HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: ramid@nyx.cs.du.edu (Rudy Amid)
Subject: Re: RSA (Was: RSA gobbledygook)
Organization: University of Denver, Dept. of Math & Comp. Sci.
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 92 05:11:17 GMT

ahabig@bigbang.astro.indiana.edu (Alec Habig) writes:

>The European netrek community is rather small, and comparativly clueless
>compared to the US crowd.  If we were cut off from US servers, we'd be stuck
>playing a poor shadow of netrek.  That is, until it died out completely - the
>base of players is not large enough to be self-sustaining.
>
   Well then, start importing US players to Europe.  I'm sure the mature
players will appreciate the honour system you guys are using right now.


>Also, ping times from Europe to US servers are often better than ping times to
>European servers.  The net here just plain sucks.
>
   Hmm, I suppose that is a problem.  Some sites like that of iacrs9 in
Switzerland has a direct link to anywhere so it's ideal for a clue international
server.  Bronco of Europe.


>RSA will be the death of international netrek.  Without access to the north
>american servers, it will wither and die within a year.
>
   Don't be so pessimistic.  Again, import those players from US/Canada. :-)


>	Alec
--
!Rudy Amid              ///
a434amid@cdf.toronto.edu//
amid@r-node.gts.org   ///
Netrek/IRC: Radix  \\X//
Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 02:41:26 -0500 
From: "Timothy C. Worsley" <tw1r+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: Biggest Scum Ever
	<98612@netnews.upenn.edu>

Excerpts from netnews.rec.games.netrek: 21-Nov-92 Re: Biggest Scum Ever
Brian Paulsen@eniac.seas (1378)

> Heh - if they start deleting characters who have used more than one name,
> then there will be a LOT of admirals who lose their rank.  As far as I know,
> Balton and I are about the only people with very high rank who haven't name
> scummed.

> I usually see Rob in as only SpaceAce!, but I was assured a while back that
> Balton was the only player who made Admiral on his original character.


	On bronco, Balton, Warlock, and I are the only ones.  All three of us
had been playing xtrek for a long time, and made the transision to
netrek back when bronco was less clued than it is today.
	I play under a lot of names, but the first one was

ZZnew guy
From: gosselin@ll.mit.edu (Dave Gosselin)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: NBR Client Proposal
Summary: Cut Buffer Support
Keywords: NBR, Client, Proposal
Date: 19 Nov 92 12:57:46 GMT
Organization: MIT Lincoln Laboratory

I propose that the message window support the X11 cut buffers. This
way you can send people ftp sites etc. without having to type it in. I
can't really see how this is abuseable other than sending lots of
messages.

seconds to gosselin@ll.mit.edu

dave
aka: Tom Servo, Crow T. Robot, BermudaTriangle, soma
gosselin@ll.mit.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
From: hill@norman.VI.RI.CMU.EDU (Robert Hill)
Subject: Re: GB vs LAR lag
Reply-To: hill@norman.vi.ri.cmu.edu
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 23:50:06 GMT

Tedd Hadley writes
>    A good argument for an INL server proposal:  have the server pause 
> the game automatically if any player is ghostbusted.  I suppose it could  
>    Tedd Hadley (hadley@uci.edu)

I was under the impression that the INL server freed the ghostbusted slot  
as soon as it knew that the player was ghostbusted.  Having the server  
pause and/or free doesn't make sense to me.  What we really need is a  
better way for the server to determine WHO is ghostbusted.  I may be wrong  
about this, however.

Rob
Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 21:13:39 -0500 
From: "Timothy C. Worsley" <tw1r+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: Scrimmages
	<By6sC5.D5K.1@cs.cmu.edu>

Excerpts from netnews.rec.games.netrek: 23-Nov-92 Re: Scrimmages Herbert
Enderton@cs.cmu. (2343)

> How about we just play
> lots of scrimmage games, but have somebody tabulate the results?  No
> need for an organized tournament, we can just argue about who's best
> based on the scrimmages.

