Back then, people started getting worried that government was going to shut down their BBS for some secret rule or regulation, because the government is tracking everything…right?

Now days if the government wants to track somebody down they do so via the Internet IP address or MAC address, but they have forgotten some of the old protocols. The ways of old have been all but forgotten, and in some cases it HAS been forgotten.

Since that time, many people like myself no longer even use land lines. I use DSL for internet and have a cell phone so I dont even have a phone plugged in.

With a strange sense of irony, I am increasing my security by going back to old technology. I am planning to add my BBS back to my phone line and provide an alternate gateway in/out for experimental reasons.

Old tricks are the best tricks.

Folks,

I think you will find this of interest maybe. Back in 1990 shortly after Iraq invaded Kuwait and war balloons were flying, journalists were worst than a chicken with its head cut off. They got almost anything and everything wrong. Then they started looking for how to get the correct information. Some did the smart thing and paid for the information from people who had — eg Jane’s. For option #2 there was no Wikipedia. Option #2 then was Compuserve’s Military Forum (MILFORUM). It was made up mostly of retired and active military officers and those in the military history business — eg a lot of history professors at military academies on both side of the Atlantic. You had to pay good money to belong to Compuserve so that kept out the “wrong element” as they say — ie sorry Dave, those days are gone. Compuserve also had a forum which it seem everyone and his mother in the journalism business belonged to. That was Journalism Forum or JFORUM. CNN had a lot to do with JFORUM, till they split off with a Compuserve forum of their own, called CNNFORUM (ie then they left Compuserve when Compuserve got really greedy). Well, after August 1990, everyone on JFORUM with low budgets suddenly joined MILFORUM as Option #2. And as one of the AstSysop, I was the gate keeper, trying to explain many things, that takes some years for other to understand. You would not believe the gaffs, like why couldn’t Bush order the 82nd Airborne dropped into Kuwait and drive the Iraqi Army out. And this was asked by a lot of reporters! Then came January 19991 when the SCUDs started falling. That was Info #1 suddenly. And the worst gaff was the presses refusal to accept that SCUD was not an abbreviation of something. Had a h*ll’ve time getting them to accept it was just the NATO code name for a Russian surface to surface ballistic missile and why all surface to surface missiles (ballistic to antitank) had a name that began with “S”. Serious! They just could not accept that simple of a reason. Then came all the questions, after the first SCUD hit Israel. So ole Jack, got together a small text file of “SCUD 101″ for the press. Took a long time to get to the point, but I just discovered that some webpage called TEXTFILES saved that file. I was surprised as all heck get out, when I got the email about it. So if any of you are interested in see how I can “bastardize” the English language, go to the A Short History and Description of the SCUD missile. I know you will find it hard to believe, but a lot of articles and news reports you heard, used that text file. And, to my surprise, some even gave me credit. Mainly small newspapers and radio stations. But since I robbed the big media outlets blind for my articles without giving credit, I really couldn’t scream that I was a virgin in a certain type of house with a blinking red light out front, and it was not a house of worship either. Also, notice the many reference notes in the article. At that time I did not have WP staff to train the unwashed as today.