HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: hill@norman.VI.RI.CMU.EDU (Robert Hill)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: Re: IC forfiets
Date: 17 Nov 92 05:23:19 GMT
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon

Taras Zommers@ll.mit.edu writes

> Oh... and one more point, if TEAM A can play at any time except midnight 
> and TEAM B can only play at midnight, why should TEAM A have to forfeit 
> and find a new game to play.  Netrek may have begun at CMU and Berkeley 
> but the players from those schools are now a minority amongst all the 
> current netrek players.

There is no current provision in INL rule for this, as far as I know.   
Netrek didn't begin at CMU...don't get us confused with the game inventors  
from UCB.

To my knowledge, no CMU team got precedence over a non-cmu team this year.   
I don't think that CMU teams are treated any differently than any other  
teams.  In the past, (i.e. over the summer) a single CMU team got some  
special treatment(probably because it was a CMU team), but with luck,  
exceptions will not be made for anyone.  This isn't to say i'm not for the  
INL council to act reasonably toward teams that can't schedule, but only  
that CMU teams (or anyone else) should not get preferential treatment.

> It does seem strange that our team has a few CMU people on it and they 
> never had any problems getting computers to play on at times other than 
>"Thursday at midnight".

Finding a "few" machines to play on is one thing.  Finding 8 machines to  
play on is something all-together different.  You can use a few machines  
as early as 5 oclock.  To find 8, you will probably have to wait until  
after midnight on a weekday, or until a weekend.  Fortunately side salad  
had 2 non-local players, and most of us have offices or private labs we  
could play from if we got squeezed out of using the public machines.   
Others are not so lucky.

Rob
aka Spaceace!
From: jfy@cis.ksu.edu (Joseph F. Young)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: Re: BRONCO: Is now RSA.
Date: 18 Nov 92 21:23:23 GMT
Article-I.D.: crucis.jfy.722122032
Organization: Kansas State University
NNTP-Posting-Host: crucis.cis.ksu.edu

jwh@cs.bham.ac.uk (James "Oolon Colluphid" Hawtin) writes:

>In article <Bxu9z8.I6E.2@cs.cmu.edu>, jch+@cs.cmu.edu (Jonathan Hardwick) writes:

>[All most everything deleted]

>|> 
>|> ObTrek : when will we see the first player from a .su site? 
>|> 

>Well Spaceman I think the answer to your question is NEVER, as all you Yanks will
>be running RSA servers which means that you will have it all to yourselves! This
>is apart from discovery server god who seems about the only clue person around,
>because he realise that RSA will lock a lot of people out and so they are
>apparently not converting. Also We may see them in the UK first because everyone
>will always be able to play here =:*)


>				James 

KSU's Galaxy chaos netrek server (netrek.cis.ksu.edu, port 5855)  
doesn't run RSA and never will; it uses the old blessing scheme.
-- 
Joseph Young, Systems Programmer
KSU Department of Computing and Information Sciences
Manhattan, Kansas 66506  FAX: (913) 532-7353  Phone: (913) 532-6350   
Internet: jfy@cis.ksu.edu  UUCP: rutgers!depot!jfy
From: bav@hobbes.ksu.ksu.edu (Brick Verser)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: Trademark Infringment!  TWNN is gonna sue!
Date: 18 Nov 1992 14:49:35 GMT
Organization: Kansas State University
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: hobbes.ksu.ksu.edu

From the list of teams in the Internet Programming Contest:

> 188  I     The Team with no name
>            University of Canterbury
>             Bevan Arps             Craig Farrow
>             Tim Jefferson          Jasen Betts

We should sue.

But at least they got two problems right, ranking them 16th out of 126 teams
in Division I.  Not exactly the quality showing I'd expect from TWNN, but not 
too shabby.

--Brick
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
From: jhammond@acpub.duke.edu (John Kirk Hammond)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: Scumming on Bronco.
Date: 21 Nov 92 04:40:28 GMT
Organization: Duke University; Durham, N.C.

Hey George!

I have been on recently at Bronco and have noticed some players that
have been scumming lots of planets.

Take notice of the server god of ulowell and delete these scums who
couldn't play in a game without 9 slot scums if their life depended on
it.

SpaceAce!!
YeahBoy!!
FreeKill
Mergatroid
Hector
MUCUS PIG :)
everybody with ! on the end of the name ... *! (scorn! fear! etc)
Balton
ZZNewGuy

There are so many admirals here (including these) that utilize those 5
am time periods during the weekends for rank.
Nail the admirals I missed, too.

