In article <t0fp43$ftj$1@dont-email.me>, Rich <rich@example.invalid> wrote:
>Dan Cross <cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net> wrote:
>> While that's all true, I imagine that the centrally managed
>> telephone systems are more susceptible to severed links than the
>> Internet at large;
>
>Compared to the internet as originally intended, yes. But the modern
>internet, with the small handfull of ISP's per geographical area, with
>all customers connected in star patterns to those ISP's, has produced a
>network wiring diagram reality that looks much like those "centrally
>managed telephone systems" of old.

All fair points.

- Dan C.

On 3/11/22 7:01 AM, Dan Cross wrote:
> While that's all true, I imagine that the centrally managed telephone
> systems are more susceptible to severed links than the Internet at
> large;

Probably. But I wouldn't bet more than a cup of coffee on it. It's my
understanding that the PSTN has become far more dynamic than it used to
be. As such, I expect that the majority of it can route around
problems. At least more so today than it could 20 / 40 years ago.

> it's certainly more susceptible to wire-tapping by authoritarian
> dictatorships.

The PSTN itself, probably. Things going across the PSTN, well that's
going to be far more dependent on what clients use.

> The idea that dial-up is a viable alternative to the Internet to
> circumvent censorship is a fantasy people tell themselves. To the
> extent that it's effective at all, it's because the powers that be
> can't be bothered to shut it off.

I feel the need to clarify that I'm talking about ad-hoc point-to-point
dial up connections between individuals. This is decidedly different
than the traditional dial-up ISP model. Think more akin to BBS / UUCP
systems / networks of yore. Especially if done from a notebook with a
modem as a road warrior.

Information /can/, and arguably /will/ flow. It will just be far more
text than video that people seem to have become accustom to consuming.

--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

On 3/11/22 7:09 AM, Dan Cross wrote:
> They will fare poorly.

:-(

> Pretty much every FTN-style network is moving traffic over the Internet
> these days, mostly on well-known ports.

I can't even pretend to be surprised that the Internet is the preferred
transport.

> The entire thing is based on a hub-and-spoke model, so while it
> _can_ be point-to-point, most nodes send to a hub that then sends
> to other nodes in the "network".

The hub-and-spoke nature surprises me more than a little bit.

I would have naively assumed that there would be something closer to a
full mesh where systems could accept inbound connections.

I get systems that can't accept inbound connections would need to ""call
out to something else to retrieve messages.

> Again, this is pretty much all done over TCP/IP. Fidonet in particular
> has relied on the Internet for trans-Atlantic communications since
> 1991; for all intents and purposes, FTN networks are applications
> of the Internet, so cutting Internet access cuts off FTNs, as does
> shutting down the hubs.

Interesting.

> Most of the hubs are either running on home machines or VPSen
> somewhere, and most BBS "sysops" are not particularly technical.
> State-level actors easily could knock FTN hubs offline using DDoS
> attacks, or just infiltrate the nodes and watch the (unencrypted and
> unauthenticated) traffic flow.

I'm not surprised by that.

> Some of the proponents will say, "but we can fall back to dial-up!"
> But it is perhaps even easier to cut off dialup access than the
> Internet. At that point you'd be better off using UUCP anyway.

Please elaborate on it being easier to cut off dial up access than the
Internet?

I would think that UUCP would be akin to dial up.

I can see one advantage of sticking with FTN over switching to UUCP.
Presuming that you were starting with FTN. Sticking with FTN would
maintain addressing. Conversely switching to UUCP (or anything else)
would change addressing and likely disrupt a lot of things.

--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

On 3/11/22 2:41 AM, Eric Pozharski wrote:
> I explicitly withhold all education because nobody cares about it.

That's demonstrably false because I care.

--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

Grant Taylor <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> wrote:

[...]

> Information /can/, and arguably /will/ flow. It will just be far more
> text than video that people seem to have become accustom to consuming.
>

The thing about consuming video is that it's easy.
You don't have to learn to read to watch video.

--
^Ï^ "Wax on, wax off." -- Mr Miyagi

My pet rock Gordon just is.