	Second

ZZnew "bav's litle brother with an ichy trigger finger" guy
From: polk@Metaphor.COM (Ben Polk)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: THERE IS NO NEED FOR CRYPT OF RSA CLIENTS!!!!!!!!!
Date: 20 Nov 92 20:05:47 GMT
Reply-To: polk@Metaphor.COM (Ben Polk)
Organization: m4

The US crypt export restrictions DO NOT apply to use of methods like
RSA for validation purposes.  The restrictions ONLY apply for uses where 
the user can encrypt arbitrary data.

This means the client executables can be freely distributed outside the 
USA, as long as the only use of RSA is validating access to servers.

I got this information from someone at a company that makes crypt
software.  I believe this guy.  I posted the question to sci.crypt
yesterday so if you want more information you could check there.  Note
that I was already pretty sure there was no restriction on export of
crypt methods for use in this kind of validation, and that's why
I posted to sci.crypt.

Get rid of the encryption of the RSA client executables!

Ben Polk
polk@metaphor.com
From: bk436572@longs.LANCE.ColoState.Edu (brian krause)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: Re: what happen to netrek.atd.ucar.edu ???
Date: 20 Nov 92 04:46:05 GMT
Organization: Colorado State U. Engineering College

Um, I believe that netrek.atd.ucar.edu is back up....I was just there and its running fine...

you can all stop worrying now, and start playing games there...........


-brian
From: leonard@mimsy.umd.edu (Leonard Dickens)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: Re: CFV: rec.games.netrek reorganization (was: Re: Catching up)
Date: 20 Nov 92 18:52:34 GMT
Followup-To: news.groups
Organization: Deep Thirteen, Gizmonics Institute

>I have been away from rec.netrek for months and it appears I have
>missed server changes, RSA etc.  I went through the old messages
>and I don't see a FAQ or server list etc.  I am awaiting a key
>from mcp and but I don't know if those codes are UDP or things like
>that.  

This, in a nutshell, is my argument for a rec.games.netrek.announce.

Followups to news.groups.  Yes, there IS some vestige of discussion
going on there, as I have more-or-less sided with Alan Cabrera on the
issue of splitting r.g.n, at least as far as adding a r.g.n.announce
goes.

-Leonard
Organization: Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 13:55:49 -0500 
From: Nanci Ann Miller <nm0w+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: New INL scheduling proposal:(long..please read this, however)
	<1eq4rmINN3d3@agate.berkeley.edu>

[Tom's objections deleted for readability.]

I remember a week ago or something that Kevin posted something about a
ladder system for scheduling and I noticed that Tom had nothing to say
about it but rather waited until Rob posted a similar (all though not as
detailed) proposal to flame it. 

The initial rankings aren't extremely important, but I do think they should
be fairly close since there is only a fixed amount of time in which to move
yourself up the ladder.  Rob suggested that the INL council should rank the
teams but I think we might get a better ranking if we rank teams based on
Kevin's method.  His proposal was to have everyone in the INL (the council
and all the players) vote but that council members would have votes that
would be weighted more heavily than players votes (and players cannot vote
for their own teams).  Go back and skim the post if you want more detail
but this was basically it.  I do think, however, that the council should
not be the only ones voting since (as I stated in my INL council post) it
is not necessarily representative.  Perhaps instead of having all the
players vote, have captains and councilmembers vote where the captains
cannot vote for their own teams.

Anyway, in general I really like the ladder system and think it would at
least be better than what we have now (perhaps a lot better once the kinks
are all ironed out).  We KNOW the current system is flawed, and perhaps
this isn't perfect either, but unless a vastly superior proposal comes
along, it can't hurt to try it (since it sounds better on paper anyway) for
a season and see how it works.

