From: jecoleb@eos.ncsu.edu (have clue, will travel)
Subject: Re: NETREK BANNED !
Keywords: banned
Reply-To: jecoleb@eos.ncsu.edu
Organization: The Ghost Of Christmas Past Society
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 21:00:27 GMT


>rhodesia@wixrhodesia@wixer.cactus.org (Felix S. Gallo) writes:
>I write:
>>Or:
>>
>>2) Use trekhopd to hide your connection, or go all-out and compile a local
>>server from time to time.  Good luck keeping it secret...  If you're *TACTFUL*
>>about when and where you use it, this isn't so bad an option.

>Here I disagree with VSP most heinously.  Fascist sysadmins like myself
>didn't write netstat for it to gather dust.  Just like the legions of
>dumb people who put up """secret""" MUDs, you're likely to be caught
>and handed a complete printout of every key every member of your family
>has ever pressed.  That's *before* the pudding and the pins.  *wince*
 
Note:  Of my two options, I agree wholeheartedly that the first (kissing ass,
so to speak) is BY FAR the best.  "Good luck" was mildly sarcastic.

Sysadmins are NOT stupid; half of the staff of our sysadmin patrol are
there primarily because they got caught hacking the system in slightly
creative ways and got hired to keep 'em on the straight and narrow, not because
they happened to marry the Chancellor's daughter but don't know a hard drive
from a hard-on.  (The other half I'm not sure about as far as Chancellor
Monteith goes, but they know their stuff, too.)

If you're desperate enough to run option 2, TACT -- *TACT* -- (let's see how
many ways I can highlight this)  --<{[ T A C T ]}>--  is the word of the day.
There's NOTHING you can do that a good sysadmin won't be able to PINPOINT;
you might as well face this fact and deal with it.

I.E.  If you're going to do it, do it DAMNED QUIETLY.

Someone playing netrek at 3 AM on a Saturday night with two or three friends
in the back of a quiet lab is not that likely to draw sysadmin wrath. (Even
sysadmins have to sleep SOMETIME.)

Seven or eight people playing at 3 PM on a Monday afternoon ARE. (Now you're
not just going against policy, but slapping it in the face.  -5 cool points.)

A server is, my previous comment notwithstanding, NOT necessarily the best 
idea around.  (Like the "secret" MUD, it's not the easiest thing to hide.)
However, if you're not in a trekhopd mood AND it's the aforementioned wee
hours of the night AND the lab's deserted AND nobody is glaring in your 
direction, a TEMPORARY local server can serve to take the edge off of your
netrek addiction.  Just don't do something dumb like sending out a global
message of "NETREK SERVER RUNNING ON ___.___.___.___!  COME AND PLAY!"

>My recommendation to the guy who lost netrek access is to go to the 
>admins and present a rational case for netrek, together with code that
>limits its accessibility (via, perhaps, a cron job which chmods a global
>client 000 or 755 depending on time-of-day).  If you lose, do not attempt
>to play netrek any more on those machines.

Looking at it from the student end rather than the sysadmin end, I have an
understandably different attitude, Felix, but I do agree that the first
sentence in the above passage IS THE WAY TO GO.  IN SPADES.

If all else fails, let things cool off for a while.  Wait a couple of weeks.
Bring the noise level down to a dull roar.  THEN, if things are quiet, and 
you feel adventurous, start playing again in a tactful manner and in SMALL
NUMBERS.  Half the reason that netrek usually comes crashing down is the noise
level and the inconvenience to others in the labs; if you're quiet as a mouse,
don't bother anyone and stay out of sight, you might be in luck.  Just don't 
come running to Felix or myself if the Hammers of Hell[tm] come crashing down 
on you for illicit gaming... ;)

				--Commodore Video Sex Pope, NCSU
				--"either that, or we'll have to start the
				--   Underground Transwarp back up..."
--
                         jecoleb@eos.ncsu.edu 
          ---------     have clue, will travel.    ---------
  "I am a penis. Worship me."--lead singer of rock band Bicycle Face,
vainly attempting to gain attention of the crowd at the Cat's Cradle
in Chapel Hill, while opening for Mojo Nixon & The Toad Liquors
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek