Hello Ward,
GENERAL ARTICLES
Fido and totalitarianism
Ward Dossche - 2:292/854
It just struck me as odd thinking about China ...
Taiwan.
If Fido still would show any presence in China, probably the Chinese communist party would crack-down on it being in a decades old battle
with free speech.
Taiwan is democratic.
How would they do that? Where to begin? How to get a hook on things
and tear it apart? Or control it? Controling Fidonet??
If it was not for the people of Taiwan, most people would not be
using computers. So all Fidonetters can thank them for their hobby.
It had been tried before ...
Chinese believe in freedom. At least those in Taiwan.
In 2002 in Saudi Arabia the royal Al-Saud family appointed a prince
to oversee electronic communications within the kingdom (they have
a lot of princes and they all need a job to justify themselves).
And as the Al-Sauds make money from sand, he decided to slam a
tax on electronic communications. Why? Probably "because he could"
and there was no checks-and-balances system like in a parliament
to control him.
The House of Saud is there to protect the holy sites.
And also the black rock. Which got stolen by an overzealous
believer who called himself the Mahdi. After recovering the
black rock, the House of Saud made sure the Mahdi could
never duplicate his feat by chopping off his head.
The RC54 could not afford that. So did not pay. One needs to know
that this RC54 had been in an accident and was unable to work, but Saudi-Arabia is so oil-rich that every citizen gets 100% free
healthcare. Then the prince called the RC and said that if he
didn't pay, he'd lose his health benefits.
It was not his health benefits he was worried about.
RC54 had no other option but to fold the region. He went on a trip
outside the kingdom and I don't recall anymore where he went but he
called me long-distance on a phone 19 years ago explaining the
reasons why R54 needed to fold. The reason for calling from outside
the kingdom was that all voice-traffic, incoming and outgoing, was monitored ... I had his direct-dial number in Jeddah and he asked me
never to call him anymore as that would get him into trouble.
A nice and friendly guy ... I wonder how he's doing ...
Probably lost his head.
Also astonishing is googling for "Italian police crackdown Fidonet"
.. that happened during the night of May 10-11 1994 when the
Italian police raided literally hundreds of BBSs not understanding
what they were about, what they (the police) were looking for nor understanding what a PC was in many cases ... they grabbed hardware, modems, CDROMs, diskettes effectively dealing a blow to R33 Italy
from which it really never fully recovered. A lot of nodes folded immediately deciding not having to deal with a police-force at large.
Fabio is still here. So at least some Italians are still alive.
But that still does not explain why there are no BBSs in France.
So the next time you call your favorite *C "a dictator", just remember there are worse things in life ... 8-)
Now if only Bobby Fischer (who once used a BBS in the Philippines)
was still around ...
--Lee
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