------------------- NCF FreePlan Status ------------------- Ian D. Allen Wed Aug 21 11:31:29 EDT 1996 This document gives the current status of the following five major technical components of the NCF FreePlan: FreeNet (FreePort) The Classic, text-only, menu-based community network FreeMail Internet-based "offline" mail reading/writing Dial-up mail service using PPP FreePage Organization WWW home pages NCF member WWW home pages FreePlace Internet-based public cyber-services: Graphical access to NCF NNTP access to ncf.* news Full text indexing and searching FreeWeb Dial-up graphical access to the Internet Executive summary ----------------- The new computer, router, and password systems are all in place now, reducing the loads and increasing security on the FreeNet machines. We are aiming for a mid-September release of the technical parts of FreePlan. Much of the challenge of implementing FreePlan is preserving our current authentication of NCF-created mail messages and news articles. Internet "standard" mail and news servers do not support our current ability to validate our own users' outgoing mail and postings. Details on FreePlan follow. FreeNet (FreePort) ------------------ The Classic, text-only, menu-based community network. The new compute server is installed and serving about 40-60 users, relieving the loads on the other machines. The new Newbridge router is in place, permitting NCF to isolate its net from the rest of Carleton and control what kinds of Internet traffic flow in and out. The Shadow Password security suite was installed without downtime or incident. Shell users no longer have the ability to copy or crack the NCF password file. The login software was modified to permit the sending of a funding appeal letter to half the members who log in this month. The start-up of the NCF Auction software is documented and ready for the next auction. The Telnet and IRC services are now listed under "go usage". Bugs in the Lynx browser have been fixed with the installation of the latest version of Lynx 2.5FM from the Net. Errors in the slow-speed modem pool flow control configuration have been corrected; this may reduce file transfer problems. The Durham FreeNet was given a copy of the NCF Online AGM software. FreeMail: software ------------------ Internet-based "offline" mail reading The Netscape mail server does not provide the same ability to track and verify forged email as does our existing public-domain server ("sendmail"). To preserve NCF's current authentication standards, we must modify and continue to use the Unix sendmail program to receive and authenticate newly sent FreeMail. The Netscape server will function adequately to let users *read* mail offline. This work will be completed by mid-September. A proposal to make mail and news forgeries more visible by including an "Authentication" line at the start of the message body is currently before the Board Planning Committee. Initial responses are favourable. FreeMail: Dial-Up service ------------------------- This Dial-Up service provides an accessible (no busy signals) modem pool of PPP connections to the NCF Mail Server for the purpose of reading/writing email. We have discovered a possible way of offering FreeMail on *all* our modem lines. Routing software is now installed on one of our three terminal servers to verify this system. If it works, the existing express modem pool will have FreeMail functionality added to it first. The other modem lines will follow suit. This work will be completed by mid-September. FreePage: Organization home pages --------------------------------- Organization home pages: http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/orgname/ The local United Nations site is testing the new WWW server features, and Al Banner is providing us with valuable feedback on the utility of the Netscape "one button publish" environment. His comments are leading us to investigate other tools to make putting IP information on NCF easier. This basic level of service is ready to roll. We are soliciting other information providers to test the "one-button-publish" system. FreePage: Member home pages ---------------------------- NCF Member home pages: http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/~userid/ Menus to permit FreePort users to "publish" into their HTML directory are being tested in preparation for a switch to the Netscape WWW server when its license is arranged. This work will be completed in early September. FreePlace: Graphical access to NCF ---------------------------------- Internet-based public cyber-services. We are testing IP routing software on the Annex terminal server that may permit full graphical access to NCF information without simultaneously allowing full graphical Internet access. Coupled with a suitably-configured proxy WWW server, this new idea would permit substantial sampling of graphical Internet access without making NCF an unlimited on-ramp to the Internet. This work will be completed in early September. FreePlace: NNTP access to ncf.* news ------------------------------------ Internet-based public cyber-services. The Netscape news server does not provide the same ability to track and verify forged news as does our existing public-domain server ("INND"). To preserve NCF's current authentication standards, we must make some local modifications to the existing INND program to receive incoming news from off-machine accounts. This work will be completed by mid-September. A proposal to make mail and news forgeries more visible by including an "Authentication" line at the start of the message body is currently before the Board Planning Committee. Initial responses are favourable. FreePlace: Full text indexing and searching ------------------------------------------- Internet-based public cyber-services. A sample weekly index of the ncf.* news stored in the test News server is available via the home page on the test WWW server: http://www.ncf.carleton.ca:8080/ Fulcrum indexing of our WWW site will be installed by Fulcrum once we have obtained a license to use the Netscape WWW software. Dave Sutherland is arranging the licenses. FreeWeb: Dial-Up service ------------------------ Dial-up graphical access to the Internet This service is ready to roll, using the TIA software program. (NCF could open up Internet access directly from its Annex terminal servers; but, doing so is less secure than using TIA.) Volunteers are preparing documents on how to connect to a system using PPP from various types of home computers. Notes ----- My June request for the licenses needed to authorize NCF's continued use of the Netscape servers required by FreePlan is still outstanding. We are currently in breach of Netscape's license agreement for the "test drive" of these servers. Dave Sutherland hopes to have the agreement worked out soon. One Stop Shopping ----------------- As initially conceived, FreePlan included a separate dial-up pool for FreeMail. This would have forced NCF users to disconnect from FreePort and re-dial to read FreeMail. Research into the capabilities of our Annex terminal servers has turned up a way to permit all NCF modems to be used for both FreeMail and FreePort, eliminating the need to re-dial to change services. NCF modems will continue to provide "one stop shopping" for all NCF services. Authentication -------------- NCF currently does not permit its users to forge the "From:" line in news or mail. If we are to preserve this quality as we implement FreePlan, NCF cannot simply adopt "standard" Internet software that does not prevent such forgery. Using standard software, such as the existing versions of Netscape news and mail servers, would permit our PPP users to forge both mail and news. To provide authentication, we plan to make local software modifications to our current mail and news servers to ensure that NCF's PPP users cannot forge mail or news. We may include an extra text body line in mail and news that helps authenticate the person who mailed or posted it. I note with some amusement that Netscape does not use its own mail server to receive its own incoming email -- it uses the same "sendmail" mail server that NCF uses...