Grant Taylor <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> wrote:
> On 3/11/22 7:09 AM, Dan Cross wrote:
>> They will fare poorly.
>
> :-(
>
>> Pretty much every FTN-style network is moving traffic over the Internet
>> these days, mostly on well-known ports.
>
> I can't even pretend to be surprised that the Internet is the preferred
> transport.
>
>> The entire thing is based on a hub-and-spoke model, so while it
>> _can_ be point-to-point, most nodes send to a hub that then sends
>> to other nodes in the "network".
>
> The hub-and-spoke nature surprises me more than a little bit.

I suspect (as a former sysop) that that's a holdover from when most Fidonet
traffic traveled over phone lines. All hosts within the local net exchanged
mail and messages with one designated host that would sort out local traffic
and make the needed long-distance calls. That meant that most hosts would
only need to make local calls (which were free) to stay up-to-date. I seem
to recall paying a small amount annually to the sysop who was making those
long-distance calls to defray his expenses.

As for why this never changed: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. :)

(FWIW, 1:209 got some sort of Internet connection back in '93 or '94. I
recall it mainly being used as a Usenet and email gateway. By this point,
my BBS was running on an early version of Linux on probably a 386SX, with a
simple menu system replacing the shell for most users. I had
comp.sys.apple2, rec.arts.startrek, and a few other groups being unwrapped
from Fidonet format into a news spool, while Fidonet echoes were mapped into
a local fidonet.* hierarchy. Everything got read with trn. :) )

--
_/_
/ v \ Scott Alfter (remove the obvious to send mail)
(IIGS( https://alfter.us/ Top-posting!
\_^_/ >What's the most annoying thing on Usenet?

On 2022-03-11, Dan Cross <cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net> wrote:
> Most of the hubs are either running on home machines or VPSen
> somewhere, and most BBS "sysops" are not particularly technical.
> State-level actors easily could knock FTN hubs offline using
> DDoS attacks, or just infiltrate the nodes and watch the
> (unencrypted and unauthenticated) traffic flow.

Huh, what's the motivating factor of running these BBSes then. Is it
just keeping-the-lights-on?

On 3/11/22 12:05 PM, Sn!pe wrote:
> The thing about consuming video is that it's easy.
> You don't have to learn to read to watch video.

Sure.

But what provides more information? A video that you can't get to or
reading text that you can get to?

--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

On 3/11/22 12:46 PM, meff wrote:
> Huh, what's the motivating factor of running these BBSes then. Is it
> just keeping-the-lights-on?

I think almost all BBSs fall into the Retro Computing / Retro Networking
category these days.

I'll allow for the possibility of actual use of BBS as a technology
choice somewhere on the planet.

--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

Rich <rich@example.invalid> wrote:
> Dan Cross <cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net> wrote:
>> While that's all true, I imagine that the centrally managed
>> telephone systems are more susceptible to severed links than the
>> Internet at large;
>
> Compared to the internet as originally intended, yes. But the modern
> internet, with the small handfull of ISP's per geographical area, with
> all customers connected in star patterns to those ISP's, has produced a
> network wiring diagram reality that looks much like those "centrally
> managed telephone systems" of old.

Yep and in Australia they are all centrally managed as they all use
the same infrastructure of the National Broadband Network (besides
mobile broadband and maybe some small community networks). I don't
know about how things work in Russia. If they're as weak at
blocking websites as the Australian government, then they just made
all their ISPs remove the domains of the blocked sites from their
DNS servers. :)

Packet radio (eg. D-STAR) would be more difficult to control.
Though obviously open to jamming and location-finding, that would
at least be much harder than with phone lines, especially if using
directional links.

Satellite internet is also an option if someone running it from
another country is willing to provide free access or there's a
way of paying for it from the afflicted country without getting
locked up.

--
__ __
#_ < |\| |< _#

On 3/11/22 2:12 PM, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
> Packet radio (eg. D-STAR) would be more difficult to control.

Yep.

> Though obviously open to jamming and location-finding, that would
> at least be much harder than with phone lines, especially if using
> directional links.