Thank you,

Kirk / Lance
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
From: ahabig@bigbang.astro.indiana.edu (Alec Habig)
Subject: Re: RSA (Was: RSA gobbledygook)
Organization: Indiana University Astrophysics, Bloomington, IN
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 16:07:19 GMT

In article <BxxIu3.BJI.2@cs.cmu.edu> jch+@cs.cmu.edu (Jonathan Hardwick) writes:
>jwh@cs.bham.ac.uk (James "Oolon Colluphid" Hawtin) writes
>> it may be very funny for you to say that but it is this kind of
>> insular approach that is afectively going to cut off the
>> rest of the world from playing netrek
>
>Err, you guys *do* have your own servers, right?  So you're not being
>cut off from playing netrek, merely from being blown away at 1000ms+
>ping times.

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.

Also, ping times from Europe to US servers are often better than ping times to
European servers.  The net here just plain sucks.

RSA will be the death of international netrek.  Without access to the north
american servers, it will wither and die within a year.

Why should you all care?  No good reason, we in Europe don't add much to the
whole scene.  But we will (if allowed to).  Besides, it's just pretty damn
isolationist not to.  And it's rather cold to say "well, if you dont like it,
just go break the law".  Speak for yourself.

	Alec
	(Entropy)
Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 03:13:50 -0500 
From: "Timothy C. Worsley" <tw1r+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: November Classic: US vs AU

US: Away -- Fed
AU: Home -- Rom
Notes: I missed most of this game in order to allow other players in, so
my writeup will be brief.  Lag was better than we might have expected
(~650ms to CMU).  I imagine that it varried from site to site.  Spaceace
played on the AU team.
	It looked to me like the US team started out with a very strong bombing
run, and grabbed Reg (agri).  However, they left no one back, so Balton
had to protect Veg as well has his normal 25.  These armies were later
moved to Earth.
	Planets were traded off for some time.  Eventually, Balton subbed out,
and I came in.  After a while, he was subbed back in, but I had to stay,
as we had only 8 players including him.  Eventually, we also subbed in
Ryche (Fear!) as well.  Toward the end, Warsong had to leave, and we
were out of subs.  I spent some of the game time trying to find one, but
failed.
	In the meantime, AU had made gain into Fed space, and ended the game
with a 12-8 lead.
	I enjoyed the part of the game that I played for.  The lag to Australia
wasn't as bad as I remembered it.  Maybe I should follow Rob's lead and
start playing ther more often.

ZZnew guy
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
From: spot@CS.CMU.EDU (Scott Draves)
Subject: Re: Screaming at the Sun
Followup-To: rec.games.netrek
Originator: spot@COBOL.FOX.CS.CMU.EDU
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University
	<1992Nov16.051404.28879@wixer.cactus.org>
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 18:30:22 GMT

>>>>> On Mon, 16 Nov 92 05:14:04 GMT, rhodesia@wixer.cactus.org (Felix S. Gallo) said:


Felix> During one of our freezes during which we had about five ships
Felix> completely motionless at our planet, and during which we were
Felix> typing "ack, frozen completely, pause" to the ALL board,
Felix> someone -- I originally accused Spaceman Spiff, but no, it was,
Felix> I think, Exxon Valdez -- walked up into a cluster of five
Felix> frozen cruisers, including myself, fired eight scout torps at
Felix> me, blew me up, walked back to Rom, refitted, and loaded up
Felix> with armies in an AS.  As I said at the time, you don't walk
Felix> into five cruisers in a scout unless you're sure they're not
Felix> going to hurt you.  Given the quantity of messages we had
Felix> going, one just has to call this deliberate or utterly
Felix> clueless.

i was hoping you would tell this story again because it isn't true.
in fact, i notice tha you have elaborated it since you last told it.
lies do tend to grow.

here's what really happened: i (mergatroid, not spiff, not exxon, you
amnesic buffoon) was scout bombing, waiting between vega and earth.  a
CA appeared near me, i tried to rez-scum it (immoral?) by firing a
stream of torps.  there were no other ships nearby.  it didn't react,
so i figured he was lagged, and finished him off with another couple
torps.  (immoral to kill a lagged player?).  (when you told the story
before, you said i used phasers. heh).  moments later a time-out was
called [**].  nevertheless, i was chased by the feds into O space.
since staying where i was was not safe, i returned to R space and
picked up armies (i did not refit).  after the timeout ended, those
armies were used to take vega.

** it's possible that randy called the time-out before i killed the
lagged Fed.  i really don't think so, because i could hear randy just
fine (he was siting nearby), but it is possible i missed the first
time he said it or something.  *if* this is the case, i apologize.


