REPLY: 2:250/1@fidonet 61d4c1f8
MSGID: 1:3634/12.73 61d577f1
PID: GED+LNX 1.1.5-b20180707
CHRS: CP437 2
TZUTC: -0500
TID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 17-02-17
 On 2022 Jan 04 21:52:16, you wrote to Dallas Hinton:

 VC> Where does it come from - i.e., file area may be it need to be taken over.

the backbone.na, backbone.no, backbone.dst, backstat.na and bofaq (i was
mistakenly calling it BOP) documents were all distributed in the BACKBONE FDN
by the backbone chairperson when they were updated or simply needed to be
refreshed...

here is the last listing and descriptions i can find on them as hatched in the
BACKBONE FDN by former backbone chairpersons...

=====>8 snip 8<=====

backbone.na   List Of Active Echoes Available On The North American Backbone
ftp://sestar.synchro.net/file.dist.net/BACKBONE/BACKBONE.NA

backbone.no   List Of Inactive Echoes Available On The North American Backbone

backbone.dst  List Of Echoes No Longer Available On The North American Backbone

backstat.na   Latest Changes and Info On The North American Backbone
ftp://sestar.synchro.net/file.dist.net/BACKBONE/BACKSTAT.NA

bofag.txt     Authorized May 04, 2003 Issue of BOFAQ.TXT
ftp://sestar.synchro.net/main/FIDO-GEN/bofaq.txt

=====>8 snip 8<=====

i finally found my latest copy of the BOFAQ in my fido-general file area but
it should be in BACKBONE, really... on my old system i had combined some FDNs
into what i called FIDO-GEN... it is where my copies of fido's policy
documents, two different FTN-Zx<->FTN-Zy gating tools, fidonet history
documents, the nobogus tool, the vote manager tool, and an echomail paths
mapping tool all reside...

there was also a backbone.int file that contained a list of areas reported to
be gated from the internet... these were almost all newsgroups... it was
apparently dropped at some point and, while i still have a description of it,
i don't have the actual last file that was distributed...

at some point, gated news groups with slightly altered group names (eg:
ALT-POLITICS, ALT-BBS-ADS, ALT-COMP-ANTI-VIRUS) were listed in the backbone.na
file with "[GNG]" prepended to their description... fidonet administrative
echo also have their descriptions in the backbone.na prepended with "[ADM]"...
there might be one other prefix in use but i don't recall it, ATM...

so the flow of echotags and descriptions through the various backbone.* files
went like this...

  1. moderator request for cartage in Z1_BACKBONE...

  2. echotag accepted for cartage...

  3. echotag and description from the echolist added to backbone.na...

  4. at some random point in time, the backbone chairperson would look
     over their system and find the backbone areas that had no traffic
     over the last X time period or had been dropped from the echolist...

  5. echotags that matched in #4 were then moved to backbone.no for some
     period of time...

  6. after the period of time elapsed and the echotag was still matching
     #4 plus the additional period the echotag and description were moved
     to the backbone.dst (dst == destroyed) file... it was at this point
     that the stars would remove the area from their configs or maybe
     move it to their own private distribution list/group...

  7. the backstat.na file would be updated with newly added, pending drop,
     and destroyed echotags and hatched in the BACKBONE FDN... any other
     changes to the backbone would also be noted in this file...

the periods of time in the above steps was random... this to thwart nefairious
individuals from trying to game the system... this is much like the echolist
having a random time before dropped echotags were actually purged from the
echolist database which was to stop nefarious individuals attempting to hijack
echotags as soon as they expired... that gave the real moderators/owners of
the echotags a chance to update the echotag data so as to keep it under their
control...

ok, my c0ffee cup is empty so i guess i'll stop here for now ;)

)\/(ark

"The soul of a small kitten in the body of a mighty dragon. Look on my
majesty, ye mighty, and despair! Or bring me catnip. Your choice. Oooh, a
shiny thing!"
... Choosey perverts choose GIF!
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