Fidonet (was: Classic Comp UUCP network.)

Bot do I remember that - I had ties to Fido Net but also others and never had illegal (in my eyes anyway) activity noted at all. Those same arrogant dweebs are the ones that soaked thousands of dollars into their boards once t he internet came into popularity, stating that it was just a fad and go away and everyone would be back the BBS scene. Guess who's not laughing right now? I saw that the net had real possibiities and would be around for sometime, even change a lot, so I kept the BBS up until I only had 2 callers a day and shut it down and put the machine to better uses. That was about 1996. => -----Original Message----- => From: owner-classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org => [mailto:owner-classiccmp@classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of R. D. Davis => Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2002 12:53 PM => To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org => Subject: Fidonet (was: Classic Comp UUCP network.) => => => Quothe Eric Dittman, from writings of Tue, Feb 12, 2002 at => 09:23:36AM -0600: => > I never really got into FidoNet for two reasons. The first was => > the highly political nature of FidoNet (splitting off, banning => > nodes, etc.). => => Same here. Over a decade ago, I attended a local ACM chapter meeting => where the guest speaker was the sysop of a Fidonet BBS (and the MIS => dept. director of some random large corporation). This sysop made the => arrogant statement, backed up by a cop who was attending the meeting => (who was a co-sysop with him? I forget) with him, that most => non-Fidonet connected BBS's were likely to be used for criminal => purposes, by what were referred to as hackers. This sysop appeared to => have great disdain for non-Fidonet connected BBS's which had sysops => who weren't active censors and didn't restrict freedom of speech. It => was surmised that such independent BBS's were too "anything goes" and => needed to be watched more closely by Big Brother and perhaps shut => down. => => Note that the aforementioned sysop wasn't just critical, and => suspicious, of the types of BBS's with "warez" and cracking/phreaking => info. on them, but any BBS that was independent of the Fidonet => censorship-craving crowd. My politely, but sternly, setting him => straight on both the correct, non-malicious, meaning of the word => "hacker" and the usefulness of many non-Fidonet connected BBS's => definitely wasn't appreciated by some attending the meeting. By the => way, I recall that, interestingly, most of those "computer => professionals" attending the meeting didn't appear to know the => difference between the Internet and a fish net. ROFL! From what I => recall, the topic of the meeting was originally supposed to have been => about using computers for communication... somehow, that topic had => somehow degenerated into the use of Fidonet, and the prevention of => BBS-related crime, as opposed to, more useful, information about UUCP => or the Internet being presented. => => -- => Copyright (C) 2001 R. D. Davis The difference between humans & => other animals: => All Rights Reserved an unnatural belief that we're => above Nature & => rdd(a)rddavis.org 410-744-4900 her other creatures, using dogma => to justify such => http://www.rddavis.org beliefs and to justify much human cruelty. =>