Commodore Mergatroid
Admiral Wangchuck      (the last bronco admiral)
Commodore Pestilence!  (member of the legendary Horsemen)
Ensign Blexcroid
Ensign Sakaki
Ensign House Dressing  (cocaptain of Side Salad)
-- 
				orgasm
Scott Draves			nitrous
spot@cs.cmu.edu			death
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
From: diachun@ncifcrf.gov (Justin Diachun)
Subject: Re: RSA (Was: RSA gobbledygook)
Organization: Frederick Cancer Research and Development Center
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 14:11:41 GMT

In article <Bxz86J.GLo.1@cs.cmu.edu> hde+@cs.cmu.edu (Herbert Enderton) writes:
>(2) Each server could have a key that it requires, along the lines of
>the current reserved.c key.  The people officially sanctioned to
>compile blessed binaries (there are very few of them and we must trust
>them anyway) get all the keys.  So the binaries they release will be
>allowed on all the servers that participate in this process.  Since
>some client-hackers lean towards releasing info-borgs and others are
>more conservative, a finicky server-god could choose which client-
>hackers to give his key to.

If I see this right, you imply that every time a new server is created
that people want a client to play on, the client 'god' (we need a new
term for them) would need to recompile his client on all platforms and
put it up for ftp.  This happens fairly often--for example, the recent
name change from ??? to romulus to patriot for the ulowell server.
Then people that want to try the new server have to go get a new copy
of the client.  This sounds more painful to me than a one time 'hunt
for crypt' startup.  It seems to me that it should be the server god's
job to say who can use his server, not a client controller who decides
which servers he likes.  Unless I missed the point somewhere?

Yeah, yeah, you could make some kind of a workaround like having new
servers only use a 'standard' blessing or whatever until the next
client release, but this would be ugly.  The client controllers would
be constantly badgered to release a new version.

>* If we could just ftp a binary and run it, that's fine, that's what
>we're used to.  If we have to decrypt it, using a key we have to get
>in the mail and using a crypt program we may not have and may not 
>be able to easily get, that's ridiculous.

Really not too bad.  You only have to do it once.  The biggest loss is
the "USA vs Rest of World" problem that RSA starts up.  But I think
the method is good, if it could be shared by the rest of the world.

> -- Bert  (Red Shirt)

Helix
-- 
___   ____   ____   ____   ___________________   ____   ____   ____   _
\  \ / \  \ / \  \ / \  \ /      Helix        \ / \  \ / \  \ / \  \ / 
/\  \  /\  \  /\  \  /\      Justin Diachun    \  /\  \  /\  \  /\  \  
  \__\/  \__\/  \__\/  \   diachun@ncifcrf.gov  \/  \__\/  \__\/  \__\/
From: tom@soda.berkeley.edu (Tom Holub)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: Re: GB at LAR
Date: 17 Nov 1992 04:33:03 GMT
Organization: U.C. Berkeley, CS Undergraduate Association
NNTP-Posting-Host: soda.berkeley.edu

In article <srt.721933875@sun-marino> srt@aero.org (Scott R. Turner) writes:
)
)Anyway, LA Riot ougt to receive the INL's "Most Gracious" team award.
)After what I thought were some acrimonious comments by the GBs after
)the first matchup, LAR agrees to play an important playoff game at
)UCLA to create a more even field of play.  Bravo.  (And we won't even
)mention that they played their most important game of the season
)shuttling their X displays from USC to UCLA.)

Yes, LA Riot was quite cool about handling the ghostbusts during our
game, although I wouldn't call agreeing not to play on a ridiculous
server "gracious."  I think LA Riot deserved most of the acrimonious
comments; to play a game on calvin when other servers are available
is intentionally taking unfair advantage of the home field.
 -Tom
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
From: rjones@itchy.dsd.es.com (Ray Jones - Perp)
Subject: Re: RSA question (Why only US and Canada)
Organization: Design Systems Division, Evans & Sutherland, SLC, UT
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 92 10:35:07 GMT

In article <By1wDG.Bro.2@cs.cmu.edu> jch+@cs.cmu.edu (Jonathan Hardwick) writes:
>[...]
>So, in order for US players to play abroad (and vice versa) using PKE
>technology, one of two things has to happen:
>   a) non-US players get ahold of RSAREF, thereby breaking the export
>      regulations of the Unbelievably Dumb Guys,
>or b) US players get ahold of client and server code that uses eg PGP
>      in place of RSAREF.  This will violate the patent of The Bad
>      Guys.
>
>See?  It's a lose-lose situation.  *Someone* has to break the law.

