Subj : Re: ping netmail - Does M
To   : PSI-JACK
From : G00R00
Date : Thu Jan 31 2019 07:20 pm

 Ps> It's actually in the FTN spec for netmail, adopted about 15~20 years
 Ps> ago, to help locate routing issues. Learned about it just recently

I've been a FidoNet Sysop since 1992 and I never heard of it before, or
noticed any tosser that supports it.  I'm not quite sure this goes back
20 years!  :)

Publication:  FTS-5001
Issue Date:   26 January 2005
Review Date:  26 January 2007

Rev.2, 20040904: re-re-draft by FTSC. - Added PING flag

 Ps> I mean, when I send a netmail to the username "ping" (w/o quotes), to an
 Ps> address, systems that get that netmail routed to it, if they follow the
 Ps> ping protocol spec, it creates a new netmail to send back to the
 Ps> origin's sender name and FTN address with the route path, while not

The problem with this idea is that its not very useful unless most systems
support PING...

Seeing as many of the major tossers were out of development prior to this
being a thing, it will never be supported except by the few still writing
Fido software.  I do like the "idea" of this, but I just don't see it being
very useful unless the adoption rate is really high.

In any case, I've added it to the starting-to-get-pretty-large TODO list ;)

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