On 31 May 2020, August Abolins said the following...

Is there a future for the techonology in FTN?

That will depend on us. Do we have any developers left in this hobby? Are
they willing to advance the technology?

What does the future for FTN look like?

Right now, it's uncertain. It is archaic technology by today's standards.

What does FTN really need to improve and advance?

Again, people who are willing to develop future advances, and people willing
to accept these changes.

Is FTN "stuck" in supporting the lowest common denominator?

Yes! How many times have we heard from developers, "We can't change that because we need it maintain legacy support". How can an hobby have any chance of survival when we are limiting ourselves by 1980s technology.

Can some aspects established in the 80's be depricated and abandoned by now?

Yes! they should have depreciated 25 years ago.

Can FTN be transformed by taking advantage of things like CockroachDB?

I'm not up to speed on CockroachDB, but if someone is willing to work on advancing this hobby, I'm am in 100% support.

Post YOUR questions, thoughts and ideas.

Be careful what you ask for. :)


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Black Panther(RCS)
Castle Rock BBS

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A45 2020/02/18 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Castle Rock BBS - bbs.castlerockbbs.com - (1:317/3)

On 01 Jun 20 12:26:19, Deon George said the following to August Abolins:

Well, what happens when something else is in that field? I suspect nothing, because it can either be numerical (a phone number), an IP address (I've se some implementations like this - prefixed with 000- IIRC), or text "-Unpublished-" as is used in some cases.

The phone number field is a "critical" field.

Nodelist compilers don't just read that field for the phone number, they often build a cost table around it. When something other than Unpublished is in that field, the assumption by at least three different compilers is that it must be numerical, and then prefix-checking is done against it. This is why you cannot have domain names in the phone number field as an example.

The use of 000- was a horrible ugly idea; a stopgap measure. From my understanding it was determined that a net-wide survey was done and many
Sysops discovered that Unpublished could be used without the Pvt flag. That effectively resolved the issue of using 000- IP addresses in the phone
number field. That eventually vanished in favour of the INA/IBN flags.

Nick

--- Renegade vY2Ka2
* Origin: Joey, do you like movies about gladiators? (1:229/426)

Hello Nick!

01 Jun 20 08:38, you wrote to Deon George:

The use of 000- was a horrible ugly idea; a stopgap measure. From my understanding it was determined that a net-wide survey was done and many Sysops discovered that Unpublished could be used without the Pvt flag.

Actually an internal test, that limited the use of -Unpublished- to lines tagged, with "Pvt", was removed.

That effectively resolved the issue of using 000- IP addresses in the phone number field. That eventually vanished in favour of the INA/IBN flags.

Unfortunately, after 5 years, some administrators are still reluctant to use -Unpublished-, when no phonenumber is know.

Kees

--- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.5--b20180707
* Origin: As for me, all I know is that, I know nothing. (2:280/5003.4)

On 07 Jun 2020, Nick Andre said the following...

I keep reading from those who ponder about Fido's future, about what the next mailer will look like, the next message format, the next whatever. What I never read, is what the next *user* will look like. Pretty
certain the next user will not be techie like us.

Oh, yes, I remember users... ;)

You're right. For us, there is a passion involved with getting everything set up to work properly, and change things to make them different from others. Someone just looking at the technology we are using, won't have that same passion. Is there a way to attract new users into this hobby?

The younger generation that uses messaging and social apps do not care about Linux, multi-protocol database structures or Wan transport topologies when using the apps. So, why expect the same for a new Fido user? Why must new software be the traditional mailer, tosser, nodelist, editor, etc. Why not just focus on messages?

In my opinion, it's not just the messages, but there would also need to be a graphical interface for them as well. Let's face it, in their lives, all they have known is the point-and-click, and tapping. Most of them would be lost at
a command prompt.

What would be really good is a mobile/tablet app that is so dumbed-down that it just focuses on messaging. Let the newcomer get their feet wet with that, and if they actually are techie or want a taste of nostalgia they can go ahead and experiment with mailers and BBS software.

Very good point. At this point, there really isn't even a good way to access the technology via a mobile device. Granted, I haven't looked at all of them, but from what I've seen, they are clumsy to work with.


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Black Panther(RCS)
Castle Rock BBS

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A45 2020/02/18 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Castle Rock BBS - bbs.castlerockbbs.com - (1:317/3)

On 07 Jun 2020, Ward Dossche said the following...

I was just wondering because it's an aspect about Fidonet that everybody knows ( or should know). "Having Dutch relatives" means presenting stuff in such a way t hat it seems one just made it up immediately after
having invented the water, fi re and wheel ... at the same time ... of course.

Ah, got it. That wasn't quite where I thought you were going with that question, but close. :)

I was just trying to state that things like supporting legacy software should be stopped, and work on advancing the technology so the hobby hopefully
doesn't die a slow, horrible death...


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Black Panther(RCS)
Castle Rock BBS

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A45 2020/02/18 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Castle Rock BBS - bbs.castlerockbbs.com - (1:317/3)

Hi August,

On 2020-08-09 12:05:00, you wrote to Dan Richter:

[3] Each account is tied to the phone number for the user. That might
be fine for the user (analogous to a BBS user or a point), but inorder
to work, the BBS sysop would have to sacrifice their phone's Telegram account to identify as the gateway-ID.

That's not strictly true! You only need a phonenumber for the account verification process. Once you have created the Telegram account you don't need it anymore:

https://social.techjunkie.com/use-telegram-without-phone-number/

Bye, Wilfred.

--- FMail-lnx64 2.1.0.18-B20170815
* Origin: FMail development HQ (2:280/464)

Hi, Wilfred!

10  ¢£ 20 13:51, Wilfred van Velzen -> August Abolins:

That's not strictly true! You only need a phonenumber for the account verification process. Once you have created the Telegram account you don't need it anymore:

https://social.techjunkie.com/use-telegram-without-phone-number/

Thank You. It's wery interesting for me.

Have nice nights.
Stas Mishchenkov.

--- Second try
* Origin: Lame Users Breeding. Simferopol, Crimea. (2:460/5858)

Hi, Wilfred!

13  ¢£ 20 14:15, Wilfred van Velzen -> Stas Mishchenkov:

That's not strictly true! You only need a phonenumber for the
account verification process. Once you have created the Telegram
account you don't need it anymore:

https://social.techjunkie.com/use-telegram-without-phone-number/

Thank You. It's wery interesting for me.

Did you use your own mobile number to create the Fido2telebot Telegram account?

Not. You don't need a phone number to create a bot. However, Brother Rabbit in the telegram used the real number for registration. ;)

Have nice nights.
Stas Mishchenkov.

--- ‘ ¬®¥ áâà è­®¥ ­¥ â®, çâ® ¬ë ⥯¥àì ¢§à®á«ë¥. € â®, çâ® ¢§à®á«ë¥ ⥯¥àì ¬ë
* Origin: Lame Users Breeding. Simferopol, Crimea. (2:460/5858)

On 14 Aug 2020, August Abolins said the following...

I succeeded getting through to the next level with one of the numbers. The SMS code showed up at freephonenum.com. I entered the code and then
I was transported to an "enter your cloud password" panel. What is that?

I could not get passed that.

It sounds like someone has already registered a Telegram account with that phone number & has enabled two factor authentication.

Jay

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/11 (Windows/32)
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