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Ärende: FidoNews 29:49 [03/07]: General Articles
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                        GENERAL ARTICLES
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Another zone down the drain?
By Ward Dossche – 2:292/854

The many years that I've passed in Fidonet have taught me many things.
One of these things is that when a person gets vicious, participates
in character assassination, starts calling you names it is an
indication that this person is at the end of balanced reasoning and
finds no other way of action than to insult someone.

At this point, and prior to proceeding, I would like for everybody to
leaf through the latest "Fidogazette, one of two newsletters set-up
and run by Janis Kracht and which aren't catching. It's nearly
necessary even to understand how low this lady will stoop to please
her followers.

First there is a melodramatic text about the former ZONE5 and how
nodes have been left behind with nobody available to take over the
segment.

It's quite easy -- if there's a segment, then there still are nodes
and if there still are nodes then some people are available to run
that segment. If they don't want to, then there's no-one else to blame
except themselves.

To put it verbatim in Z5C's words as uttered in the ZCC-echo:

  JK> If there are any left in your Zone who want to
  JK> participate in Fidonet, I'm sure we can accomodate
  JK> them in the existing zones,  if they desire
  JK> and are still running viable nodes.

  There are none left, that anyone can reach, i.e. the
  folks on Mango, I had a link to, but the folks running
  it do not want to run a BinkD setup, even if all it does
  is call out, and there is no way for Fidonet to help them,
  they are totally paranoid about security etc. and no amount
  of assurances that there are no known expoilts on BinkD
  have prevailed.

So there was a single node in Zimbabwe operated by an organization
called MANGO. They rejected the internet but over the many years that
I was around, not a single message came from it either.

Eventually it was ZC5 in a capacity similar to the last of the
Mohicans who published a zone-segment reflecting the reality of Z5
with only 1 (one) node in it with a request to drop Z5 from the
nodelist on or around this past Nov.1st.

And so it happened, nothing dramatic, no 911-ambush to rescue the ones
that didn't care about being rescued … there were none.

Moving into Janis' incoherent jibberish about Z4.
I've never had a problem with Z4 as I figured there was a very lively
communication going on in mostly Spanish and also some Portuguese. So
I was kind of surprised when several individuals drew the parallel
between what we noticed in Z6 first and afterwards in Z5 … lots of
entries in the nodelist but not that many live people.

Our colleague Z4C Manuel Adorni asked access to our Z2
sysop-conference as he was concerned and that access was granted
within minutes so he could argue his case. I've asked to obtain a link
into the LATIN.SYSOP conference, the Z4-sysop echo, but have now been
waiting for days for even a basic reply.

The best I got from another non-Z4 sysop was verbatim: "My link is
from Janis Krach but no trafic availlable a long time ago."

Interesting, when someone needs a link into the Z4 sysop-conference
one needs to ask Janis Kracht, but apparently there's no traffic
in-there.

Do the warning bells begin to sound? Yes, they do.

At that time yours truly figured to investigate this on his own and
wrote a mail, routed, to all Z4-sysops except the ZC as we entertain
daily connections so I know he's around.

Something odd happened … only 1 Z4-sysop responded, someone with no
connection-data in the nodelist, basically a point. To conserve the
"couleur locale" in this report, henceforth we will be calling the
Latin points "pointinos" … it has a special ring to it.

When I wanted to explore the former reliable link in Z4, Ioram Sete,
the news I got first hand from someone who used to link to him was:
"Ioran Sete, Brasil (4:801/189)? No links availlables from october
12".

This was reported to the ZCs as I figured something serious was
occurring -- Janis, of course, had to blast me again and try to
ridicule me in the closed ZCC-echo

   "Not true here.. I don't know WHAT your problem is, Ward:
   <snip loglines>
   Ioram is connecting here just fine!"

So let's try to connect to Ioram myself direct I figured and see what
happens. And indeed, "nothing" happens because each and every poll is
rejected for the past day. A poll per minute for the past 14 hours.
Best proof of another system who is listed in the nodelist with full
connection data but when you try to crash, it doesn't work. Such
connectivity we call "a point", or in this case "a pointino".

Very odd to see this happening because when a person is listed as CM,
there should be "something".

Even more odd, this has happened in the past as well.

There was this ZC of Z6 by the name of Bin Li that no-one really
managed to connect toand who was listed as CM but when you dialed his
number, there was "always" a voice-reply. The whole Fido-world noticed
it, but Janis Kracht aggressively maintained Bin Li was a fully
fledged node. What a joke, he had the accessability of a point as well
but his presence to fill the numbers of the ZC-voting-booth in the ZCC
was required to reach certain majorities.

Or there's the case of Anatoli Tung (sp) whom no-one ever got to see
but Carol claimed he displayed regular presence though no-one ever
noticed it.

Or what about the case of the African nodes none of whom responded for
years or showed availability according to how they were listed? Even
the Z5C the last years never was online and only called-out at 4 in
the morning or so. He merely displayed point-presence too.

What's the use of *Cs when you can't reach them?

And now when several of us try to call the Z4 nodes there hardly is
any success, none of the *C's other than the ZC show an on-line
status.

The only conclusion after a week of trying is that Z4 consists of one
real node and then a number of individuals (for the moment at least 2)
showing pointino-access.

Do I want the death of Z4? Of course not but my blood starts to boil
when I have to notice for the third time the game Z1C is playing by
again discarding all the warning signs and whatever that she does
always sees it as a war against Z2 in general and against me in
particular.

The figures and the logs don't lie, Janis ... for 14hrs "nothing", no
matter how well you gift-wrap it:

   + 02 Dec 10:48:41 [4044] call to 4:801/189@fidonet
     02 Dec 10:48:41 [4044] trying 23.21.54.139...
   ? 02 Dec 10:49:02 [4044] unable to connect: {60}...
                                           ...Connection timed out

Ward Dossche


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