anyone may be added to this list just by asking, regardless of their affiliations. For purpose of definition, Latency is defined as the time in minutes that it takes for incomming mail to be processed AND enroute to the next level. If this process occurs immediately after the mail is received, then latency is 0. For a scheduled event, the time between events is what I'm looking for.

Ex-Soviet Fido Is Alive And Kicking

Modern netters think now of a Fido as of a dying net. The amount of nodes decreases, echos either dry out or became the part of a Usenet, Internet has kicked Fido out. Perhaps that is true in Zone1. Why shall a new user get a point and use some obsolete FTN soft if he can get cheap unlimited Internet access?

But here, in the countries of the former Soviet Union (the so-called "Zone 7") the situation is vice versa. The number of nodes increases, echomail traffic is fat, you can often meet a person, who says "Ha, I-net? I don't need it actually. I'm a Fido point and that's enough for me". Fido is even small for some, so they create dozens of local FTNs - "X-net", "DoomNet", "21-Century Net", etc... What causes such a great development?

Initially it is high internet prices. Full unlimited access costs something about $70 per month. And that's very expensive here. Why pay so much for an account if you can get a point number for some bottles of beer. (Though according to the policy, Fido membership is free, it's a common tradition here to buy some beers to your node when you are getting a number.) So a fresh point can pick out any echo he want - Region 2:50 backbone will satisfy all tastes. You can have the most exotic hobby and be sure that there certainly is a corresponding echo.

The problem is that "Zone 7" is mostly Russian-languge Fido. So international echos are not very popular. For example, Fidonews are read by a small quantity of nodes. That needs to be solved somehow - we must feel ourselves really a part of an Earthwide friends network.

Andrei Besedin from Kyiv, Ukraine.
Andrei_Besedin@p308.f566.n463.z2.fidonet.org