• FidoNews 38:20 [00/09]: The Front Page

    From FidoNews Robot@2:2/2 to All on Mon May 17 02:28:22 2021
    The F I D O N E W S Volume 38, Number 20 17 May 2021 +--------------------------+-----------------------------------------+
    | |The newsletter of the | | |
    | | FidoNet community. | | Netmail attach to (POTS): |
    | | | | Editor @ 2:2/2 (+46-31-960447) |
    | | ____________| | |
    | | / __ | Netmail attach to (BinkP): |
    | | / / \ | Editor @ 2:203/0 |
    | | WOOF! ( /|oo \ | |
    | \_______\(_| /_) | Email attach to: |
    | _ @/_ \ _ | b @ felten dot se |
    | | | \ \\ | |
    | | (*) | \ ))| |
    | |__U__| / \// | Editor: Bj”rn Felten |
    | ______ _//|| _\ / | |
    | / Fido \ (_/(_|(____/ | Newspapers should have no friends. |
    | (________) (jm) | -- JOSEPH PULITZER | +--------------------------+-----------------------------------------+


    Table of Contents
    1. FOOD FOR THOUGHT ......................................... 1
    2. GENERAL ARTICLES ......................................... 2
    100 IPv6 nodes ........................................... 2
    BBS curation and community building ...................... 3
    3. ADAM'S COLUMN - ADAM PARK ................................ 5
    Land of Devastation Grind Guide Pt1 ...................... 5
    4. LIST OF FIDONET IPV6 NODES ............................... 7
    List of IPv6 nodes ....................................... 7
    5. JAMNNTPD SERVERS LIST .................................... 10
    The Johan Billing JamNNTPd project ....................... 10
    6. FIDONEWS'S FIDONET SOFTWARE LISTING ...................... 11
    7. SPECIAL INTEREST ......................................... 18
    Statistics from the Fidoweb .............................. 18
    Nodelist Stats ........................................... 19
    8. FIDONEWS INFORMATION ..................................... 21
    How to Submit an Article ................................. 21
    Credits, Legal Infomation, Availability .................. 23
    --- Azure/NewsPrep 3.0
    * Origin: Home of the Fidonews (2:2/2.0)
  • From FidoNews Robot@2:2/2 to All on Mon May 17 02:28:22 2021
    =================================================================
    FOOD FOR THOUGHT =================================================================

    Consider, when you are enraged at any one, what you would probably
    think if he should die during the dispute.

    -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

    -----------------------------------------------------------------
    --- Azure/NewsPrep 3.0
    * Origin: Home of the Fidonews (2:2/2.0)
  • From FidoNews Robot@2:2/2 to All on Mon May 17 02:28:22 2021
    =================================================================
    GENERAL ARTICLES =================================================================

    100 IPv6 nodes
    By Michiel van der Vlist, 2:280/5555


    This week's list of IPv6 nodes is special. It has been a decade
    ago that the first Binkp IPv6 connect was made and in the beginning
    the growth of IPv6 nodes was exponential. About 5 years ago the
    growth became linear ad 2 years ago the growth leveled of. It seemed
    that the growth of IPv6 no longer compensated for the shrink of
    Fidonet and I had already come to terms with the idea that we may
    never reach 100.

    This year we had some influx of returnees and also some new nodes.
    A significant fraction of them entered Fidonet full dual stack.
    That gave a boost to the number of IPv6 capabable nodes and now all
    of a sudden we passed the 100 mark.

    And the winner is:.... <sound of drums>

    100 1:134/102 Shelley Petersen Native Hurricane El. f

    Congratulations to Shelley.

    Actually Shelley is not the 100st sysop to run an IPv6 node. She is
    now #100 on the list. Over the years some of the IPv6 nodes have
    left Fidonet or stopped supporting IPv6, but I have not kept records
    of that. The list is a record of currently active IPv6 nodes.

    So now what? Up to 200 of course!




    -----------------------------------------------------------------
    BBS curation and community building
    Kostie Muirhed - 1:134/101

    Partially to celebrate the return of net 134, and partially inspired
    by Steve Weinert's recent article recounting his experiences returning
    to the scene, I figured I might try my hand at submit my first
    Fidonews article. Before getting into the meat of things, I'd like to
    offer a quick plea that you do not take any of the following in a
    critical or negative manner, as it's meant to offer a positive outlook
    and one opinion at looking forward to the future.

    I, like many, was first baptized into the world of BBSes and the
    futuristic feel of worldwide echo discourse during the height of
    popularity of both in the 90s. While I was among the ranks that
    started splitting their phone usage between the BBS world and the
    Internet, I never found a replacement for the intimate and curated
    experience found on a well maintained BBS and was saddened every time
    another local board dropped off. Around that time, as many will
    recall, there was a major rush of boards onto the Telnet scene. I was
    like a kid in a candy store "calling" into boards from all over the
    continent without concern about long distance rates, always curious to
    see what experience the sysop had carefully and proudly put together
    for their users. The expanse of different ANSI and RIP artwork used
    for answer screens and menus, and the changing out of screens and
    artwork for holidays and special occasions was purely magical. Every
    board had a slightly different feel to the community as well, and you
    could quickly get a feel for the types of users you'd encounter during
    your visits to a particular board by the types of message areas they
    had, and the message counts in each.

    Somewhere along the line we've lost a lot of what made this hobby such
    a unique experience for newcomers. Note that I'm not saying we've lost
    what made this hobby great, as there's still a great deal to
    differentiate the experiences from the wider internet in a positive
    manner, and there's certainly opportunity for positive change. What I
    am saying is that as a whole, as a community, we seem to have moved
    away from creating an inviting and memorable space and experience for
    newcomers and returning faces, and more towards setting up our own
    personal utility portal to access the message groups. If I pick a
    random listing from the telnet BBS list, I can almost guarantee I'll
    be met with the stock Synchronet menus, 200+ fidonet and othernet
    echoes thrown into a message group, the same couple pre-installed
    doors, and more often than not these days it'll be hosted off in the
    cloud on some cheap vps.

    I know I've been guilty of hoarding echoes too, but nobody wants to
    wade through 200+ message groups to try and find one they might be
    interested in reading or posting in. Nobody is going to use the new
    message scan if the default is ALL those groups either. The default
    menu set for most board software is either objectively bad, or so
    common that it quickly gets very samey for anyone calling more than a
    couple boards.

    If what attracts you personally to the hobby is just having your own
    personal portal but you just want to feel like someone else *could*
    use it, more power to you and you'll hear no further criticism from
    me. For the rest of us who enjoy putting things together for external consumption or community development though, we're missing some
    opportunities. I don't want to try to dictate the best or right way to
    get the curation experience back, but here are some ideas for
    starters:

    1) If you run your board in the cloud, try setting a terminal up
    to monitor it remotely. I had a caller the other day who was born
    after the scene had died down, but had heard about telnet
    accessible boards through a semi popular youtube channel. I broke
    into chat with him and his mind was BLOWN. Remember that feeling
    the first time it happened to you? I'd hazard a guess that that
    moment started many of us down the path to becoming sysops.

    2) Toy with the idea of curating a selection of echoes that fit
    the interests of a community you can picture building. Maybe that
    community is centered around where you are physically, or maybe it
    centers around an interest or subject that you find interesting.
    I'm not saying you need to remove everything else, but maybe at
    least put that curated selection in a group of it's own and make
    sure the rest are off for scan by default, or whatever the
    equivalent is for your software package.

    3) Try finding a unique door game that you enjoy or enjoyed.

    4) Update or customize your menus. Either fully, or just adding
    some art or ANSI/RIP into the mix.

    5) Change out your art. Be it your answer screen, your logon
    screen, a bulletin, or logoff. Change something.

    You don't have to do all of the above, or necessarily any of them if
    you have other ideas. But my challenge to everyone this week is to
    change or update ONE thing on your board this week, and then tell
    someone about it and get feedback. I won't promise it will bring new
    users screaming and hollering to your door, but I CAN guarantee that
    it will remind you of the joy of building something unique to put out
    into the world. I know I'll be trying to take my own advice; I hope
    you'll join me.

    Peace, long life, and happy trails to you all.
    Kostie Muirhead (1:134/101)

    -----------------------------------------------------------------
    --- Azure/NewsPrep 3.0
    * Origin: Home of the Fidonews (2:2/2.0)
  • From FidoNews Robot@2:2/2 to All on Mon May 17 02:28:22 2021
    =================================================================
    ADAM'S COLUMN - ADAM PARK =================================================================

    Land of Devastation Grind Guide Pt 1
    Adam Park 1:134/302


    Foreword by Kostie Muirhead:
    Many of you are likely at least familiar with the existence of the
    door game Land of Devastation (LOD). For those that aren't, it is
    probably one of if not the most in depth door games produced. It was a
    joy hosting Adam before his board went live, and his walkthrough is
    second to none (literally, I looked and couldn't find any others).
    - Kostie

    ****

    Watch this space over the next several weeks for an article series
    meant to chronicle the most effective builds and grind order for this
    epic old game. This week serves mostly as an introduction, and
    overview of what to expect out of this guide series.

    ****

    Coming sections/Table of Contents:

    1) About

    2) General Gameplay Guidelines

    3) Shopping Recommendations

    4) Stat Points
    4a) Overview of Sources of Stat Points
    4b) How to Distribute Stat Points for this Build

    5) Combat Strategy

    6) Tables
    6a) Leveling Order
    6b) Key Purchase Order

    7) Grind Guide
    7a) Zone 1
    7b) Zone 2
    7c) Drugs: Everything in Moderation
    7d) Zone 3
    7e) Zone 4
    7f) Zone 5
    7g) Shrine of Hercules
    7h) Zone 6
    7i) Endgame content

    8) Supplemental Information

    1) About

    This is meant to be an experience, money, build and equipment guide,
    not a full do-everything-for-you walkthrough; this guide also assumes
    a basic familiarity with the game and controls, which are reasonably
    easy to figure out, and there are instructions for them elsewhere
    online. I a believe that people should play through games mostly for themselves, however, this game is pretty harsh, and, other than some
    basic "Here's a list of the game's quests, enemies and items" there's
    very little information currently available on the mechanics of the
    game and how to build up a good character.

    Compared to a modern RPG, this game is fairly harsh on a couple of
    fronts. Stat point assignment is permanent (without suggestions or
    much explanation) and there are a couple of ways to permanently lose
    (or prevent yourself from gaining) stat points throughout the game. Furthermore, itemization is not entirely straightforward and, because
    a fair bit of money and experience grinding is necessary, a trial and
    error method can be very frustrating and time-consuming, especially if
    you end up messing your character up and wanting to start over. My aim
    here, then, is to make a guide that puts you on the right path of a
    good build while still maintaining the basic exploration and quest
    challenges of the game.

    I have structured this guide to be a way through the game "as it was
    intended to be played", so I have not included a couple of exploits
    that essentially break the game. These were likely oversights never
    updated out, rather than intended parts of gameplay. (Unlike regular
    released games, BBS games were commonly "works in progress" that were
    always being updated and tinkered with, that said, other than a couple
    of loose ends, this game feels complete).

    This is also a very "vanilla" guide without a lot of extra fancy
    tricks that you can employ. For instance, every day every SSSS store
    on the map gets a different 40% off a random item special; these
    specials can allow you to get some strong items you might not be able
    to afford yet, or items that are not normally purchasable at all.
    Though this is something you can do, and I recommend checking the SSSS
    stores regularly, I haven't included this point as part of the guide
    because my aim is to make more of a "consistent" guide that you can
    follow regardless of what happens to be on sale on particular day.


    Note: Other than the most minor hints as to the general progression of
    the game, this guide is essentially spoiler-free as far as quests and
    the storyline of the world goes. I'm one of those people who really
    doesn't like spoilers, so I've done my best to focus on the mechanics
    of gameplay, and generally don't talk about quests at all unless they
    pertain directly to your build.

