Path: visi.com!winternet.com!tomkat
From: tomkat@winternet.com (TomKat)
Newsgroups: winternet.announce
Subject: Winternet
Date: 9 Jul 1996 06:04:02 GMT
Organization: StarNet Communications, Inc
Lines: 66
Approved: tomkat@winternet.com
Distribution: local
Message-ID: <4rssoi$ami@blackice.winternet.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: subzero.winternet.com
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2]

Ladies & Gentlemen of Winternet:

Good Morning.  It's my hope here to update you of the happenings at 
Winternet.  I hop I can successfully do that in this post.

In case there is anyone who doesn't know, as of Friday, Mike Horwath's 
employment with Winternet was terminated.  This may be confusing at first 
so I'll try to explain.

Mike Horwath, Michael Frankowski, and Kevin Mathison are all equal share 
holders of Starnet, the mother company of Winternet.  These three make up 
the board of directors.  Winternet is the public access branch of 
Starnet, if you will.

>From what I understand, Mike Horwath was relieved of the day to day 
administration of winternet for failing to follow mandates of corporate 
concern handed down by the board of directors.  Although it may not be 
evident, the failure to follow these mandates were increasingly 
jeopardizing Winternet's hopes of a future.

Please let me interject a personal opinion here.  I agree completely that 
Mike Horwath was and is one of the best admins I know and no matter what 
the personal feelings, he will be missed here.

Secondly, it is true that the former crew has quit.  After being offered 
the chance to stay on with Winternet, each of them declined.  And again, 
they will be missed.

For further information on any of the above subjects, I recommend mailing 
direct to Kevin Mathison (kmathson@winternet.com) or Michael Frankowski 
(mfrankow@winternet.com) and asking them.  Also, there should be updates 
posted here from time to time as things happen from now on.

Now...  Down time.  Unfortunately, Yes, we've had our share and then some.

A few hours after Mike Horwath was terminated, several of our key
component machines suddenly, and unfortunately, went down.  Our primary 
router (winternet-gw) dropped and erased it's routing tables.  Also our 
authorization server went down as well as several frame relays.  
Unfortunately, since the new admins were only given some of the root 
passwords, life becames very hectic as we were required to obtain root 
passwords before we could apply changes and corrections to the system and 
so the simple 15 to 30 minuet project became hours of very difficult 
resetting.

We currently believe that we have reenstated our network and our lines to 
both MR-Net and Alternet.  If you experience any more difficulties, 
please let us know at problems@winternet.com and we will do out best to 
rectify the situation as soon as possible.

We at Winternet would like to thank you in advance for your continuing 
patience with these difficult times.  We hope to continue providing the 
help and service that you've come to expect from Winternet.  If you have 
any questions or concerns about this posting, please write me 
(tomkat@winternet.com) and I'll attempt to reply to your letter as soon as 
possible.

With Reguards,
Thomas

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
TomKat@winternet.com   ftp://ftp.winternet.com/users/tomkat/    m=e/c^2
IRC: KittKat # mailing list: ch-pound@winternet.com  Infinite Diversity
Anything good is obvious    Thomas S. Keeley    in Infinite Combination
-----------------------------------------------------------------------


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Path: visi.com!winternet.com!not-for-mail
From: kbrint@winternet.com (kevin brintnall)
Newsgroups: winternet.announce,winternet.general
Subject: Re: Winternet
Date: 9 Jul 1996 08:15:15 GMT
Organization: StarNet Communications, Inc
Lines: 102
Approved: the new winternet sucks dong
Distribution: local
Message-ID: <4rt4ej$cu8@blackice.winternet.com>
References: <4rssoi$ami@blackice.winternet.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: tundra.winternet.com
X-Newsreader: TIN [UNIX 1.3 950824BETA PL0]
Xref: visi.com winternet.announce:18 winternet.general:735

TomKat (tomkat@winternet.com) wrote:

[...]
> Secondly, it is true that the former crew has quit.  After being
> offered the chance to stay on with Winternet, each of them declined.
> And again, they will be missed.

