Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!aplcen!haven!adm!smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@smoke.brl.mil (Doug Gwyn)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
Subject: Re: UseNet/Internet/FTPing, etc.
Message-ID: <14304@smoke.brl.mil>
Date: 1 Nov 90 07:20:48 GMT
References: <8358@darkstar.ucsc.edu> <14291@smoke.brl.mil> <8400@darkstar.ucsc.edu>
Organization: U.S. Army Ballistic Research Laboratory, APG, MD.
Lines: 34

In article <8400@darkstar.ucsc.edu> unknown@ucscb.UCSC.EDU (The Unknown User) writes:
>But if you have FTP access, doesn't that pretty much mean you're
>reading this through UseNet?

No, there is no logical connection between the two.  Several years ago,
most DoD Internet sites read this traffic via an Internet mailing list
instead of via any form of USEnet, yet all Internet sites are required
to support FTP, which is one of the standard Internet protocols.
Conversely, most USEnet participants exchanged USEnet traffic via UUCP,
which was not generally supported by Internet sites.  These days, a
variety of combinations of capabilities exist; for example, at BRL we
have only a limited number of systems capable of UUCP connections, but
most of our departmental shared systems support at least a subset of
USEnet newsgroups (using a variety of user interfaces including "rn",
"rnews", "vnews", and "xnews"), while all of them (apart from toy
computers and systems containing classified information) are on the
Internet or MILnet or both.  (By the way, don't try to break into
BRL's systems -- attempting it is a federal crime, and they are
closely monitored.  There's nothing good here anyway that you can't
get via anonymous FTP from VGR.BRL.MIL or by simply asking for it.)

>Isn't Bitnet is another network like Internet?

BITnet was just a feeble attempt to bring campus IBM mainframes into
the world of internetworking; it has gateways that connect it to the
real Internet and other networks.

>Do bitnet people have ftp access?

That I don't know.  Some gateways merely reroute mail while others
handle a wide range of protocol translations.  Since FTP is just a file
transfer protocol, perhaps a more meaningful question is whether they
can access Internet sites via FTP (on the Internet side).  Probably
some BITnet user can tell us about this.