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From: herbie@polaris.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.mail
Subject: Re: Gateway to VNET wanted
Message-ID: <680@polaris.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 9-Aug-86 16:08:44 EDT
Article-I.D.: polaris.680
Posted: Sat Aug  9 16:08:44 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 12-Aug-86 15:19:13 EDT
References: <1002@kuling.UUCP> <162@wucfua.UUCP> <967@mit-trillian.MIT.EDU>
Reply-To: herbie@polaris.UUCP (Herb Chong)
Organization: IBM TJ Watson RC
Lines: 34

In article <967@mit-trillian.MIT.EDU> henry@athena.mit.edu (Henry Mensch) writes:
>IBM *is* paranoid about the gateway; when I worked for IBM the policy
>on their end was simply that you needed a "business need to know" to
>use the gateway.  Your manager had to approve of your usage of the
>gateway, and her manager had to approve, etc., *ad infinitum*.  Nobody
>at my site had access to the gateway.  It's called by an
>ever-so-appropriate name on the IBM side (BITNET) and, by SMSGing
>particular commands to it, I learned that it didn't know about any of
>the nodenames at my site.  That's part of how they keep it secure.
>Once the IBMer has permission to use the gateway, she has to lay the
>groundwork for the preparation of a virtual circuit, etc.  What a pain
>in the ass!

the virtual circuit stuff was obsoleted almost as soon as the document
was made available from BITNIC.  the new gateway is transparent to
anyone from either side when communicating with a VNET/BITNET site and
person that has been granted access.  the CUNYVM/WATSON link has been
flaky of late due to telephone company problems but that is another
matter.  only Research VNET nodes are directly on BITNET.

the prefered path for communications is through IBM's ARPA gateway,
ibm.com.  questions can be directed to postmaster@ibm.com.

Herb Chong, IBM Research...

I'm still user-friendly -- I don't byte, I nybble....

VNET,BITNET,NETNORTH,EARN: HERBIE AT YKTVMH
UUCP:  {allegra|cbosgd|cmcl2|decvax|ihnp4|seismo}!philabs!polaris!herbie
CSNET: herbie%ibm.com@csnet-relay
ARPA:  herbie@ibm.com, herbie%yktvmh.bitnet@wiscvm.wisc.edu
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