It's also illegal at the moment in Ukraine. They have temporarily
suspended amateur radio privileges. As such, I suspect it's illegal in
other countries to communicate with a ham in a location that's known to
be suspended.

But those are legality / paper tiger issues compared to can we establish
communications or not. Or at the very least, deal with them later,
after the immediate need for the communications is past.

> Satellite internet is also an option if someone running it from
> another country is willing to provide free access or there's a way
> of paying for it from the afflicted country without getting locked up.

Yep. StarLink has been in the (tech) news quite a bit the last couple
of weeks for this very reason.

--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

In article <t0g32e$7o4$1@tncsrv09.home.tnetconsulting.net>,
Grant Taylor <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> wrote:
>On 3/11/22 7:01 AM, Dan Cross wrote:
>> While that's all true, I imagine that the centrally managed telephone
>> systems are more susceptible to severed links than the Internet at
>> large;
>
>Probably. But I wouldn't bet more than a cup of coffee on it. It's my
>understanding that the PSTN has become far more dynamic than it used to
>be. As such, I expect that the majority of it can route around
>problems. At least more so today than it could 20 / 40 years ago.

Protocols like SS7 surely help, but the thing that has made it
so reliable is massive redundancy and centrally managed systems.

>> it's certainly more susceptible to wire-tapping by authoritarian
>> dictatorships.
>
>The PSTN itself, probably. Things going across the PSTN, well that's
>going to be far more dependent on what clients use.
>
>> The idea that dial-up is a viable alternative to the Internet to
>> circumvent censorship is a fantasy people tell themselves. To the
>> extent that it's effective at all, it's because the powers that be
>> can't be bothered to shut it off.
>
>I feel the need to clarify that I'm talking about ad-hoc point-to-point
>dial up connections between individuals. This is decidedly different
>than the traditional dial-up ISP model. Think more akin to BBS / UUCP
>systems / networks of yore. Especially if done from a notebook with a
>modem as a road warrior.

Yes, I understood that. What I'm saying is that that is just
as, if not even more, susceptible to suppresion, than the
Internet.

In general, dial-up "networking" a la FTN is useless without the
Internet, and even easier to suppress. Consider a BBS: someone
has to be hosting it somewhere to dial into. A state-level
actor has any number of mechanisms to shut it down: for
instance, they could trivially rig up half a dozen phones to
call it continually, thus keeping the line perpetually busy; an
analog DDoS attach.

While it's true that point-to-point communications may not be
attached specifically, the same is true of point-to-point data
flow between Internet-connected computers. Moreover, to dial
into some place, I'm basically doing that from set physical
location: no trampolining through a VPS on the other side of
the world, protected by a VPN.

>Information /can/, and arguably /will/ flow. It will just be far more
>text than video that people seem to have become accustom to consuming.

There are cases in recent history of telephony networks being
taken offline at the behest of local governments, while Internet
access remained viable in some limited capacity. E.g., during
the Arab Spring. And while there were much-touted reports of
people rolling out BBSes talking to Fidonet to circumvent
Intenet censorship, I've never found any credible evidence that
that _actually_ happened: just people talking about it.

Moreover, almost all BBSes are completely unencrypted.

I suppose it's possible people could communicate real-time
person to person over dialup, but the reach would be seriously
limited: why not just talk on the phone?

Honestly, ham radio is probably much harder to silence, but
carries its own risks (direction finding and so on).

- Dan C.

In article <t0g3i1$2d5$1@tncsrv09.home.tnetconsulting.net>,
Grant Taylor <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> wrote:
>On 3/11/22 7:09 AM, Dan Cross wrote:
>[snip]
>> The entire thing is based on a hub-and-spoke model, so while it
>> _can_ be point-to-point, most nodes send to a hub that then sends
>> to other nodes in the "network".
>
>The hub-and-spoke nature surprises me more than a little bit.
>
>I would have naively assumed that there would be something closer to a
>full mesh where systems could accept inbound connections.
>
>I get systems that can't accept inbound connections would need to ""call
>out to something else to retrieve messages.

