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Chaos Corner v02 n03
Chaos Corner V02 N03 24 March 1992
This is likely to be a little shorter than the regular Chaos Corner ...
we are just preparing to depart today for a speaking engagement and will
not return for several weeks. Operating, as we do, under the rule of
"if it weren't a crisis, I wouldn't be doing it" (note the use of the
subjunctive mood -- German grammar is sooo much fun!) we have spent the
last week updating foils (and converting them from Word-for-Windows to
Aldus Persuasion), and preparing the 20 page written document for the
conference proceedings. Of course, it all could have been done a month
ago, but it wasn't a crisis then!
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SMTP mailers
Shelia Patterson in CIT's Systems Programming Services guessed that Gary
Buhrmaster requested his copy of Chaos Corner Volume 1 by using a
"standard" trick. The SMTP mailers that route these files across the
Internet don't just talk to each other; they also will talk to any human
using 'telnet' to talk to the TCP/IP port the mailer uses. All this
means is that you can 'telnet' to any mailer and give it any old
interesting file you want (like sending a friend a personal mail file
from our fearless leader). This explanation should not encourage any of
you to try this, but it should lead you to suspect "strange" mail files
-- if you get a mail file that you question, check with the sender, it
may have been forged! Dr. Chaos has heard of a user at one site
receiving a mail file from the system operator telling him he was using
too much CPU time (not sent by the operator at all).
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Mail time and bound copies of Chaos Corner Volume 1
The trick that Gary used to get his request for Chaos Corner volume 1
sent before the deadline was to set the date and time back by several
days when he had test time one Sunday morning on the 3090-200J.
Remember, bound copies of volume 1 are still available at the CIT Help
Desk for cost (3 Dollars), or you can get the document via FTP from
pelican.cit.cornell.edu in the /pub directory. Look for files ccv01.ps
and ccv01.text for the PostScript and text versions, respectively. (But
you won't get it bound with the beautiful covers designed by graphics
artist 'Tomass Boggass'.)
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Chaos Corner distribution problems
Dr. Chaos apologizes for some confusion in the distribution of the last
several issues of Chaos Corner. There have been some problems with
delivery to VM/CMS-Bitnet sites and also problems with readers from
Bitnet sites sending requests to chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu.
At first, we thought the problem was with the SMTP mailer on the VM/CMS
systems ... sorry to say, it (at least partially) was a problem with the
sendmail.cf on pelican.cit.cornell.edu. After only a couple of hours of
comparing sendmail.cf files from various systems, we were able to deduce
the fix and update pelican. We hope this distribution will go OK ...
because if it isn't, we're not going to be around to fix it.
Any files that are mentioned below can be requested by sending mail to
chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu. Note that the response is
handled in person by Dr. Chaos so it is possible to give a more-than-
one-word description of the file you want. (We get some requests that
are just a little too terse -- do you think that we REMEMBER what we
write?)
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Germany and German
A discussion list started recently dedicated to German History from 900
to 1992. Dr. Chaos reports many discussion threads ranging from the
current neo-Nazi movement to feelings between Protestants and Catholics.
The list is fairly active and the postings are primarily in English. If
you are interested, send mail to listserv@uscvm.bitnet with the single
line 'subscribe germhist <your-name>'. Dr. Chaos reports that he also
has copies of the regular postings for Netiquette, Emily Postnews
Antworten, and a Glossary of English acronyms (FTP, etc.) explained in
German. It's too bad that the local SCOLA channel on TV carries the
German news with a one week delay. Right now we are hearing about the
nuclear accident near St. Petersburg from a Japanese news report (with
English subtitles).
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X11 R5
Fix number 10 for X11 Release 5 is now available. Of course, the
complete X11R5 distribution (and fixes) is available on
pelican.cit.cornell.edu in the pub/X11R5 directory. Fix-10 cures about
30 problems, including some introduced by fix-09.