Nanci
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
From: zog@peppermint.cns.udel.edu (Michael D. Eisenberg [Dan])
Subject: Re: NBR Proposal: Remote Option Window.
Organization: Barbarians R Us
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 19:03:49 GMT

i agree wholeheartedly.
but i think the proposals are cool.

btw, what with the Ob stuff. i dont get it.

-dan/zog


-- 
	ZZZZ  OOOO  GGGG	|	zog@freezer.cns.udel.edu
	  Z   O  O  G __	|	   zog@bach.udel.edu
	 Z    O  O  G  G	|	At Skool: (302) 837-3227 
	ZZZZ  OOOO  GGGG	|	At Home:  (301) 384-6507
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
From: von@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Steve Von Worley)
Subject: Re: GB at LAR
Organization: University of California, at Berkeley
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 20:48:08 GMT

In article <of3GXNe00Vp58huUZa@andrew.cmu.edu> "Timothy C. Worsley" <tw1r+@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:
>Excerpts from netnews.rec.games.netrek: 19-Nov-92 Re: GB at LAR Steve
>Von Worley@cory.Be (1109)
>
>> >HEY:	a) It's not our fault.
>> >	b) We have to play with this lag anywhere outside of USC.
>> >	   This means it is NOT, i repeat, NOT a one way deal that
>> >	   screws over our opponents only.
>
>> I don't give a shit whose fault it is and what you have to suffer with.
>> Other people should not have to suffer because you do.
>
>
>	Didn't team :) play out of Flint?  maybe I'm remembering wrong.  I
>don't mean to get on your case, Steve, but sometimes, it's not so easy
>to get a good machine.
>	The real problem is that one game counts for SOOO much right now, that
>getting a game on bad lag is a total hose.  It would be nice if the INL
>were set up so that if GB lost a lagged game vs LAR or :), it wouldn't
>mean the end of any play-off hopes for them.
>
>Disclaimer: I do not mean to imply LAR and :) were equivalent games, or
>equivalent teams.  However, both were games that GB lost playing against
>bad lag.  Please don't start flaming :) again.

Yeah, Team :) was from flint.  Never have I ever encoutered massive 
packet loss and or unusual lag times playing there.  It was a little
worse than bronco, but not much, and I was playing from St. Louis at
the time. 

Sample pings generated at 12:20 PST:

----flint.cs.brown.edu PING Statistics----
101 packets transmitted, 95 packets received, 5% packet loss
round-trip (ms)  min/avg/max = 107/165/308

----bronco.ece.cmu.edu PING Statistics----
101 packets transmitted, 96 packets received, 4% packet loss
round-trip (ms)  min/avg/max = 82/146/298

During the day lag almost anywhere in the Northeast is gross.  At night
things are better (lower lag times and much lower packet loss).

Also, remember, when referring to the GB vs. :) match, remember :)
was a great team, and GB was not the general Berkeley powerhouse team.  
We had on our team (some of these players are retired or semi-retired):

Hiemdall (*)
Phantom (*)
tufu [grapes] (*)
paranoid
Limofel (*)
Black Diamond
Foozle (*)
Sandia (*)
Goose (*)
gaffer
pappy (* sub)			* = played in the GB game.

We had great ogging, planet scumming, scout bombing, and escorting. 
The following was the GB roster:

Scum
Hell Peacock
Mojo Riser
Fahrvergnuegen
Zach Paleozogt
BifTheStud
Clouseau
allen

Draw your conclusions as to who would have won a totally unlagged the 
game from that.

I say no more.

Sandia
-- 
Steve Von Worley
von@cory.berkeley.edu
Computer Science Gradual Student
University of California at Berzerkly
From: tw1r+@andrew.cmu.edu (Timothy C. Worsley)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: Re: freedom of bitmaps
Date: 16 Nov 92 01:22:54 GMT
	<62054@mimsy.umd.edu>
Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

Excerpts from netnews.rec.games.netrek: 15-Nov-92 Re: freedom of bitmaps
Leonard Dickens@mimsy.um (1446)

> I think the idea of being able to design your own ship bitmaps is nice
> in concept, but we will not be able to find a way to implement it
> without making it exploitable by people who are willing to spend the
> time to learn to use something ugly in order to get an advantage over
> others.  For instance, consider the case where a person makes all of
> his cruiser bitmaps identical solid squares... yuk.