In theory, they _can_ do that. In practice, they tend _not_ to.
There are also two separable use-cases: netamil (basically,
email) and echomail (roughly analogous to USENET). The former
is more ammenable to point-to-point mesh-style connections; the
latter almost always flows through a hub.

>[snip]
>> Some of the proponents will say, "but we can fall back to dial-up!"
>> But it is perhaps even easier to cut off dialup access than the
>> Internet. At that point you'd be better off using UUCP anyway.
>
>Please elaborate on it being easier to cut off dial up access than the
>Internet?

The Internet, by design, can route around broken links, and end
devices can usually take on any IP address they're configured
with. In contrast, a land-line telephone is tied to a physical
location and a single identifier. I could, in theory, plug my
home network into some kind of IP over RF network and it would
work; not so much my phone. Notably, at this point, most
people's phones are little radios anyway and speak IP natively.

>I would think that UUCP would be akin to dial up.

Sorry, two separate thoughts; IF I were using dialup, I'd use
UUCP instead of FTN.

>I can see one advantage of sticking with FTN over switching to UUCP.
>Presuming that you were starting with FTN. Sticking with FTN would
>maintain addressing. Conversely switching to UUCP (or anything else)
>would change addressing and likely disrupt a lot of things.

I think there are well-defined standards for translating between
UUCP addresses and ARPANET style addresses. FTN? Not so much.
Really, FTN is poor technology and should be avoided.

- Dan C.

In article <t0g8vc$p61$1@dont-email.me>, meff <email@example.com> wrote:
>On 2022-03-11, Dan Cross <cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net> wrote:
>> Most of the hubs are either running on home machines or VPSen
>> somewhere, and most BBS "sysops" are not particularly technical.
>> State-level actors easily could knock FTN hubs offline using
>> DDoS attacks, or just infiltrate the nodes and watch the
>> (unencrypted and unauthenticated) traffic flow.
>
>Huh, what's the motivating factor of running these BBSes then. Is it
>just keeping-the-lights-on?

Some people just enjoy it, I think. For many it's a sense of
nostalgia; for others, they like it in the same way some folks
like futzing about with antiquated teletypes or using morse
code over ham radio.

- Dan C.

In article <t0gif6$udj$1@tncsrv09.home.tnetconsulting.net>,
Grant Taylor <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> wrote:
>On 3/11/22 2:12 PM, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
>> Packet radio (eg. D-STAR) would be more difficult to control.
>
>Yep.
>
>> Though obviously open to jamming and location-finding, that would
>> at least be much harder than with phone lines, especially if using
>> directional links.
>
>It's also illegal at the moment in Ukraine. They have temporarily
>suspended amateur radio privileges. As such, I suspect it's illegal in
>other countries to communicate with a ham in a location that's known to
>be suspended.

The funny thing is...Russian soldiers have been seen using
Baofeng HTs on 2m in the clear. Apparently, they just can't
get the military grade encrypted stuff. It seems the Russians
sent in the cannon fodder first and didn't give them any
gear.

>But those are legality / paper tiger issues compared to can we establish
>communications or not. Or at the very least, deal with them later,
>after the immediate need for the communications is past.

I mean, if I were in Kyiv or Mariupol right now, I'd be more
worried about an 82mm mortar round landing on QTH or a 120mm
sabot round coming through the window after DF'ing me than
whatever the licensing authority has to say about pulling my
ticket. But if I could call in a fire mission on a T-72 in the
open or confuse the Russians by transmitting nonsense on their
freqs....

- Dan C.

On 3/11/22 7:08 PM, Dan Cross wrote:
> The funny thing is...

I don't think there is anything funny about this. I will admit there is
some irony in what you said.

> I mean, if I were in Kyiv or Mariupol right now, I'd be more worried
> about an 82mm mortar round landing on QTH or a 120mm sabot round
> coming through the window after DF'ing me than whatever the licensing
> authority has to say about pulling my ticket. But if I could call
> in a fire mission on a T-72 in the open or confuse the Russians by
> transmitting nonsense on their freqs....

