Usinbg MSU-Gopher from Merit to grex is no longer an option. Now what?
Endless attack dialingf for locals, and loss of access to Gtrex for other
Michifgan folks?  What shall we do about the situation?

20 responses total.

        Did they finally close it off?  Some have been coming in through
the M-Link Gopher, vienna.hh.lib.umich.edu (?).  Is that still an option? 
If it is, I suspect it won't last long. 

        They're probably on campus.  You get a message about being an 
"offcampus user" iof you come in through merit to msu-gopher.

I got that message, & then when I tried to select Grex an immediately-
vanishing message about ../tmp/telnet.log not being permitted.  Bleah.
Endless attack dialing it is, I'm afraid.

Yes, I just noticed this tonight.  UM-Gomlink said "all telnet
ports in use", so I doubt their link to us will last long.

Good-bye to an era.

(If anybody from Merit or ITD sees this I didn't say it, but...)

Merit accounts really wouldn't be that expensive if shared between several
people, especially if one of those people has a connection to a school (in
which case the account would cost $10/month, rather than $35/month). 
Unfortunately, it's too late to give out this kind of advice right now --
the users who depended on MSU Gopher to get to us won't be able to get
here to read this.

The message I got was something along the lines of "you are telnetting
from south.psc.lsa.umich.edu.  You are considered an off campus user."  I
wonder, therefore, whether somebody with a computer at MSU would be able
to set it up so that people could telnet through it to gopher and fix the
problem.  Of course, any unofficial solution will be short lived in
duration, as it will probably be "fixed" when it is found out about.

Now is the time to talk to the powers that be at MSU (Gopher Central)
and ask them to make an exception for a good public-service organization
(Grex).

All those freenets, I'm sure, consider themselves to be good public
service organizations.  We know we're different, but our chances of
getting them to believe it without just sounding inredibly snobby don't
sound very good to me.

Okay, then, let me throw out an idea...

How much would it cost for us to be accessible from a Merit prompt?

A lot, I think I remember from the last time that was discussed.  It would
be a lot cheaper for some lucky person with a computer on the UM's Ethernet,
which would be accessable from the Merit prompt, to set up their computer
so that people could telnet through there to Grex.  I'm not sure if that
would be legal, though.

How much does it cost to call someone at MSU up and ask them nicely?
Really, I get a little peeved when ideas like this get shot down for
all kinds of theoretical reasons, when the doing is simple.

I guess it's worth a try.  Any volunteers to make the call (or send the
e-mail, or whatever the best way of communicating with them is)?

Hey, I got through by way of M-link yesterday and am now on by way of 
the msu-gopher. Sure it says that "you are an off campus user", but that
doesn't mean that you are shut off! Check out the new merit help page
when you first login to merit. They explain the new setup pretty well.

WOW!  I cannot believe that someone suggested having multiple users get a
Merit Account, then share it.  That is against the very fiber of the AU
compliance part of the contract.  I would strongly suggest that you DO NOT
do this.

        re # 13 I guess some of us aren't as anal as you are.

        Well at any rate it seems to be a non-issue now as I'm coming in from
        MSU-Gopher
now.

| 
| #14 of 15: by Matthew Stephen Rogers (raven) on Wed, Oct 12, 1994 (11:32):
|        re # 13 I guess some of us aren't as anal as you are.
|

I guess not, but I hate to watch people get caught doing something illegal
because they had to brag about it.  It makes the rest of us have be on
our toes that much more...

Oh, and Matthew, I am disappointed.  I would have thought that a college
student at MSU would have had a better comeback then the one above. 
Thanks for trying, though.

I would add my voice to curby's on the question of sharing an account.
Don't do it. It really is against the law, like stealing cable services.

I should note that I do not share either of my accounts that allow  Merit
authorization, not with anybody.  It was merely an idea for others to
consider and make up their own minds about it.

This response has been erased.

 Just because I telnet through MSU gopher, does not mean I       
go to school there.  In fact my alma mater is Oberlin College in Ohio.
At any rate, as I pointed out before, the matter is a moot point because
MSu hasn't cut off access to Grex now. So your free to get a life and worry
about something else :-).

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