Why not have US players and servers use RSAREF, and Non-US use PGP?
They do the same thing (the RSA encryption thang).  Really.  

>Spaceman "oops, there goes his neuron" Spiff

--
                                          rjones@dsd.es.com
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
From: cks@hawkwind.utcs.toronto.edu (Chris Siebenmann)
Subject: Re: GB at LAR
Organization: Ziebmef home away from home
Date: 20 Nov 92 09:35:28 GMT

von@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Steve Von Worley) writes:
| Yes, you and everyone else in the INL is fucked, until the INL disallows
| servers from crappy regions of the net, which it probably won't.
[...]
| Note that you could go to UCLA for every game.  This is not realistic, 
| but it could be done.  And it would have to be done if the INL instated 
| the ban mentioned above.

 And the people from Toronto should go to Cornell?
 And the people from Montreal should go to Princeton?

 Or you could adopt the ENL solution; play two games, one at each team's
home server. Of course, you should probably double the length of the
season to compensate, or shorten the games. Or adopt a better scoring
system than the current one. Hopefully one that can crank out an answer
to who the current best team is at any time, so that we can ditch this
entire competetive seasonal nonsense in favour of viewing the INL as a
cool way of organizing and keeping track of high-clue high-interest
netrek games.

 Which would probably have the net effect of lowering everyone's
blood pressure, which seems like it would be a good thing.

--
	When we get calls from faculty and staff regarding problematic
	software, we always ask if they have a backup.  We got this
	*classic* response today "Well, I thought I had a backup, but
	she refused to type it in again..."	- Lou Anschuetz
cks@hawkwind.utcs.toronto.edu	           ...!{utgpu,utzoo,watmath}!utgpu!cks
From: paulsen@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Brian Paulsen)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: Re: IC forfiets
Date: 17 Nov 92 19:49:25 GMT
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

In article <wf2GpEe00aw9AiSVN3@andrew.cmu.edu> MrYuk+@CMU.EDU (Michael Juster) writes:
>Excerpts from netnews.rec.games.netrek: 16-Nov-92 Re: IC forfiets Taras
>Zommers@ll.mit.edu (1009)

>There is a HUGE differenece between individuals finding available
>machines and a WHOLE TEAM finding them!

Just as their is a HUGE difference between individuals who are willing
to sacrifice their jobs to play a game that doesn't do anything for paying
the rent.  Several at-large teams have many members who have to get up
at 6-7 in the morning every weekday.  Asking these people to play a game
that will start (assuming it starts on time, which rarely occurs) at
midnight.  If nobody got genocided, these people would be getting to sleep
at around 3am (assuming an hour's ride to work).

I am curious to why the game wasn't scheduled on a Friday night or a
Saturday morning.  My suspicion is that either communication got screwed
up or the captain made a bad choice in times.

To punish the entire IC team for either scenario seems a bit unfair.

Brian
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
From: books@fsunuc.physics.fsu.edu (Roger Books)
Subject: Re: RSA (Was: RSA gobbledygook)
Organization: FSU nuclear physics
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 92 14:31:17 GMT

In article <gf2lcr_00Vp8QyQGYo@andrew.cmu.edu> "Timothy C. Worsley" <tw1r+@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:
>Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
>Path: mailer.cc.fsu.edu!gatech!ncar!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!cis.ohio-state.edu!news.sei.cmu.edu!fs7.ece.cmu.edu!crabapple.srv.cs.cmu.edu!andrew.cmu.edu!tw1r+
>Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
>Message-ID: <gf2lcr_00Vp8QyQGYo@andrew.cmu.edu>
>Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 23:38:15 -0500 
>From: "Timothy C. Worsley" <tw1r+@andrew.cmu.edu>
>Subject: Re: RSA (Was: RSA gobbledygook)
>In-Reply-To: <1992Nov14.184207@cs.bham.ac.uk>
>References: <62018@mimsy.umd.edu>
>        <1992Nov14.184207@cs.bham.ac.uk>
>Lines: 13
>Excerpts from netnews.rec.games.netrek: 14-Nov-92 RSA (Was: RSA
>gobbledygook) James O. C. Hawtin@cs.bh (1376)
>
>> We can compile an RSA equivelent here and then you can use that. With the same
>> end; stopping those Borgs. WHY USE RSA WHICH LIMITS THE PEOPLE THAT
>> PLAY? If you
>> stop us play I expect you will get the largest and nastiest flame war in
>> history
>
>	If you beat out the cold fusion flame-war, *I*'ll be impressed. 
>:)
>
>ZZnew guy

	You think that one is bad, you should see the one in sci.crypt
about legislating registration of private keys so the FBI and Law
Enforcement in general can tap you easily.  The cold fusion flame-war is
trivial in comparison.