I completely agree on all accounts.

--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

On 3/11/22 6:47 PM, Dan Cross wrote:
> Protocols like SS7 surely help, but the thing that has made it so
> reliable is massive redundancy and centrally managed systems.

ACK

> Yes, I understood that. What I'm saying is that that is just as,
> if not even more, susceptible to suppresion, than the Internet.
>
> In general, dial-up "networking" a la FTN is useless without the
> Internet, and even easier to suppress.

I don't agree.

I'm thinking of something akin to FidoNet of the days of yore where
there was no Internet and multiple BBSs formed the network.

> Consider a BBS: someone has to be hosting it somewhere to dial into.
> A state-level actor has any number of mechanisms to shut it down:
> for instance, they could trivially rig up half a dozen phones to call
> it continually, thus keeping the line perpetually busy; an analog
> DDoS attach.

And what if the BBS is behind a different phone number each day? Or if
you can't use BBS #1, use BBS #2.

Maybe I'm asking too much of FTNs or thinking they can be made to be
more dynamic.

I do think that such could be done via UUCP between news servers. Each
server would flood messages to all the other servers.

> While it's true that point-to-point communications may not be attached
> specifically, the same is true of point-to-point data flow between
> Internet-connected computers. Moreover, to dial into some place,
> I'm basically doing that from set physical location: no trampolining
> through a VPS on the other side of the world, protected by a VPN.

I'm thinking more a notebook computer with a modem that's moving from
place to place.

> There are cases in recent history of telephony networks being taken
> offline at the behest of local governments, while Internet access
> remained viable in some limited capacity. E.g., during the Arab
> Spring. And while there were much-touted reports of people rolling
> out BBSes talking to Fidonet to circumvent Intenet censorship, I've
> never found any credible evidence that that _actually_ happened:
> just people talking about it.

ACK

> Moreover, almost all BBSes are completely unencrypted.

True.

But the BBS is in many ways a means to an end; communications through
the network (FTN or otherwise) that is interconnecting them.

Also, individual messages can be encrypted, much like email, such that
someone without the decryption information only has (hopefully minimal)
metadata.

> I suppose it's possible people could communicate real-time person
> to person over dialup, but the reach would be seriously limited:
> why not just talk on the phone?

Agreed.

Though it's probably easier to do voice encryption and exchange the data
therefrom.

> Honestly, ham radio is probably much harder to silence, but carries
> its own risks (direction finding and so on).

Yep.

Being mobile is key.

--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

On 3/11/22 6:55 PM, Dan Cross wrote:
> In theory, they _can_ do that. In practice, they tend _not_ to.

:-/

> There are also two separable use-cases: netamil (basically, email) and
> echomail (roughly analogous to USENET). The former is more ammenable
> to point-to-point mesh-style connections; the latter almost always
> flows through a hub.

But does echomail flow through a hub because it /needs/ to or by
convention / simplified configuration?

> The Internet, by design, can route around broken links, and end
> devices can usually take on any IP address they're configured with.
> In contrast, a land-line telephone is tied to a physical location
> and a single identifier. I could, in theory, plug my home network
> into some kind of IP over RF network and it would work; not so much
> my phone. Notably, at this point, most people's phones are little
> radios anyway and speak IP natively.

ACK

> Sorry, two separate thoughts; IF I were using dialup, I'd use UUCP
> instead of FTN.

I think I too would use UUCP if I were to green field something. Not
the least of which is that I already have some UUCP, so extending that
network is fairly easy.

> I think there are well-defined standards for translating between UUCP
> addresses and ARPANET style addresses. FTN? Not so much. Really,
> FTN is poor technology and should be avoided.

I largely agree. I was just thinking an existing, not /truly/ Internet
dependent network.

