Cyberspace Communications finances for January, 1999

Feb 2 04:08 UTC 1999

Here is the treasurer's report on Cyberspace Communications, Inc. finances
through January 31st, 1999.

Beginning Balance     $3,357.10

Credits                 $510.00         Member contributions
                        $242.50         Auction proceeds
                         $85.00         Miscellaneous donations
                          $5.00         Silly Hat Fund donations
                   ------------
                        $842.50

Debits                   $63.00         Pumpkin Rent for February
                         $66.36         Electricity for January
                        $366.41         Phone Bill
                         $35.00         Renewal of cyberspace.org
                         $44.00         Renewal of our P.O. Box
                   ------------
                        $574.77

Ending Balance        $3,624.83

Our current balance breaks down as follows:

$2,623.25               General Fund
  $816.00               Spare parts / 501(c)3 / Mail machine fund
  $113.86               Silly Hat Fund
   $65.00               UPS Fund
    $6.72               Sales tax collected

There was no activity in the Grex store, so the balances remain at:

                         Cash                                    Stock
                     ---------                                ---------
       Balances:     ($123.60)                                 $340.90

We had 2 new members in January (micromac and lumpy) and one returning member 
(jshafer).  We are currently at 98 members, 84 of whom are paid through at 
least February 15th.  (The others expired recently and are in a grace period.) 

January was obvoiously a very good month for Grex, thanks largely to the 
auction.

If you're like me, you're thinking "Didn't we just renew cyberspace.org last 
October?"  And the answer is yes, we did.  After a long exchange of e-mail, 
faxes, and phone conversations with Internic, I concluded that they forgot to 
bill us for our domain in '96 and have juggled the books in order to bill us 
for it now.  People who have dealt with them a lot (nephi, scg, and steve) 
said they weren't surprised that Internic would resort to such subterfuge, but 
advised that given the large amount of power they have to make our lives 
miserable, $35 is a small price to pay to make the problem go away.  I have 
records of all the old invoices now, so they can't do it to us again, we hope, 
and I am somewhat consoled by the fact that we probably really should have 
paid them for '96, but didn't.  (Though of course it's their fault for not 
billing us.) 

Thanks to everyone who contributed in January:

arthurp, aruba, atticus, beeswing, bmoran, bruin, cmcgee, coyote, danr, 
devnull, dpfitzen, fungster, jake, jshafer, kami, kentn, krj, lumpy, micromac, 
mkc, mta, mudlark, n8nxf, psun, quail, roadtrip, robh, rosie0, rtgreen, sagan, 
scg, scott, valerie, the Grex walkers, and witling.  Whew!

Thanks everyone!

If you or your institution would like to become a member of Grex, it only
costs $6/month or $60/year.  Send money to:

Cyberspace Communications
P. O. Box 4432
Ann Arbor, MI 48106-4432

If you pay by cash or money order, please include a photocopy of some form
of ID.  I can't add you to the rolls without ID.  (If you pay by personal
check, we consider that a good enough ID.)  Type !support for more info.

response 2 of 15:

Feb 2 12:41 UTC 1999

What was the nature of the contribution by "the Grex walkers"?

response 4 of 15:

Feb 3 12:43 UTC 1999

(Re 3 re 1: it was a kind of ancient protection racket, tribute you paid to
keep from being pillaged, more or less.  I think he was referring to your
comments on Internic & "$35 is a small price to pay to make the problem go
away".  (Tim obviously can speak for himself, & is encouraged to do so if I'm
misrepresenting him.))

response 6 of 15:

Feb 3 23:01 UTC 1999

re 4, re 3, re 1, re 0: Ding! You are correct sir!

response 8 of 15:

Feb 4 00:06 UTC 1999

Richard, I'm just not willing to take it on - I have too much other Grex stuff
to do.  I don't like not standing up to them either, but unfortunately we
don't have enough written documentation to make an air-tight case of it, and
from what I heard Internic is more than willing to block a domain name if
you don't go along with them.

They sent me copies of all the old invoices, so they shouldn't be able to do
it to us again.

response 10 of 15:

Feb 4 02:49 UTC 1999

"latent"?  <dave tries to imagine what STeve meant> "late"?  "latex"?

response 12 of 15:

Feb 4 13:35 UTC 1999

        Extortion racket?  

        I can believe someone might call ARIN's twenty-thousand dollar fees
an extortion racket, or an attempt to limit IP expansion and multihomability
to large companies, but the InterNIC?  They're offering an efficient and
proven service, which requires a central primary database, for hundredths of
a cent per transaction!  Woe is you!

response 14 of 15:

Feb 9 18:29 UTC 1999

        Ever looked at RTD and EDS technologies?  It's not uncommon at all to
see people from the military or the CIA or FBI with strong electronics
backgrounds winding up in networking companies after they resign.