======== TELEBITS ======== RUMOR MILL - PAY NO ATTENTION TO THAT MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN ------------------------------------------------------------ John Perry Barlow - co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and lyricist for the Grateful Dead band appears to have relocated from the wilds of Montanna to take up residence in NEW YORK CITY, where no good Salsa can originate. But persistent rumors indicate he's working on some type of book dealing with Cyberspace. For those who missed his original missives on Operation Sun Devil that made the rounds online, most notably Crime and Puzzlement, Barlow has a rare online gift - he can write. In fact, he writes really well. We would look forward to such a book. On the topic of the EFF, we published their announcement of their reorganization and redirection last issue largely without comment. We thought they might hear quite enough about it from the online community without any of our bumbling assistance. Apparently so. They've taken quite a beating on the wires. Partial recovery seems to involve reinstatement of Mike Godwin, who has done quite a bit of good work counseling BBS operators on legal positions. Under the reorganization, Godwin was "out." Rumor has it he is now back "in" and going to join the Washington D.C. office. Almost concurrent with the EFF's reorg, it seemed the damn burst on BBS raids this past January/February and Godwin is quickly becoming popular with BBS operators - probably entirely unrelated to his reinstatement, but fortuitous nonetheless. The Clinton White House is looking to become a little bit more technically aggressive regarding internal communications. Rumor has it that Clinton was aghast to find a telephone system manned by operators plugging cords into jacks to connect calls in the White House. Despite harsh economic times, Clinton apparently feels the nation can afford a new phone system for the White House. And electronic mail is going to figure into the equation. The White House and CompuServe have been wrangling with the question of what you do with all the e-mail if a public e-mail address were published. We think we might be able to hurry things along by telling you that an Internet message to 75300.3115@compuserve.com pretty much IS the White House. Messages to that address have been resulting in a return message that the message buffer for that address is full. The "buffer" was recently expanded to a 1000 slots and will go to 10,000 soon. We understand CompuServe was actually called into the site on February 5th to talk about an MHS hub connection to the service to pick up mail, and helping the White House staff learn how to use various software programs to automate the sifting, sorting, directing, and so forth they will have to do to manage the influx of mail once the cat is out of the bag. (For Boardwatch readers, it is out). Rush Limbaugh (70277.2502@ compuserve .com) should be all pink and giggly to learn this. He's been pretty actively promoting CompuServe's $12.80-per-hour-overpriced service on his radio show as THE way to be online. Artisoft's LANtastic, despite some early misadventures with Windows and upgrades, is apparently making some moves of interest. They now have a card and software allowing Macs to connect to DOS networks, they apparently are pretty much cozy with Windows 3.1, and they are introducing a VERY interesting TCP/IP add-on for their network. BBS operators have been split on this product for several years with many reporting all-encompassing love affairs with LANtastic and others reporting chilling horror stories. The company has had some internal personal changes, and released a flurry of new stuff in the last 6 months. We're going to some effort to put the new stuff through its paces and you can expect full details in a future issue of Boardwatch. We're hoping to bring you some pleasant surprises... Windows for Work Groups seems like a neat idea. A darling little e-mail application, a group scheduler, real time "chat" and you can hook up Windows machines with LAN hardware and no real LAN operating system except for Windows for Work Groups. LANs for the rest of us. This seems to be a Microsoft jab at Novell, part of an emerging battle of software titans. Novell has made a fortune in high priced LAN software averaging some $2500 a pop, while Microsoft never has been able to quite give it away. So apparently Microsoft has decided to literally give it away. But there are problems. For one thing, it really won't work with any other already installed LAN. And if you have mixed Windows and DOS machines, you are out of luck. Rumor has it that DOS 6.0 will include the LAN links to work with Windows for Work Groups. But even worse, the FIRST question asked by technical support groups for software all over the country has just been revised to "Do You Use Windows for Work Groups." Apparently, most everything has problems with it at this point... Interesting numbers department - Prodigy Services is now noting that subscribers are entering some 170,000 messages DAILY into their now 400 some odd bulletin boards. Including both reads and writes, they are processing some 400 message transactions per second on the system. RAM Mobile Data is making some progress selling their pricey wireless e-mail network. Hewlett Packard is going to announce built-in software in their new HP-95 palmtop model to work with the MOBIDEM wireless modem. Intel is apparently going to announce distribution of a compatible wireless modem. And Bell South is going to extend the RAM Mobile Data network to another 192 cities. We still think this technology, pricing, and network model is a BIG loser. But they are working hard at gaining allies.