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Space - ftp site info
The UseNet newsgroups sci.astro and sci.space have a regular
(approximately monthly) posting of FTP sites where you can obtain a
large amount of space-research related material. Items include images,
solar reports, star data bases, and space shuttle updates (another
successful launch today). Let Dr. Chaos know if you would like a copy
of this list.
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Space, and the Flat Venus society
From sci.space comes the report of the "Flat-Venus Society" -- anyone
with even a low-power telescope can see that Venus is a flat disc, just
like Earth, so this society is encouraging everyone to write their
government representatives to urge them to uncover the fraud.
--------------------------------------------------
Space Calendar
Dr. Chaos also has a copy of the 1992 space calendar compiled by Ron
Baalke at JPL. There is still time to prepare for the Lyrids Meteor
Shower scheduled for April 21st.
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AIX Security advisory
The Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) has issued an advisory of a
security loophole in the RS/6000 version of AIX at service levels 3.1.6
and before. If you do not use the uucp utilities, then you should (from
root) issue the following command: 'chmod 0100 /usr/bin/uucp', and if
you do use uucp then call IBM (800-237-5511) for a fix to the problem
logged as ix18516.
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AIXTIPS posted to comp.unix.aix
Andreas Siegert of the IBM AIX Field Support Center in Munich regularly
posts AIXTIPS to the comp.unix.aix newsgroup on UseNet,and aix-l on
BITNET. Dr. Chaos finds that these contain useful information and has
saved the last 5 issues.
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AIX Public Domain Software archive
Dr. Chaos hopes you are all familiar with the AIX Public Domain Software
Repository at UCLA. The source for many applications in a form already
ported to AIX 3.1 is available on the machine AIXPDSLIB.SEAS.UCLA.EDU.
Once you have connected via anonymous ftp, 'get' the README file. By
retrieving the README file, you agree to abide by instructions contained
therein, and in any additional files which the README file references
(legal stuff). While the initial focus is the exchange of codes and
ports that are running, or are in process, for the RISC System/6000;
code that runs on mainframe AIX and AIX PS/2 will also be accepted.
--------------------------------------------------
Gopher
Developed at the University of Minnesota, Gopher clients and servers
allow a user to perform a keyword search for information on the network
and then easily retrieve that information by an appropriate access
method. The definitive software and instructions for setting up clients
and servers is on the machine boombox.micro.umn.edu in directory
pub/gopher. Version 0.8 of the Unix software has just been announced,
and clients exist for the Mac, Unix, VMS, NeXT, VM/CMS, PC-DOS, and X-
Windows.
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WAIS
Gopher is related to the Wide Area Information Server (WAIS) code
developed and distributed by Thinking Machines Corporation and is
available for anonymous FTP from think.com in the wais directory. The
current version can be found in the file named wais-8-b4.tar.Z. WAIS
includes indexing software that some people have reportedly used to
index their saved mail files -- they can then easily do searches to find
that missing but suddenly very relevent mail file. Dr. Chaos thinks
that this may well prove to be the "magic bullet" to finally get us
organized ... now if we could only get organized enough to get the
software running on pelican ...
Info
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Time Zone abbrevations
Dr. Chaos reports collecting a file that contains a list of all the
abbreviations for the various time zones, their offset from CUT (that's
GMT for old fogies), and their English name.
--------------------------------------------------
Internet Services List
Of course, the updated Internet Service List gets even longer. Just a
couple of items: you can telnet fedix.fie.com or telnet 192.111.228.1
(login fedix) to get information on scholarships, minority assistance,
etc.; and if you telnet 130.44.1.100 (Login: e-math Password: e-math),
the service is an Am. Math. Society sponsored bulletin board system with
software and reviews. For any of you without FTP access, send mail to
ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com Subject:(hit return) Body-of-letter: help
(return) quit ... for information on how to access FTP sites through
electronic mail.
Well, we promised a short issue, so we must stop for now. Remember, for
your own subscription or any of the files mentioned above, send you
request to chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu.
Dr. Chaos (I have a master's degree!)
