[HECnet] Re: Ad-hoc connection to hecnet?

Here's what I would (try) to do: use some kind of VPN service and tunnel over that.  Let's suppose you have IPsec at home (or somewhere): you could connect to that and have a local IP on that subnet and tunnel appropriately.  Alternatively, you might use a VPN service to get an external IP address.  None of this is to shield your traffic, but rather to get around whatever necessary, draconian, fascist or foolish NAT'ing or port munging policies might be in effect. Note that I am starting out with the word "necessary" and not immediately condemning whatever pool soul has to keep the WiFi together.  That can be a thankless task. Keep in mind that you'll need to set up some kind of tunnel that will get your DECnet node id sent.  You may need to be clever about wrapping the MAC address, but others can discourse on that /far/ better than I. This probably a superfluous reminder: at least in Phase IV, I'm unaware of anything like an 'ad-hoc' (or perhaps better) dynamic DECnet node id.  It's managed in a way that is similar to the pre-DHCP and pre-DNS ARPAnet.  That is, we have a NIC (I.E., Johnny) who hands out names and addresses.  Hosts are responsible for period download of the HECnet 'hosts' file. However, I told you that to ask you this: if you are getting any node id to use in declegacy that is 'new' (let's say as of two weeks), then you might want to let the rest of the list know so we can update our tables.  Certain things (at least in Tops-20) _depend_ on knowing a host name.  For example, one version of the mailing system will refuse to deal with you if you don't have a name.