Re: BBSs under fire!

[Hal <74076.1041@CompuServe.COM>]

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I agree with Stanton that BBS's have a rather unsavory image in the media
and the public at large, compared with Usenet.  A lot of people think of
BBS's as meeting grounds for malicious hackers, whereas most people have
never heard of Usenet.  Here are some possible reasons for the difference:

1) BBS's are often used by kids.  Parents see them using the computer to
access BBS's.  Usenet is available mostly to college campuses, research
labs, and corporations.  Lay people never see it operating.  Usenet is
largely based on Internet, which exists for research purposes.

2) People who use Internet tend to be college students and professional
adults.  They are more articulate and better able to defend their interests
than most BBS users.

3) Usenet is decentralized but largely accountable.  People who post
objectionable material can be traced and recorded.  On BBS's most posters
are completely anonymous - only the operators are known.  Perhaps the govern-
ment feels more comfortable being able to monitor those who post material
it doesn't want to see.

And there are many cases where people have gotten into trouble for Usenet
postings.  A few months ago there was discussion on comp.org.eff.talk about
a student at a large Northeastern university who got in legal trouble for
posting possible child porn, including visits from the FBI.  A few weeks
ago in comp.admin.policy there was discussion about someone who posted what
could be interpreted as a desire that Clinton die, and whose office was visited
by the Secret Service shortly afterward.  These things could not be done on
a BBS, or only the operator could be investigated.

Note also that our efforts for providing anonymity on Usenet threaten this
capability.  It's interesting to see how many of the vested interests on
Usenet (system operators and such) opposed anonymity and have been working
to shut it down.

4) All Usenet traffic could be monitored from a central location.  To monitor
all postings on all BBS's would be far more difficult.  There could be all
kinds of wild things being discussed on random BBS's here and there and the
government would never know about it.  This isn't true of Usenet.

5) Some BBS's have had illegal activities as their major purpose, including
telephone fraud (exchanging stolen credit card numbers).  Such activities
would not be possible on Usenet.

6) BBS's often have cute or clever names that make them sound frivolous or
childish.  Usenet newsgroups and systems have functional names.  Here is
a list of local BBS systems I found:

            The Birdhouse BBS
            The Bowhead Whale BBS
            Buddha's Place BBS
            The Cat's Meow Network
            /dev/bbs
            Eco BBS
            The Enright House
            Enterprize BBS
            Fat Aggies
            The Haunted Castle of Alchemists
            The Haunted Manor
            Idiots Eternal
            Legal Plus Service BBS
            The Library Annex
            Manhattan
            Network XXIII
            Prevailing Winds Research BBS
            Reality Ltd.
            Santa Barbara Jaycees BBS
            SBCC BBS
            Swagland BBS
            The Seaside
            The Silican Embassy
            The Thunder Penguin
            The Wett BBS
            The Wimp

There are some legitimate-sounding systems here, but a lot of them sound like
they don't have a useful purpose.

===

In making these comparisons I don't mean to attack BBS operators or users,
just to identify some differences in perception between BBS's and Usenet,
which after all do have a lot of similarities in how they are used.

I think that as more BBS systems connect to the net the line between BBS's
and Usenet will blur.  Also, if our efforts succeed to provide anonymity
on the Internet the government will not be able to track objectionable
postings to their source.  Probably at that time Usenet itself will be
attacked due to the threat it will present to those in power.

Hal Finney
74076.1041@compuserve.com

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