	Or a circle exactly the size of the shields circle.

ZZnew guy
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 21:35:56 -0500 
From: "Timothy C. Worsley" <tw1r+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: GB at LAR
	<2B09366B.29264@ics.uci.edu>

Excerpts from netnews.rec.games.netrek: 17-Nov-92 Re: GB at LAR Tedd
Hadley@codes.ics.uc (3478)

>    1) Last INL season, all home games were played on calvin without
>       apparent network problems.  (Perhaps I should put it another
>       way: SC _lost_ most home games last INL season.)  The seeming
>       conclusion?  Lag - no big deal.

Well, No.  Last season, SC sucked.  They've gotten a lot better.  The
> network was still really bad -- worse, in fact, because it was TCP.

>    

>    4) Since when is a team morally required to  forfeit a home advantage?
>       Last season, games were described where the away team had to tradeoff
>       updates between players.   Games were described where practically the
>       whole team spent most of the game ghostbusted.  At no time was it ever
>       suggested that the home team was _at fault_ for not giving up their
>       home server!  (And yet, right after the GB-LAR game, Rob Hill
>       (apparently speaking as an unbiased observer) blamed LAR for just that.)

	They aren't, really.  A lot of us have gotten spoiled by UDP, and
forgotten how unfair lag was during that first season.  It really sucks
that an important game can be won or lost depending on lag.  It calls
the whole validity of INL ratings into question (if it isn't in question
already).

>    In the last game, the larger USC part of LAR went to a great deal of
>    trouble to play at a server with more reasonable delay for GB.  Accounts
>    were set up at UCLA, arrangments made for transportation, etc..  The
>    attitude of GB as expressed above?  "Gosh, guys, thanks.  You didn't have
>    to go to all that trouble just on our account."  *NOT*.  How about:
>    "Well _that's_ what you shoulda done in the first game, cheaters."


	There seem to be mixxed oppinions.  The first post in this thread
thanked you for going to the effort.  I personally thought it was really
nice of you.  I would like to think that every team were good enough
sports to go to that knid of effort for a fair game, even if it means
that they are likely to lose.
  
	Good luck vs OTR

ZZnew guy
From: el0g+@andrew.cmu.edu (Erik Lauer)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: Re: NBR Proposal: Remote Option Window.
Date: 18 Nov 92 11:35:42 GMT
Organization: Doctoral student, Mathematics, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

sherod@news.Colorado.EDU (Mad DDogg):

>Proposal:  Let it be possible for someone to open an Option window
>for any player who does not have a .xtrekrc file.
>
>Discussion:  Something like sending the player
>
>R4 -> R3: (OPTION_WINDOW)
>
>opens a window on your screen in which you can set their options.
>Note this should only be allowed if the person does not have a
>.xtrekrc file so only the clueless are affected.  This would allow
>you to open various windows for them as well as assign them a rational
>key map, etc.  Surely everyone will agree that this is a good idea
>to combat clueless teammates.
>
>Mad DDogg

I am not sure what makes you think Rear Admiral gc00 is clueless, or
that you should be able to set his options.




Erik
---=
From: tom@soda.berkeley.edu (Tom Holub)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: Re: GB vs. LA riot
Date: 19 Nov 1992 07:13:21 GMT
Organization: U.C. Berkeley, CS Undergraduate Association
NNTP-Posting-Host: soda.berkeley.edu

In article <SLS.92Nov18181349@batcomputer.aero.org> sls@aero.org (Sam Shen) writes:
)
)I think if GB thinks we're really no good (as blojo wrote a few msgs
)back) then I can see where he's coming from, but I think he's wrong.
)We are capable of playing first-rate netrek (eg. the TWWN game) but
)often (usually?) we don't.