--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

Grant Taylor <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> wrote:
> On 3/11/22 2:12 PM, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
>> Packet radio (eg. D-STAR) would be more difficult to control.
>
> Yep.
>
>> Though obviously open to jamming and location-finding, that would
>> at least be much harder than with phone lines, especially if using
>> directional links.
>
> It's also illegal at the moment in Ukraine. They have temporarily
> suspended amateur radio privileges. As such, I suspect it's illegal in
> other countries to communicate with a ham in a location that's known to
> be suspended.
>
> But those are legality / paper tiger issues compared to can we establish
> communications or not. Or at the very least, deal with them later,
> after the immediate need for the communications is past.

As I followed the discussion we were talking more about accessing
the internet from Russia if the links are going down and the
government is cranking up censorship. However I doubt it's such a
big issue in the first place. I tried a handfull of .ru sites from
my bookmarks which resolve to Russian IP addresses and they seem to
be working fine. If proxies and VPNs are still usable then they can
get people onto blocked sites. Or like I said if they're as weak
at blocking sites as the Aus government then people just need to
switch to using another DNS server, but I expect the Russians have
made it a bit harder than that.

--
__ __
#_ < |\| |< _#

Grant Taylor <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> wrote:

> On 3/11/22 12:05 PM, Sn!pe wrote:
> > The thing about consuming video is that it's easy.
> > You don't have to learn to read to watch video.
> >
>
> Sure.
>
> But what provides more information? A video that
> you can't get to or reading text that you can get to?
>

Give me text every time; trying to follow instructions on a video
is a total PITA. I fear that's another battle already lost, though.

--
^Ï^ "Wax on, wax off." -- Mr Miyagi

My pet rock Gordon just is.

In article <t0hc1j$v3n$1@tncsrv09.home.tnetconsulting.net>,
Grant Taylor <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> wrote:
>On 3/11/22 7:08 PM, Dan Cross wrote:
>> The funny thing is...
>
>I don't think there is anything funny about this. I will admit there is
>some irony in what you said.

Context should have made this obvious, but when I wrote "funny"
I was referring to irony, not levity. Surely that was clear?

- Dan C.

In article <t0hh2a$msg$1@tncsrv09.home.tnetconsulting.net>,
Grant Taylor <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> wrote:
>On 3/11/22 6:47 PM, Dan Cross wrote:
>> Protocols like SS7 surely help, but the thing that has made it so
>> reliable is massive redundancy and centrally managed systems.
>
>ACK
>
>> Yes, I understood that. What I'm saying is that that is just as,
>> if not even more, susceptible to suppresion, than the Internet.
>>
>> In general, dial-up "networking" a la FTN is useless without the
>> Internet, and even easier to suppress.
>
>I don't agree.

Sadly, that doesn't make it any less true.

>I'm thinking of something akin to FidoNet of the days of yore where
>there was no Internet and multiple BBSs formed the network.

Like I said, if you want to try and fall back to a dailup based
solution, you're better off with UUCP.

>> Consider a BBS: someone has to be hosting it somewhere to dial into.
>> A state-level actor has any number of mechanisms to shut it down:
>> for instance, they could trivially rig up half a dozen phones to call
>> it continually, thus keeping the line perpetually busy; an analog
>> DDoS attach.
>
>And what if the BBS is behind a different phone number each day? Or if
>you can't use BBS #1, use BBS #2.

That makes it nearly undiscoverable.

>Maybe I'm asking too much of FTNs or thinking they can be made to be
>more dynamic.

I'm afraid you are.

Why would one choose to use something like FTN at that point,
and not UUCP or a more advanced technology that is interoperable
with the larger Internet? Is the point to shoehorn FTN into
this role, or to usefully share information?

Even "point to point" FTN requires the distribution of a
nodelist to every system in the network; without that, you can't
usefully communicate between nodes. That implies that you need
some mechanism to distribute the nodelist; in some hypothetical
system where BBSes are hopping from number to number dynamically
(where do these numbers come from, by the way?) daily, you've
got a logistical problem keeping the network up to date. And if
that nodelist falls into the wrong hands, someone now has a list
of every BBS participating in this hyptothetical network. Phone
numbers are not anonymous, and while there _are_ things like
burner cell phones, it's not clear to me how you'd run a network
of BBSes with them. Also, I imagine that once under occupation,
burner phones are going to become hard to come by.