    *****************************************************
    Stay tuned next week for general gameplay guidelines!
    ***************************************************** -----------------------------------------------------------------
    --- Azure/NewsPrep 3.0
    * Origin: Home of the Fidonews (2:2/2.0)
  • From FidoNews Robot@2:2/2 to All on Mon May 17 02:28:22 2021
    =================================================================
    LIST OF FIDONET IPV6 NODES =================================================================

    List of IPv6 nodes
    By Michiel van der Vlist, 2:280/5555

    Updated 16 May 2021


    Node Nr. Sysop Type Provider Remark

    1 2:280/464 Wilfred van Velzen Native Xs4All f
    2 2:280/5003 Kees van Eeten Native Xs4All f
    3 2:5019/40 Konstantin Kuzov T-6in4 he.net f
    4 2:280/5555 Michiel van der Vlist Native Ziggo f
    5 1:320/219 Andrew Leary Native Comcast f
    6 2:221/1 Tommi Koivula Native Hetzner f
    7 2:221/6 Tommi Koivula Native OVH
    8 2:5053/54 Denis Mikhlevich Native TTK-Volga
    9 2:5030/257 Vova Uralsky Native PCextreme
    10 1:154/10 Nicholas Bo‰l Native Spectrum f
    11 2:203/0 Bj”rn Felten T-6in4 he.net
    12 2:280/5006 Kees van Eeten Native Xs4All f INO4
    13 3:712/848 Scott Little T-6in4 he.net f
    14 2:5020/545 Alexey Vissarionov Native Hetzner f
    15 1:103/17 Stephen Hurd T-6in4 he.net
    16 2:5020/9696 Alexander Skovpen T-6in4 TUNNELBROKER-0
    17 2:421/790 Viktor Cizek T-6in4 he.net
    18 2:222/2 Kim Heino Native TeliaSonera
    19 3:633/280 Stephen Walsh Native AusNetServers f
    20 2:463/877 Alex Shuman Native Nline f IO
    21 1:19/10 Matt Bedynek T-6in4 he.net
    22 3:770/1 Paul Hayton T-6in4 he.net
    23 2:5053/58 Alexander Kruglikov Native TTK-Volga f
    24 1:103/1 Stephen Hurd Native Choopa
    25 3:633/281 Stephen Walsh Native Internode
    26 2:310/31 Richard Menedetter Native DE-NETCUP f
    27 3:633/410 Tony Langdon Native IINET
    28 2:5020/329 Oleg Lukashin Native Comfortel f
    29 2:246/1305 Emil Schuster Native TAL.DE
    30 2:2448/4000 Tobias Burchhardt Native DTAG IO
    31 2:331/51 Marco d'Itri Native BOFH-IT
    32 1:154/30 Mike Miller Native LINODE
    33 2:5001/100 Dmitry Protasoff Native OVH
    34 2:5059/38 Andrey Mundirov T-6in4 he.net
    35 2:240/5853 Philipp Giebel Native Hetzner
    36 2:5083/444 Peter Khanin Native OVH
    37 2:2452/413 Ingo Juergensmann Native RRBONE-COLO f
    38 1:123/10 Wayne Smith T-6in4 he.net
    39 2:4500/1 Eugene Kozhuhovsky Native DATAHATA6
    40 1:135/300 Eric Renfro Native Amazon.com
    41 1:103/13 Stephen Hurd Native Choopa
    42 2:5020/1042 Michael Dukelsky Native FORPSI Ktis f
    43 2:5095/0 Sergey V. Efimoff T-6in4 he.net
    44 2:5095/20 Sergey V. Efimoff T-6in4 he.net
    45 4:902/26 Fernando Toledo T-6in4 he.net