I think you guys are a good team; your main weakness (and this is what
blojo was saying) is that you are poor dogfighters overall; this was
the first good INL game I've been in where I had a ratio above 1.0.
We lost to TWNN because we were unable to clear planets effectively;
they were able to maintain their space control.  It was relatively
easy to get you guys out of the way when we needed to.

I'd disagree with Jon when he says only Exxon was playing cluefully;
your ogging did fall off after Tedd left the game, but your scout bombing
was good (BIG mistake; not scout bombing in OT) and you generally had
ships in the area when we were trying to take a planet.  It just was
too easy to get them out of the area.

One hint: Loki, lose the I'm-going-to-cloak-attack-the-closest-possible-
ship-in-my-DD thing.  I'm sure it worked when Calvin had 0 uncloak time,
but it won't work in INL games, especially against scout bombers.
 -Tom
From: hadley@thoth.ics.uci.edu (Tedd Hadley)
Subject: Re: GB at LAR
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Organization: UC Irvine Department of ICS
Date: 20 Nov 92 12:51:18 GMT

In <1ehk5jINN21v@girtab.usc.edu> rone@girtab.usc.edu (Ron Echeverri) writes:

>play here.  Something about this makes me think that the problem may lie
>somewhere *in* USC, and not immediately outside of it as i previously thought.
>Wish i had root access so i could attempt to track it down.... the root types
>here don't give a shit if the net problem only hoses netrek since it's "only
>a game." :-\

   Actually I'm starting to think it's both.  bav verified that there was
   indeed a flaky router just on the "outer edge" of the CERFnet along the
   connection from KSU to USC.  I was also able to see the same behavior
   from Berkeley to USC.  However, my connection sucks even though UCI
   doesn't go through those routers to USC.  At least one of the gateways
   there (rtr8) is randomly contributing 3 digit ms delays..

++
   Tedd Hadley (hadley@uci.edu)
From: jch+@cs.cmu.edu (Jonathan Hardwick)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: Newbies revenge (was Re: NBR proposal: Another gimmic to help the clueless newbie)
Date: 18 Nov 92 14:08:36 GMT
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon

Marc VanHeyningen <mvanheyn@whale.cs.indiana.edu> writes
> Thus said esj@cs.brown.edu (Eugene Santos Jr.):
> >Purpose - To draw newbies attention to any possible important incoming
> >	message.
> >
> >Proposal - Introduce the following remote client capability:
> >	R4 --> R3	VIM: <this is a very important message>
> >	<R3 now gets some sort of audio beep/signal>
> >	[Highlighted line] R3 --> R4 <this is a very important message>
> 
> Gads, so many changes to allow experienced players to effect newbie
> stuff.
> 
> New NBR proposal:  Introduce the following remote client capability:
> 
> 	R3 --> R4  IDIOT!
> 
> Upon receiving this message, R4 would be ejected from the game and R3
> would take over his session.

To protect the poor innocent newbie from being abused by all these "I
know what's best for you" features, I propose adding a modest (heh)
natural language and goal recognition AI engine to the server.  This
will adjudicate "impossible" and "stupid" orders.  Thus, if

 1. R3 sends to R4 (bold, highlighted, pre-emptive window on his
    screen, with sound effects, can't be turned off because R4 doesn't
    have an xtrekrc) "OGG F5", and
 2. R4, fearful of the net.god R3, successfully pulls off his first
    ogg ever and dooshes F5, and
 3. F6, who was the real one carrying, takes the planet, then

R3 gets one (1) rank removed, for giving out stupid orders.  If R3 is
already an ensign, he/she is ejected from the game.  I'm sure no-one
will disagree with this obviously sound proposal. 

