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	The Clout Project, what is it and how do I use it?

	
	The Clout Project is the email project of the non-profit organization
/usr/group/chicago.  It runs a distributed multi-node virtual machine
for the purpose of facilitating the exchange of personal e-mail in the
Chicago area. 
	The Clout Project has a strong mandate to support and encourage the
use of Internet-style domainist addressing (RFC 822), and does this through
participation in the .us domain project.  The .us domain is a fully official
Internet domain specifically intended to provide a place for people whose
machines might not quite fit in one of the other top level Internet domains
to be able to register their sites.  Clout is primary domain name server
for the chi.il.us sub-domain of the .us domain.
	What this means is, you can contact us and we will register your
machine in the chi.il.us domain so that the rest of the Internet-aware
world can find it.  We will then forward all Internet-originated mail to
you, either through a direct UUCP link to one of the clout machines, or
through any existing UUCP connectivity that you might have.  Further, we
will provide a convenient destination point to which you can send all
your Internet-destined (domainist) mail.
	If you don't currently have any mail connections, we will be happy
to provide you with one.  If you do currently have mail connections, but
would like to have more, or possibly better ones, we will also be happy to
set up a connection.
	While we are a project of /usr/group/chicago which is in turn
the Chicago area chapter Uniforum, you don't have to be a member of either
to make use of the Clout Project.

	What we aren't:

	We aren't a public access site.  You might see people who have
accounts that appear to be on the clout.chi.il.us machine.  These are
administrators; clout is a virtual machine and as such really doesn't
exist at one single place.  All actual clout mailing addresses must be
specially routed to some appropriate machine.

	We do not currently charge for any of our services.  We may
eventually provide some services for a fee.
In fact, according to the rules of the .us domain (more on these later), we
aren't allowed to charge for .us domain services.

	We aren't a perfect system either.  The clout machine is
experimental, run on donated hardware by volunteers and continually
undergoing revision and further refinement. We are always trying to make
it better.  As I mentioned above, clout is a multi-node virtual machine;
this is still a somewhat experimental concept, and bugs do sometimes crop up.
However, we can be proud that the idea seems to have worked.  At times when
one clout node has gone down, the entire system did not cease to function.
The two public nodes of the Clout Project are a machine located at the
Computer Science Department of the University of Chicago, and a machine in
the home of Dave Ihnat, on the north side of Chicago.

	More about the .us domain:

	The .us domain is a formal Internet domain, recognized throughout the
world.  Unlike other national and/or geographic domains, .us includes almost
no business or educational sites.  In the United States, they are almost
always able to register in the appropriate top level domain.
	The .us domain is therefore intended primarily as a catch-all for
the people who might not quite fit into one of the other domains.  This
usually means people's personal machines.  Small businesses are not
forbidden in .us, but if you are big enough to have 5 machines you are
encouraged to go to the trouble of registering in .com.
	The .us domain does not allow one person or organization to have
more than 5 machines all registered in the same sub domain.  This is
almost never a problem for most people (though there are exceptions).
	The Clout Project is the primary authority for the chi.il.us
domain, (though we do provide connections to sites in other domains), and is
able to administer this sub domain locally.

	How to contact us and get the ball rolling:

	If you currently have e-mail access you can drop a note to
postmaster@clout.chi.il.us who will then put you in touch with one of
the clout administrators who can answer your questions and set you up.

	If you don't have e-mail access (and that's why you want to get
in touch with us), you have a few options:  First, you can call one of the
administrators (or the postmaster) some phone numbers are listed at the
end of this document; alternately, we have a FAX number available courtesy
of the BALR Corporation in Oak Brook. The number is (708)575-8205

Ok, in that case, to be registered (not sure if it's the "proper" term,
but it fits) we need the following information from you:


UUCP node name:
Desired domain name (normally uucp_name.chi.il.us):
Full name of system owner:
Voice phone number for owner:
E-mail address of owner on above machine:
Organization name (if any):
Latitude/Longitude (if known):
How you would like to have mail routed (Direct or through another Chicago area
machine that is in the uucp maps or on the Internet):

If you would like a direct connection to a clout node, please let us
know which one you would like to connect to.  The node at the UofC is
directly on the Internet, but the node at Dave Ihnat's house may be
better located for you.  We will provide you with further information
on connecting to a clout node.

The amount of space on our Internet node is very limited--it generally
has less than 10 meg free.  Space is almost as tight on Dave Ihnat's
machine too.  The Clout Project still manages to serve more than 150
computer sites. Use of the clout node to transfer large amounts of data
( more than say 1 meg/week ) is discouraged unless your site feeds other
sites. If you wish to ftp-mail source code please ask us first - chances
are we have it on hand locally.

Mike Beirne 708-386-2415
Doug Blair 708-527-8899.
Greg Gulik  708-632-6817 (daytime), or 312-725-8721(evenings).

-- 
Michael G. Beirne | 845 W. Washington #2d,Oak Park,IL 60302-3821,(708)386-2415
beirne@limerick.chi.il.us