Contrast with UUCP, where each node is configured only know
about its neighbors. You could trivially exchange PGP-encrypted
mail over UUCP; not so much with a BBS unless it's built into
the BBS software (though I suppose you could figre out some way
to leverage "offline readers" to download the mail and decrypt
it locally).

>I do think that such could be done via UUCP between news servers. Each
>server would flood messages to all the other servers.

UUCP as a dialup transmission mechanism does more than that but,
yes, if one were to try some kind of ersatz samizdat network
over dialup telephony, UUCP would be the way to go.

>> While it's true that point-to-point communications may not be attached
>> specifically, the same is true of point-to-point data flow between
>> Internet-connected computers. Moreover, to dial into some place,
>> I'm basically doing that from set physical location: no trampolining
>> through a VPS on the other side of the world, protected by a VPN.
>
>I'm thinking more a notebook computer with a modem that's moving from
>place to place.

So we are envisioning people with some kind of interface cable,
burner phone, and laptops clandestinely transmitting from cafes
or something? I'm not sure how realistic that is under
occupation, let alone an active war zone.

The point is, why try to use an inferior technological mechanism
like FTN when UUCP is available? Trying to bend the former into
something useful seems like a heavy lift. For that matter, why
not try to do something like IP over RF instead?

Or even short messages sent over AX.25. Given that we know that
B-team Russian troops are using cheap consumer HTs on the 2m ham
band, one could conceivably put together a digipeater with a
similar rig and a Rasperry Pi with a battery in an ammo box
unattended on a hill somewhere: it is unlikely to be jammed.
A network of those could easily make it into Poland where an
igate could pick short messages and redirect them to anywhere;
even twitter.

>> There are cases in recent history of telephony networks being taken
>> offline at the behest of local governments, while Internet access
>> remained viable in some limited capacity. E.g., during the Arab
>> Spring. And while there were much-touted reports of people rolling
>> out BBSes talking to Fidonet to circumvent Intenet censorship, I've
>> never found any credible evidence that that _actually_ happened:
>> just people talking about it.
>
>ACK
>
>> Moreover, almost all BBSes are completely unencrypted.
>
>True.
>
>But the BBS is in many ways a means to an end; communications through
>the network (FTN or otherwise) that is interconnecting them.

A VPS somewhere that people could log into that's running a real
operating system (Unix or the like) would be more useful, IMHO.

>Also, individual messages can be encrypted, much like email, such that
>someone without the decryption information only has (hopefully minimal)
>metadata.

As I mentioned above, to use a BBS for that, you need BBS
software that does it, which isn't super common. On the other
hand, today one could throw together a cheap Linux install on a
Raspberry Pi with UUCP, GPG, and mutt and make it work with as
it would take to configure a BBS.

>> I suppose it's possible people could communicate real-time person
>> to person over dialup, but the reach would be seriously limited:
>> why not just talk on the phone?
>
>Agreed.
>
>Though it's probably easier to do voice encryption and exchange the data
>therefrom.
>
>> Honestly, ham radio is probably much harder to silence, but carries
>> its own risks (direction finding and so on).
>
>Yep.
>
>Being mobile is key.

That's the hardest part in a combat zone.

- Dan C.

In article <t0hh8o$3mh$1@tncsrv09.home.tnetconsulting.net>,
Grant Taylor <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> wrote:
>On 3/11/22 6:55 PM, Dan Cross wrote:
>> In theory, they _can_ do that. In practice, they tend _not_ to.
>
>:-/
>
>> There are also two separable use-cases: netamil (basically, email) and
>> echomail (roughly analogous to USENET). The former is more ammenable
>> to point-to-point mesh-style connections; the latter almost always
>> flows through a hub.
>
>But does echomail flow through a hub because it /needs/ to or by
>convention / simplified configuration?

Define "needs". It does so because that's how pretty much all
of the extant software is written. One could, conceivably,
configure every node as a hub, but now you've got an n^2
distribution problem. Over the Internet, that may be okay; over
dialup, that's an issue (recall that only one user can "call"
into a BBS at a time per phone line, and for these purposes
mailers count as users). And with numbers changing all the
time? And BBSes only being online when some hypothetical dude
is in a cafe or something with a cell phone and a notebook? I
just don't see how that works at all.