Spaceman "Commodore, er Flt Captain, er Captain, er Commander" Spiff
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
From: books@fsunuc.physics.fsu.edu (Roger Books)
Subject: Re: RSA question
Organization: FSU nuclear physics
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 92 13:58:02 GMT

In article <1992Nov18.004650.4000@serval.net.wsu.edu> dmiller@dragon.tricity.wsu.edu (David L. Miller) writes:

>In article <1992Nov17.205958.16009@wam.umd.edu>, theodore@next09cville.wam.
umd.edu (Theodore Jonathan Casser) writes:
>|> I have a question on the RSA distribution policy.  Why is it that only  
>|> citizens of the USA and Canada can recieve the code?  (BTW I am a 
US  
>|> citizen, but I am wondering the logic at restricting access...)
>|>
>By some strange occurance, cryptographic material, including programs, is 
>considered munitions.  This means you have to go through the same approval
>process to distribute RSA as you would to sell, say, an F-16!!!>
>-- 

This is the correct answer.  The ones about other countries not allowing
encryption (France does not but it's not enforced) and the patent stuff
are both wrong.  The bogus thing about it is the world has written their
own RSA stuff anyway.  PGP, Pretty Good Protection, uses public key
crypto.  It's maintained and improved overseas.  For more info on this
(and proposed mandatory private key registration), see SCI.CRYPT.

>David L. Miller                       Internet: dmiller@beta.tricity.wsu.edu

Roger
books@fsunuc.physics.fsu.edu
From: paulsen@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Brian Paulsen)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: Re: Lag and the standard on bronco (SC bombers rule!)
Date: 17 Nov 92 02:13:15 GMT
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

In article <Bxty3n.37r.2@cs.cmu.edu> hill@norman.VI.RI.CMU.EDU (Robert Hill) writes:

)) )Anyhow what I wanted to say was that there is a massive shortage of 
)) )people willing to SC bomb or base on bronco.  

)People don't scout bomb because its too hard.  I usually end up having to  
)do it, and I hate it.  

Surely you jest.  Scout bombing is too hard???  Why is it left to usually
the most clueless member of the team in INL games?  What happenned to the
argument that "We don't scout bomb because anybody can do that.  We handle
the tough jobs..."?  Unless you radically changed your style lately, I
rarely seen you as a scout bomber.  Unless, of course, you mean that you
occasionally bomb a planet if there is *nothing* else to do.

)) It is because SC bombing is *harsh* on your ratings.  I had high ratings
)) on my char on bronco until I would go SC when someone would yell, 
)) "someone go scout bomb".  It is usually the arrogant planet scum who 
)) yells for it but would never do it.

)Well, this is often the case.  Most players don't like to scout bomb.  If  
)a player has kills, it is sub-optimal for him to bomb if you have armies.   
)I'm not justifying the actions of a planet scum, but it certainly makes  
)some sense.

Scout bombing *is* harsh on the ratings, but very few top players care so
much about ratings that it stops them from scout bombing.  Why not bomb?
Scout bombing is just plain boring.  You should tell it like it is.  Hell,
I've racked up probably near 100 hours as a scout bomber, and then found
ogging and planet taking.

)) )There are plenty of planet scums,
)) )and quite a lot of oggers, but noone ever seems to bomb.  
)) On bronco it is the oggers and planet scum who get respect.  The good 
)) thing about scouting is that people will think you are clued.

)I'd disagree with you here.  There are few people that I respect more than  
)a good scout bomber.  Look at psycho bomber, for instance.  Last year, he  
)was one of the few first year CMU netrek players to be on INL teams (ray  
)being the other one, and he was a scout bomber too) just because they were  
)such good scout bombers.  Good scout bombers get respect.  

True.  However, the vast majority of top players (IMHO) are definitely
not scout bombers.  Even Red Shirt is rarely seen as a bomber anymore.

Brian

Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek