As It Was In 1998: Packet's Radio's Best Kept Secrets! The Double Oak Story!

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So while tacking my way through the shoals and tidal inlets of the great Digital Sargasso Sea, I took a moment this past Sunday afternoon to click on http://archive.org/ This remarkable location is just one of a number of online virtual libraries that harvests and houses all sorts of Internet flotsam, including complete web pages that date back in time to at least 1996.
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I then looked up http://nobleharbor.com/ which, among other things, is a personal shrine to the art of Tea as hosted by Tim Maxwell KA2PKH. I also recalled that Tim used to have a few copies of my now defunct TELNET NEWS packet radio newsletter ranging from 1998 to 2000 posted on his site and sure enough, they were still accessible. This was a significant find since a now archaic Toshiba Satellite laptop in my possession harbors the entire TELNET NEWS documentation with one minor glitch. In it's current state, the computer does not see the floppy drive. Maybe a corrupt driver, maybe not. I'll get around to it one day.
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Anyway, in 1998, I was already performing a monthly special segment for George Bowen's This Week in Amateur Radio but this was well before the installation of the Random Access File and Random Access Thought programs which I currently produce. In fact, those features focused mostly on amateur packet radio from the user's perspective, especially with regard to the overlap between various regional AX25 radio networks and access to the Internet from those networks.
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What follows is radio copy dated October 31st, 1998 detailing a then existing packet environment deep in the heart of Texas. Whether any these network devices still exist, I must admit I have not taken the time to verify but if you have a nifty client such as the last and best version of Winpack version 6.80 or any other functional telnet program, go see!
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Hello George, Here's copy for the next packet installment for TWIAR. n2fnh/Bill.
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Coming up next on This Week In Amateur Radio, ME! N2FNH! With more on those amazing packet Internet Gateways. Don't you dare touch that dial!
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Hello there! It's me again! N2FNH with more on those amazing Packet Internet Gateways. Listen, I have a three-year old son. His name is Zachary. And Zachary LOVES trains. This kid has more train toys than AMTRAK and CONRAIL have rolling stock. You name it, he's got it. Everything from amazing remote control jobbies to all those little Thomas The Tank Engine bits, pieces and parts. When he gets a little older, I plan to take my son, the train expert, to the Mecca of all train stations, Grand Central Station in New York City where we can convene and converse with our fellow trainiacs, co-passengers, concessionaires, the bums who pee in the street and all the other denizens who live and work in the bowels of one of Gotham City's best known landmarks.
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Thinking about Grand Central Station somehow got me to thinking about packet radio, the Internet and all kinds of crazy communications networks. How I made this mental segue still mystifies me but it does give me the chance to profile a kind of Grand Central Station I discovered in the world of packet Radio. There's a guy named Larry Story who lives down in Double Oak, Texas. He's a professional airline pilot who is also an enthusiastic amateur radio operator who loves the digital domain. His call is WB5CQU and he runs a gateway using JNOS software that bridges the Internet with not one, not two, not three but four different types of packet networks, not to mention the local neighborhood AX25 stuff. Larry's system allows the user access not only to the usual local NETROM environment but also entry into a regional system known as the ROSE X25 Network. There is also access to another protocol called TEXNET, as well as a solidly established TCPIP collective.
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There are a few ways to access WB5CQU. If you are currently connected to another Packet Internet Gateway, then check your nodes list and look for the alias IPCQU. If it's there, then try the usual NETROM connect. If it works, you will be seen by IPCQU as an amateur radio link and should allow you full access. If you decide to telnet in from your gateway or from your Internet service provider, you will need to send a message to: wb5cqu@wb5cqu.ampr.org after you login requesting access to the site. It usually takes a day or so to get the nod of approval. Right now, the way IPCQU is configured, Larry is using a point To point protocol or PPP connection to the Internet. What this means is that you must use Larry's domain name to establish the telnet session rather than the 32-bit IP address. With the PPP connection, Larry's server is operating with something called dynamic IP addressing which means the numeric address tends to change from session to session. Although the IP address changes, the domain name does not. Should you get a busy signal from IPCQU, hang out for a few minutes and then give it another go. So the address to remember is: IPCQU.DYN.ML.ORG or INDIA PAPA CHARLIE QUEBEC UNIFORM dot DELTA YANKEE NOVEMBER dot MIKE LIMA dot OSCAR ROMEO GULF.
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Once you are in, take the time to really scope out IPCQU. Check the nodes lists, the ports lists and the IH lists. Check out the message areas for updates on the ROSE X25 Network and the emerging FPAC protocol. Larry tells me FPAC is an extension of the ROSE standard and appears designed to replace the existing software. Also scan the hard drive with that W command for even more information. You will need it because the ROSE and TEXNET local area networks have different command structures. They're easy to learn but there are some differences. The fun, for me at least, was to actually discover and try out these network protocols that I could only read about in those two ARRL best seller publications, "Your Packet Companion" and "Practical Packet Radio".
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Here's how Larry describes the ROSE protocol in one of his text messages: The ROSE X25 Packet Switch is a replacement for the common digipeater or other node switching EPROM. The ROSE Switch represents the latest state of the art in Packet Networking technology using international standard protocols. The ROSE switch is the first Amateur Packet Networking program to use International Standard protocol known as CCITT X25. The program is burned into a EPROM and placed in any of the standard TNC2 clones. This EPROM replaces the standard system chip in the TNC.
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The ROSE X25 Packet Switch offers some interesting features:
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HOP by HOP Acknowledgements between Switches providing higher reliability and throughput.
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A 9600 BAUD or higher BACKBONE that is completely Transparent to the user.
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VIRTUAL addressing. The user only needs to know the address at the exit point and not all the intermediate steps.
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DYNAMIC route selection. The Network will automatically attempt other alternate paths if a link is down.
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PREDETERMINED Network paths. The network will not attempt impossible links that are heard during a band opening.
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SUPPORTS all packet protocols including TCPIP, NETROM and AX25.
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Larry goes on to say that an organization called the Radio Amateur Telecommunications Society or RATS were the developers of this networking system which currently stretches from Texas to Oklahoma as well as Florida, Louisiana, Michigan and Illinois. I have also found other ROSE networks in places like New Jersey and a few localities in France. I spent a few nights playing with the WB5CQU system and figured out the commands necessary to navigate both the ROSE and TEXNET systems. I should also say that the TEXNET protocol appears to be a cross between the common NETROM networks and ROSE is designed to be a reliable high speed networking system that meshes well with the coexisting ROSE environment. Once I was familiar with the networks, I then took the opportunity to establish some really enjoyable keyboard QSOs with the good folks who live the Double Oak area. From all this experimenting, I made two really good friends over the IPCQU Packet Gateway. They are Bonnie KC5MSV and her brother Terry KC4EYD who lives near Jacksonville, Florida. I've been QSOing with Bonnie and Terry for just about two years now. In fact, we even took it a step further for a couple of voice QSOs over the Internet using VoxChat. And that's really what this is all about. There are thousands of Packet to Internet Gateways in some 100 countries around the world and much of your time will be spent negotiating with other computers but the best fun is using all that technology, all that gear, all that stuff to get your digital self all the way over to somebody else's keyboard for the sole purpose of saying Hello! Bon Jour! Saludos! Shalom! Merhaba! or just plain old How the heck are ya? with another guy or gal who digs the Ham Radio scene as much as you do!
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And that's it for this time around. Remember: "Today the Network! Tomorrow the World!" This is Bill Baran N2FNH saying 73 for This Week In Amateur Radio!
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-30-

Another Time...Another World...

In addition to the extensive audio recordings and sound effects libraries housed deep within the vaults of the N2FNH Media Center is an equally extensive archive of simple ASCII text. The vast majority of the files are actual screen saves of complete packet radio sessions documented between 1996 through 2004. You might say I was a unique species of packet radio maven, not so much concerned with the technical aspect but to more to do with the actual deployment, like a spider analog, plucking my way across local and regional AX25 and NETROM networks, hunting for,targeting and finally snaring the elusive Packet Radio/Internet Gateway.
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Depending on particular system rules, I was able to use my packet station to access hundreds of gateways worldwide, and then on to bulletin boards, nodes and DX packet clusters. But there was more! Accessing the World Wide Web via packet (not as visually exciting but interesting just the same) and on occasion showing up at the front door of US Government computers, by accident of course. There are those who claim I even managed to completely scan a regional MARS packet gateway before it dawned on the SysOp that his VHF two meter amateur radio ports were fully wide open and totally not secure.
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But on each digital adventure, I would stop and collect interesting little items along the way and what follows is just one of many of those curious two dimensional textual curios:
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INFORMATION PLEASE
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When I was quite young, my father had one of the first telephones in our neighborhood. I remember well the polished old case fastened to the wall. The shiny receiver hung on the side of the box. I was too little to reach the telephone, but used to listen with fascination when my mother used to talk to it.
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Then I discovered that somewhere inside the wonderful device lived an amazing person - her name was Information Please and there was nothing she did not know. Information Please could supply any body's number and the correct time.
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My first personal experience with this genie-in-the-bottle came one day while my mother was visiting a neighbor. Amusing myself at the tool bench in the basement, I whacked my finger with a hammer. The pain was terrible, but there didn't seem to be any reason in crying because there was no one home to give sympathy. I walked around the house sucking my throbbing finger, finally arriving at the stairway - The telephone! Quickly I ran for the footstool in the parlor and dragged it to the landing. Climbing up I unhooked the receiver in the parlor and held it to my ear. "Information Please", I said into the mouthpiece just above my head.
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A click or two and a small clear voice spoke into my ear. "Information". "I hurt my finger. . ." I wailed into the phone. The tears came readily enough now that I had an audience. "Isn't your mother home?" came the question. "Nobody's home but me." I blubbered. "Are you bleeding?" "No," I replied. "I hit my finger with the hammer and it hurts." "Can you open your icebox?" she asked. I said I could. "Then chip off a little piece of ice and hold it to your finger."
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After that I called Information Please for everything. I asked her for help with my geography and she told me where Philadelphia was. She helped me with my math, and she told me my pet chipmunk I had caught in the park just the day before would eat fruits and nuts. And there was the time that Petey, our pet canary died. I called Information Please and told her the sad story. She listened, then said the usual things grown-ups say to soothe a child. But I was unconsoled. Why is it that birds should sing so beautifully and bring joy to all families, only to end up as a heap of feathers, feet up on the bottom of a cage? She must have sensed my deep concern, for she said quietly, "Paul, always remember that there are other worlds to sing in." Somehow I felt better.
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Another day I was on the telephone. "Information Please." "Information," said the now familiar voice. "How do you spell fix?" I asked. All this took place in a small town in the pacific Northwest. Then when I was 9 years old, we moved across the country to Boston. I missed my friend very much. Information Please belonged in that old wooden box back home, and I somehow never thought of trying the tall, shiny new phone that sat on the hall table.
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Yet as I grew into my teens, the memories of those childhood conversations never really left me; often in moments of doubt and perplexity I would recall the serene sense of security I had then. I appreciated now how patient, understanding, and kind she was to have spent her time on a little boy. A few years later, on my way west to college, my plane put down in Seattle. I had about half an hour or so between plane, and I spent 15 minutes or so on the phone with my sister, who lived there now. Then without thinking what I was doing, I dialed my hometown operator and said,"Information Please". Miraculously, I heard again the small, clear voice I knew so well, "Information". I hadn't planned this but I heard myself saying, "Could you tell me please how-to spell fix?" There was a long pause. Then came the soft spoken answer, "I guess that your finger must have healed by now.
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I laughed, "So it's really still you," I said. "I wonder if you have any idea how much you meant to me during that time." "I wonder," she said, "if you know how much your calls meant to me. I never had any children, and I used to look forward to your calls." I told her how often I had thought of her over the years and I asked if I could call her again when I came back to visit my sister. "Please do, just ask for Sally."
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Just three months later I was back in Seattle. A different voice answered Information and I asked for Sally. "Are you a friend?" "Yes, a very old friend." "Then I'm sorry to have to tell you. Sally has been working part-time the last few years because she was sick. She died five weeks ago." But before I could hang up she said, "Wait a minute. Did you say your name was Paul?" "Yes." "Well, Sally left a message for you. She wrote it down. Here it is. I'll read it 'Tell him I still say there are other worlds to sing in. He'll know what I mean.'" I thanked her and hung up. I did know what Sally meant.

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AMGATE:KA2TCQ

From the RAT Files Circa 2003: Terrorism...and Amateur Radio!?!

The following was originally composed as radio copy for THIS WEEK IN AMATEUR RADIO which is due to air in August of 2003. Please click on this address: http://www.twiar.org/ for more information on this amateur radio news service. The call signs and names noted in this copy are fictitious and do not represent any specific amateur radio or citizen band station, but there is an Empire State Plaza. It's located a just few blocks away from this keyboard. Like several previously scripted Random Access Files, this feature was first aired as spoken word and then later was edited and scoped down to a ten minute produced version which has run from time to time overThis Week in Amateur Radio.

A man sits in a small room. A squalid little pay-by-the-hour 10-by-10. At the Blodgett Motel.A 24-unit dump just off Central Avenue on Arcadia Street in Colonie. A mellow-yellow, white-bread suburban community just a few minutes west of Albany. The capital city of New York, The Empire State. His dusty complexion and jet black hair suggest that he is Middle Eastern, Perhaps Eurasian. Maybe Mediterranean. But he could be South American. One can not tell for sure. He is perched on the edge of a severely "tested" and hopelessly worn-out mattress, marked with some incidental and somewhat ambiguous brownish-yellow stains. But he is not concerned with this.

He unpacks the sleek silver laptop. Disconnects the cheap close-out RadioShack beige-colored plastic room phone. Plugs in the Dell Inspirion 600m. For his own odd sense of security, he decides to do a dial-up. The connection to EarthLink is made. A click on the WinPack icon renders an instance of this popular packet program, up and good to go. It happens to be version 6.8. The man types in the telnet address for VE2UPZ. VE2UPZ is an amateur radio packet bulletin board system with Internet connections located near Montreal. The WinPack Selection List Editor has been set to reject all message inventory except those containing JPEG images issued from a certain GW3 ham station, encapsulated and transmitted within an eclectic data format known as 7PLUS.

During this session, three out of an expected five zipped JPEG files plus one tiny text message are downloaded. The images appear to be intended for any ham's view, sent "@WorldWide". But the tiny text was sent personally to the man's legally-obtained KC2 call sign. WinPack dutifully unzips and decodes the images. These are images of a World War II Boeing B-17 bomber. Shots taken at the big Oshkosh Airshow just a few months prior. The personal text is also unzipped and decoded. There is a single word: FRAGOR.

FRAGOR is Latin for BOOM.

A click on another icon brings up something just as interesting.. This is called: The Evidence Eliminator. It happens to be version 1.6. This is a so-called Steganography application which can encode and decode text messages embedded in JPEGs, GIFs, bitmaps and other image formats. The keyword FRAGOR is entered into the interface. The three B-17 pictures are called up. The Evidence Eliminator performs its assignment flawlessly. Some remarkably strategic documentation is extracted. Sensitive information detailing certain architectural flaws in a New York State government structure referred to as the Empire State Plaza is now before him.

The Empire State plaza is an huge, sprawling World's Fair-like office complex in Albany's downtown business district, complete with an over-sized museum, a forty-story skyscraper and a bulbously bloated toilet bowl-shaped theater which everyone in these parts euphemistically calls "The Egg".

But the man had anticipated two additional images.

Still online with EarthLink, another telnet session is made to the G8QAR amateur packet Internet gateway at Kidderminster in the United Kingdom. A check of stations heard list on the 2 meter - 144.85 radio port reveals a certain GW3 station has been beaconing on the frequency. The man jumps into the radio network and connects with the open terminal of the GW3 Terminal Node Controller.