    46 2:5019/400 Konstantin Kuzov Native LT-LT
    47 2:467/239 Mykhailo Kapitanov Native Vultr f
    48 2:463/1331 Andrei Dzedolik Native DIGITALOCEAN
    49 2:5010/275 Evgeny Chevtaev T-6in4 TUNNELBROKER-0 f
    50 2:5020/736 Egor Glukhov Native RUWEB f
    51 2:280/2000 Michael Trip Native Xs4All
    52 2:230/38 Benny Pedersen Native Linode
    53 2:460/58 Stas Mishchenkov T-6in4 he.net f
    54 1:135/367 Antonio Rivera Native RRSW-V6
    55 2:5020/2123 Anton Samsonov T-6in4 he.net
    56 2:5020/2332 Andrey Ignatov Native ru.rtk
    57 2:5005/49 Victor Sudakov T-6in4 he.net f
    58 2:5005/77 Valery Lutoshkin T-6in4 NTS f
    59 2:5005/106 Alexey Osiyuk T-6in4 he.net f
    60 2:5057/53 Ivan Kovalenko Native ER-Telecom f
    61 2:5010/352 Dmitriy Smirnov Native EkranTV f
    62 2:292/854 Ward Dossche Native Proximus OO
    63 2:469/122 Sergey Zabolotny T-6in4 he.net f
    64 2:5053/400 Denis Mikhlevich Native TTK-Volga
    65 1:135/371 Eric Renfro Native Cox Cmmunctns
    66 2:421/21 Stepan Gabriel Native NETDATACOMM
    67 2:5030/1997 Alexey Fayans T-6in4 he.net
    68 1:220/70 Joseph Werle T-6in4 he.net
    69 2:5061/15 Eugene Gladchenko Native ARUBAUK-NET
    70 2:2452/502 Ludwig Bernhartzeder Native DTAG
    71 2:423/39 Karel Kral Native WEDOS
    72 2:5080/102 Stas Degteff T-6to4 NOVATOR
    73 2:280/1049 Simon Voortman Native Solcon
    74 1:102/127 Bradley Thornton Native Hetzner
    75 2:335/364 Fabio Bizzi Native IT-ALBACOM
    76 1:124/5016 Nigel Reed Native DAL1-US f
    77 2:5020/843 Peter Antonov Native BelCloud
    78 2:5075/37 Andrew Komardin Native IHC-NET
    79 1:153/146 Erich Bublitz Native LINODE-US
    80 1:106/633 William Williams Native LINODE-US PM *1
    81 2:263/5 Martin List-Petersen Native TuxBox
    82 2:5030/1520 Andrey Geyko T-6in4 he.net f
    83 1:229/664 Jay Harris Native Rogers
    84 1:142/103 Brian Rogers T-6in4 he.net
    85 1:134/101 Kostie Muirhead Native Hurricane El. f
    86 2:280/2030 Martien Korenblom Native Transip
    87 3:633/509 Deon George Native Telstra
    88 2:5020/4441 Yuri Myakotin Native SOVINTEL
    89 1:320/319 Andrew Leary Native Comcast f
    90 2:240/5824 Anna Christina Nass T-6in4 he.net f
    91 2:460/5858 Stas Mishchenkov T-6in4 he.net f INO4
    92 1:105/5 Michael Pierce Native Comcast
    93 1:218/401 James Downs Native ORG-TT1
    94 2:5030/3165 Serg Podtynnyi Native DIGITALOCEAN
    95 2:301/812 Benoit Panizon Native WOODYV6
    96 1:229/616 Vasily Losev Native GIGEPORT
    97 2:301/113 Alisha Manuela Stutz T-6in4 he.net
    98 2:5035/63 Vladimir Goncharov Native RFEIV6NET
    99 1:134/100 Kostie Muirhead Native Hurricane El. f
    100 1:134/102 Shelley Petersen Native Hurricane El. f
    101 1:134/103 Gordon Muirhead Native Hurricane El. f
    102 1:134/302 Adam Park Native Hurricane El. f


    T-6in4 Static 6in4
    T-AYIY Dynamic AYIYA
    T-6to4 6to4
    T-6RD 6RD

    Remarks:

    f Has a ::f1d0:<zone>:<net>:<node> style host address.
    (zone, net, node in decimal notation)
    IO Incoming only (Node can not make outgoing IPv6 calls)
    OO Outgoing only (Node can not accept incoming IPv6 calls).
    INO4 No IPv4 (Node can not accept incoming IPv4 calls).
    PO4 Prefers Out on 4 (Node can make outgoing IPv6 calls,
    but is configured to try IPv4 first)
    6DWN The IPv6 connectivity of this node is temporarely down.
    NO6 The node no longer presents an IPv6 address in the nodelist
    and will soon be removed from this list.
    DOWN This node is Down for both IPv4 and IPv6 and will be
    removed from this list if the condition pertains.
    PM Prospective Member. The node has demonstrated IPv6
    capability but is not listed or does not advertise an
    IPv6 address in the Fidonet nodelist yet.

    PM *1 [2600:3c01::f03c:91ff:fe2b:c319]


    Notes:

    To make an IPv6 connection to a node connected via 6to4 tunneling
    one may have to force the mailer into IPv6 (-6 option in binkd's
    node config for binkd up to 1.1a-96, -64 option for binkd 1.1a-97
    and up when compiled with AF_FORCE=1). If the destination address
    is a 6to4 tunnel address (2002::/16) many OSs default to IPv4 if
    an IPv4 address is present.


    Submitted on day 136

    -----------------------------------------------------------------
    --- Azure/NewsPrep 3.0
    * Origin: Home of the Fidonews (2:2/2.0)
  • From FidoNews Robot@2:2/2 to All on Mon May 17 02:28:22 2021
    =================================================================
    SPECIAL INTEREST =================================================================

    Last week's statistics from the Fidoweb
    By EchoTime, 2:203/0

    (Some nets may have lost their last
    digit for technical reasons)

    pkt (toss-toss) msg (write-toss)
    nodes mean dev no mean dev no

    154/* 3.7m 3.3m 641 0.8h 2.6h 641
    201/* 1.0m 0.4m 5 1.9h 4.4h 5
    221/* 0.7m 0.6m 610 4.0h 8.9h 610
    280/* 1.0m 3.0m 893 5.3h 9.6h 892
    292/* 5.6m 9.1m 82 3.2h 3.9h 81
    320/* 2.0m 0.8m 219 3.4h 15.8h 219
    502/* 0.6m 0.6m 2 10.9h 15.1h 2

    Sigma 1.9m 3.3m 2452 3.6h 9.0h 2450

    -----------------------------------------------------------------
    Nodelist Stats

    Input nodelist nodelist.134
    size 186.8kb
    date 2021-05-14

    The nodelist has 1025 nodes in it
    and a total of 1483 non-comment entries

    including 4 zones
    33 regions
    174 hosts
    69 hubs
    admin overhead 280 ( 27.32 %)

    and 110 private nodes
    32 nodes down
    36 nodes on hold
    off line overhead 178 ( 17.37 %)


    Speed summary:

    >9600 = 48 ( 4.68 %)
    9600 = 192 ( 18.73 %)
    (HST = 3 or 1.56 %)
    (CSP = 0 or 0.00 %)
    (PEP = 0 or 0.00 %)
    (MAX = 0 or 0.00 %)
    (HAY = 0 or 0.00 %)
    (V32 = 81 or 42.19 %)
    (V32B = 18 or 9.38 %)
    (V34 = 94 or 48.96 %)
    (V42 = 82 or 42.71 %)
    (V42B = 19 or 9.90 %)
    2400 = 1 ( 0.10 %)
    1200 = 0 ( 0.00 %)
    300 = 784 ( 76.49 %)

    ISDN = 34 ( 3.32 %)

    -----------------------------------------------------
    IP Flags Protocol Number of systems -----------------------------------------------------
    IBN Binkp 802 ( 78.24 %) ----------------------------------
    IFC Raw ifcico 87 ( 8.49 %) ----------------------------------
    IFT FTP 61 ( 5.95 %) ----------------------------------
    ITN Telnet 164 ( 16.00 %) ----------------------------------
    IVM Vmodem 14 ( 1.37 %) ----------------------------------
    IP Other 4 ( 0.39 %) ----------------------------------
    INO4 IPv6 only 2 ( 0.20 %) ----------------------------------

    CrashMail capable = 887 ( 86.54 %)
    MailOnly nodes = 321 ( 31.32 %)
    Listed-only nodes = 23 ( 2.24 %)



    [Report produced by NETSTATS - A PD pgm]
    [ Revised by B Felten, 2:203/2]
    [ NetStats 3.8 2014-11-23]

    -----------------------------------------------------------------
    --- Azure/NewsPrep 3.0
    * Origin: Home of the Fidonews (2:2/2.0)