Moreover, the message format relies on a "SEEN-BY" header that
records the (FTN network) address of each node that the message
has been sent to; there isn't a well-supported analog to the
`Path:` header used in USENET. That alone strongly favors a
hub-and-spoke architecture.

I suppose one could reuse the FTN "packet" format with custom
software that looks vaguely more like UUCP, but the packet
format just wasn't designed with that in mind and again, why go
to the trouble when other technologies exist that already solve
many of these problems?

AND this is all presuming a lot about the availability of things
like phones with modems, untraceable phone numbers, and frankly
the tacit cooperation of the telcos to make it happen.

>> The Internet, by design, can route around broken links, and end
>> devices can usually take on any IP address they're configured with.
>> In contrast, a land-line telephone is tied to a physical location
>> and a single identifier. I could, in theory, plug my home network
>> into some kind of IP over RF network and it would work; not so much
>> my phone. Notably, at this point, most people's phones are little
>> radios anyway and speak IP natively.
>
>ACK
>
>> Sorry, two separate thoughts; IF I were using dialup, I'd use UUCP
>> instead of FTN.
>
>I think I too would use UUCP if I were to green field something. Not
>the least of which is that I already have some UUCP, so extending that
>network is fairly easy.

Precisely. It also avoids many structural problems of FTN.

>> I think there are well-defined standards for translating between UUCP
>> addresses and ARPANET style addresses. FTN? Not so much. Really,
>> FTN is poor technology and should be avoided.
>
>I largely agree. I was just thinking an existing, not /truly/ Internet
>dependent network.

FTN is not that, and it hasn't been for 30 years. BBS
enthusiasts like to think that it could be, but I honestly
think those people are deluding themselves.

- Dan C.

with <t0g3j4$2d5$2@tncsrv09.home.tnetconsulting.net> Grant Taylor wrote:
> On 3/11/22 2:41 AM, Eric Pozharski wrote:

>> I explicitly withhold all education because nobody cares about it.
> That's demonstrably false because I care.

Well, let's clarify word use here. I presume you don't care about FTN
(otherwise you'd be immersed there already). What you want to say is
that you want to form educated opinion. And this is fine (in a sense,
you must be proud and everybody must take you as an example).

Now, back to your educated opinion. I suggest you dial up a little your
imagination. What we are talking here, is the technology that was first
implemented on DOS of early 90s (I believe, with some digging, it's
still possible to run a node on 8086; connectivity might be a problem
though).

And the thing is -- it's stuck in this paradigm. I don't want even to
think about security. What you have to know, "FTN is Network of
Friends".

How is your educated opinion now?

--
Torvalds' goal for Linux is very simple: World Domination
Stallman's goal for GNU is even simpler: Freedom

with <t0hh8o$3mh$1@tncsrv09.home.tnetconsulting.net> Grant Taylor wrote:
> On 3/11/22 6:55 PM, Dan Cross wrote:

*SKIP*
>> There are also two separable use-cases: netamil (basically, email) and
>> echomail (roughly analogous to USENET). The former is more ammenable
>> to point-to-point mesh-style connections; the latter almost always
>> flows through a hub.

And files, that would be analogy of binary Usenet.

*SKIP*
>> Sorry, two separate thoughts; IF I were using dialup, I'd use UUCP
>> instead of FTN.
> I think I too would use UUCP if I were to green field something. Not
> the least of which is that I already have some UUCP, so extending that
> network is fairly easy.

You two are avoiding one significant point of the puzzle. UUCP is fine
to move articles and files around. It doesn't handle subscription.
While FTN already has established way to communicate it (AreaFix and
FileFix). AIAUI, compatibility is good enough.

*CUT*

p.s. Also, elaborate quoting. See these highlights? Straight from
those ages :)

--
Torvalds' goal for Linux is very simple: World Domination
Stallman's goal for GNU is even simpler: Freedom