The man types:
"Hello Ian. Here is Anthony. Are you there?"
Moments later:
"Yes, Anthony. Ian is here. How is the family?"
"The family is well. We received some snapshots but two were missing."
"Oh that is too bad. Did you check with Francois or Niles? I think they may have those..."
"Not yet, but yes, I will give them both a call now. Thank you Ian, please give your son a hug for me."
"I will. Hope to hear from you soon." *click*

The man who calls himself Anthony knows that Francois is the F6DEE Internet BBS near Toulouse and Niles is actually NL1DBU, a citizen band bulletin board system in Uitgeest, Holland. Winpack now up again and a link to F6DEE. All five images are there plus his personal message and just for curiosity, he logs in with NL1DBU but finds only one of the five images and no personal message. No matter though, he has what he needs. This mission will be accomplished soon. For a small moment, the man who calls himself Anthony reclines on the spotty old mattress and muses: How easy it was to pass through the lax security at the Albany International Airport. All he had to do was take off his shoes. The so-easy-to-use western technology Microsoft Windows XP laptop computer.

The Empire State Plaza structural weakness data first harvested perhaps five years ago, forwarded at that time by hand over land and sea with great risk and delivered to an electronic database located in a place where the need to know is held by the select few. This same data just now relayed back to provincial upstate New York, hidden in full view and embedded in simple JPEG photo images of American airplanes.

Easy access to commercial Internet telephone lines. Easy access to homebrew radio transmission networks constructed by unsuspecting and apparently quite naive amateur and citizen band radio "hobbyists". The two missing photos are now before him. More shots of the same B-17, providing the needed additional thought-to-be-secure data plus contact and so-called "equipment" information.

If all goes well.. By 3PM Tuesday...............FRAGOR!

Hi this is Bill Baran - N2FNH with the Random Access File. The tragic events of September 11th, 2001 in New York have given me pause for thought in a perhaps unusual sort of way. What if those in the world who would attempt to render us harm, possible terrorist operatives known in the popular media as "sleepers", actually employ our packet radio network systems for nefarious gain. A "triviality" perhaps. Why bother? Who would waste their time? 1200 baud? You must be joking! But please consider:Amateur packet radio, once a rag-tag, hodge-podge collection of disparate regional radio networks can now be easily daisy-chained together where ever there is a nearby radio-to-the-Internet gateway to fashion a highly usable communications network available to anyone who understands the strengths and weaknesses of these networks and also understands how to gain access. And access is easy. An operative need not make use use of any archaic and torturous 1200 baud radio links. He can bypass those by carefully intercepting one of approximately 500 strategically-located Internet gateways, nodes, online packet bulletin board system or even DXClusters.

The availability of low cost or free domain names for dynamically addressed Internet communications systems has made it possible for a small fleet of online BBSs and DXClusters to mushroom forth, with little or no need for radio circuits. Therefore, information transfer becomes instantaneous. Less stringent requirements for amateur radio licensing in the United States and many other countries makes it more easy for an operative to secure a license legitimately. But there is a wide range of other more sophisticated communications options available: Cellphones, Satellite telephones, 802.11 WiFi, even Nextel walkie talkies with coast-to-coast coverage. Why would a terrorist make use of amateur packet radio? Why?

Because access is easy. A legal call sign gets you in. To date, I have not come across one Sysop who would subject a prospective user to the kind of scrutiny a government or military agency might employ to verify an identity. Plus, both amateur radio and citizen band packet networks are: Effectively out of the way. If the Internet is akin to a galaxy, studded with stars, suns, planets, moons and comets, then ham and CB packet radios with their associated wireline systems are nothing more than an infinitesimal pinpoint of light, virtually invisible on the extreme fringe. Effectively, out of the way. Easily missed. Totally unnoticed. And often forgotten even by its own architects, maintainers and supporters.

Government regulatory agencies such as the Federal Communications Commission expressly forbid the use of codes or encryption. But who could guess that names like Francois or Niles might be keywords representing select mailboxes on the Internet? Average everyday although highly strategic message boards that more commonly carry the occasional FOR SALE item, the oddball trivia factoid or the meaningless rantings about Land Line Lids. How could a local ham watching his packet monitor in the British Isles know that common given names like Ian or Anthony might actually be aliases for Mustafah, Singh, Anatoli or Fidel?

And would an eyebrow be raised if these names were actually seen? Most likely not. In the global village, such names are common everywhere. But an operative working surreptitiously will take no chance. When in Rome, use a Roman name. There are however some disadvantages to using such networks. Such networks are homegrown affairs. They are not commercial services. They are the efforts of hobbyists, who offer up their discretionary time for the better cause.But if a critical node or gateway crashes and drops off the screen, it might be days, weeks, maybe even years before the time is taken to effect a repair. Thus, a clever operative however will maintain an up-to-the-minute awareness of the systems needed to get the job done. And who could guess that text messages could be embedded in simple computer generated images?

You can try this your self: Click on: http://www.evidence-eliminator.co.uk/ (tread light here, not sure if this is still safe) and download a program identified as Dound's Steganographer. It happens to be version 1.6. It's freeware and it allows the user to encrypt or digitally watermark any bitmap image, making use of any keyword you choose. Remarkably, it works! By the way, even as this Random Access File was being written, check out this real packet message I just intercepted from the VE2TOY BBS at Laval. It's from G6HXW and it was sent to CODE3(at)WW on the 25th of August, 2003:
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From : G6HXW
To : CODE3(at)WW
Type/status : B$
Date/time : 25-Aug 20:47
BID (MID) : 670378G6HXW
Message # : 394681
Title : Night owl to Squirrel
(This message has been read 1 times so far in this BBS.)
Path: !VA2BBS!VE2WXK!VE2PKT!KB2TXP!VK3TE!VK3KAY!PP5AQ!HA3PG!IK1ZNW!LZ0FBB!
!GB7CRV!GB7CIP!GB7WSX!GB7IPW!
From: G6HXW@GB7IPW.#38.GBR.EU
To : CODE3(at)WW

The night owl has spotted the squirrel eating at the tree stump.
Put plan B into operation. Test over.
73 - Lionel, G6HXW @ GB7IPW-2
;-)

Message timed: 23:52 on 2003-Aug-25
Message sent using WinPack-AGW V6.80
--- End of messsage #394681 to CODE3 from G6HXW ---
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Could this be some secret terrorist communique? Or is it just another typical test message from some funny guy ham operator? I would say the latter, wouldn't you? But then again...
- 30 -

THE TELNET NEWS!

Back in 1996, two things occurred which got me interested in amateur packet radio big time. First was a trip to the Milton Ham Fest near Burlington where I sat in on a seminar: the discussion detailed the nuts and bolts of packet radio, which I found to be only moderately interesting. It was during the question and answer session when someone in the audience asked about a connection between amateur packet radio and the Internet. He had overheard a QSO where reference was made to a regional packet radio Internet Gateway. Two ruling packet gurus, one local to the area and the other from Montreal, spoke up and verified the QSO but were very quick to downplay the value of the gateway lamenting that at 1200 baud making use of such a device would be an exercise in frustration.

I suspected a cover up. My interest was peaked. I recalled earlier conversations concerning LONNY where amateur radio operators employed by NBC Television used AX25 nodes to link London and Manhattan, using a commercial undersea cable. But this was different. Here was something I might be able to access myself.

The second event was when I obtained a free IBM PS25 computer. Armed with the PS25 and a KPC3, I quickly located the gateway in question. AMGATE:KA2TCQ was situated at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh, 150 miles to the north. The state of the regional packet network was in good shape so it was no problem to access AMGATE:KA2TCQ and then telnet out into the world.

Unlike eQSO and ECHOLINK, packet Internet Gateways received no publicity in any of the amateur radio journals so any knowledge gained was through hands on experience. This inspired me to publish an electronic newsletter known as THE TELNET NEWS, which I distributed globally through the packet BBS mail forwarding system and via Internet e-mail subscription. I published the TELNET NEWS from 1999 through 2004. Toward the end, as the regional packet radio network here in upstate New York tail spun into irreversible degeneration and decay through unintentional negligence and outright abandonment, I shifted from transmitting by radio to keystroking by way of the Internet. At this late date, I still keep the Winpack telnet program on the computer for the occasional foray into the digital world of text. The global network is a now lot smaller but it still has it's followers.

Recently, I discovered something I forgot. On the TWIAR website, some of my TELNET NEWS are hidden away but they are easily accessible. Just check my list of favorite links on this very same blog for some vintage copies of the TELNET NEWS. Most of the information will be out of date but THE TELNET NEWS is an ASCII time capsule chronicling the way things were in a largely unseen galaxy of the amateur radio universe!