Sherlock

Roger
books@fsunuc.physics.fsu.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
From: von@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Steve Von Worley)
Subject: Re: personalized bitmaps
Organization: University of California, at Berkeley
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 05:55:53 GMT

In article <8f1lk_G00Vp144M4kM@andrew.cmu.edu> "Timothy C. Worsley" <tw1r+@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:
>	If I were allowed to design my own bitmaps, which everyone else would
>see me flying in, they would all be round and designed to be confused
>with the shields.  If I could, I'd make them all the same too.
>	In the more likely case -- that I could replace the current client's
>bitmaps with whatever bitmaps I wanted -- I would design all the ships
>based on a circle the same size as the actual ship cross-section (as
>seen by the server).  Of course, I'd decorate them (Including the
>bases.) to distunguish them from eachother and what direction they were
>going in.
>	I feel that these changes could give me an advantage, and would
>certainly give a new player who I gave the bitmaps to an advantage.  Is
>this a desired affect?

Of course it is an advantage; any time you can conceal information
from other players, you are helping yourself.

For this reason, ship bitmaps should be toggleable between the standard 
and user defined, on both a global and player by player basis.

If you did define your bitmaps as above, people could toggle yours
on, realize that you were uncreative, lame, and merely trying to confuse 
them [ :) ], and toggle them back.

I also like the idea previously presented, which says that the 
designer MUST play with his/her bitmaps.  This gives incentive to
the designer to produce bitmaps which convey some type of consistent
directional information.  Furthermore, starbase bitmaps should be
limited to 1 image for all directions, so that no additional 
information is given to anyone.

Overall, customizable bitmaps are a kool idea which I hope makes it
into the NBR.

Sandia

PS.
... and on his farm he had a Bloated Cow!
E  I  E  I  O!
With a Mooorgf - MORgfl - Here -
and a MoooOOOrgf - Moooorgm - there -
here a MooooOOOrgf! - there a <FART!> - everywhere a MOooOrgf Mooorgf...
-- 
Steve Von Worley
von@cory.berkeley.edu
Computer Science Gradual Student
University of California at Berzerkly 
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
From: hde+@cs.cmu.edu (Herbert Enderton)
Subject: Re: RSA
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 03:17:37 GMT

In article <1992Nov20.190452.5446@dsd.es.com> rjones@dsd.es.com writes:
>	      [...] The reason a PKE method was chosen is because
>*anyone* can bless a server now.  No more problems withh trying to
>find the reserved.c.  If a server god doesn't want borgs on his
>server, all he needs is the Public Keys file.  Which is trivial to
>get.  *That* is the main reason I suggested and pursued RSA as a
>verification scheme.  It is not "overkill."  It's not that much
>stronger than the current scheme.  

Correct, it is not much stronger than the current scheme.  So it
is not worth all this effort.  It is overkill not in the sense
that it will do a good job, but in the sense that it's a cumbersome
and overly general technique for what is really a trivial problem.

>Yes, it does strengthen the defense against borgs on non-borg servers.
>It makes it easier for server gods to keep borgs out, as is their
>right.  It also makes it possible to lock out a key that has been
>cracked out of the binary.  A new key can be generated, and the old
>one thrown away.

Is _that_ the justification for all of this?  That it will be easier
to change keys?  I thought it was because you didn't trust server gods
not to make blessed borgs (or to publish reserved.c, as you did in
with an early INL release).  Maybe if you went through and wrote down
all your security assumptions and all the mechanisms that you see
using for adding clients, servers, throwing out keys, etc, then you
can explain what all of this is good for.  I don't see that throwing
out an RSA key and getting a new one is really any easier than throwing
out a private reserved.c-type key and getting a new one.  In either case
the client needs to be recompiled, yes?

>Right now RSA may be causing a little pain.  But in the long run it
>will be better.  Be patient.  Things will get better.

I think they will get worse.  Because at some point, foolish server
gods are going to require RSA keys (i.e. not allow the old reserved.c
keys), and then a lot of people are going to squawk that they can't
get in.

When I started playing netrek, there were only two servers, and Terence
was the man with the reserved.c.  I remember him saying we should probably
change the key at some point, but that it was too much hassle to get
a new client release to everybody.  I think he was right.  What you're
planning is a thousand times as much hassle.  Thanks, but no thanks.
Just change the key when the NBR comes out, that's all we need.

>-- 
>                                          rjones@dsd.es.com

  -- Bert