This is not the case, FWIW.  Several "former" staff members were not
asked by anyone "in charge" if they had quit, nor did they make any
statement to such people that they had quit.

Misleading people is A Bad Thing... but it appears to have become
commonplace at the new winternet.  *sigh*

> A few hours after Mike Horwath was terminated, several of our key
> component machines suddenly, and unfortunately, went down.

> Our primary router (winternet-gw) dropped and erased it's routing
> tables.

Well, that's what happens when you power cycle it and start with a brand
new configuration, isn't it?

> Also our authorization server went down as well as several frame
> relays.

The authentication server (dryice for those that care) appears to have
been power cycled once and sync'ed once from the console..  Come on,
rebooting it properly can't be THAT hard.

As for the frame connections...  Rumor has it that both frame clouds
were taken down to keep Mike (who had a frame-relay connection at home)
from having access.  Rumors they remain, but I must say that's the only
reason I can come up with that the new winternet staff would have shut
down the frame links.

> We currently believe that we have reenstated our network and our lines
> to both MR-Net and Alternet.

Shouldn't a traceroute to ns.uu.net go through the Alternet T1 then?

traceroute to ns.uu.net (198.6.1.1), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets
 1  winternet-gw.winternet.net (198.174.169.254)  3 ms  2 ms  2 ms
 2  MRNet-Winternet-1.MR.Net (137.192.27.101)  24 ms  9 ms  11 ms
 3  MIXNet-gw.MR.Net (137.192.241.254)  8 ms  23 ms  21 ms
 4  t3-gw.mixnet.net (198.174.96.5)  8 ms  27 ms  31 ms
 5  border5-hssi1-0.Chicago.mci.net (204.70.186.5)  19 ms  22 ms  18 ms
 6  204.70.185.49 (204.70.185.49)  38 ms  29 ms  22 ms
 7  core1-aip-4.Chicago.mci.net (204.70.1.185)  23 ms  20 ms  18 ms
 8  core1-hssi-3.WillowSprings.mci.net (204.70.1.86)  32 ms  34 ms  25
ms
 9  core3.WillowSprings.mci.net (204.70.4.25)  22 ms  24 ms  26 ms
10  HssiX-0.GW1.CHI1.Alter.Net (206.157.77.82)  26 ms  23 ms  133 ms
11  Fddi0-0.CR2.CHI1.Alter.Net (137.39.35.66)  23 ms  25 ms  22 ms
12  106.Hssi4-0.CR2.DCA1.Alter.Net (137.39.58.45)  58 ms  65 ms  61 ms
13  Hssi2-0.GW2.FFX1.Alter.Net (137.39.100.74)  52 ms  57 ms  117 ms
14  cache00.ns.uu.net (198.6.1.1)  59 ms  69 ms  50 ms


I'm sure the Winternet customers and the new winternet staff are
sufficiently tired of my small tirade, so I'll bring this post to an end
with some humor.  Gotta live a little.

---------------------------------------------
Top 10 Signs You're Incompetant to Run An ISP
(from the home office in Wzo, Minnesota)
---------------------------------------------

10. You find machine names by disconnecting ether to see what drops out,
ignoring handy labels on each box.

9. You power down the NIS server and risk wiping the entire password
file in case the former admin has secret powers.

8. You manage to have outages of every single service in your first 24
hours.

7. You replace well-trained staff with a chick picked up from a corner
on Lake St.

6. You blame all breakdowns on former staff, despite promptly eclipsing
any unscheduled downtime of theirs.

5. The entire staff still thinks dilbert is some sort of pickle.

4. New ISP/Daycare program.

3. Customers use your own facilities to make fun of you on the WWW, but
you don't even notice.

2. Sun graphical interface not Mac-like enough for you to figure out.

1. Mike Horwath, without even so much as a working account, still scares
the shit out of you.


Live fast, die young!
 (ATTN: CIANNAIT)

 kevin brintnall
 former winternet staff
 wooha!