-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- 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 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.2 iQCVAgUBK/oyD6gTA69YIUw3AQEY5QP/V3nsvcpJfJKq/91KB2iX9B3mmDriYZ1j XY2lr9+0p8/EutEd/AGvcn8p5LkUqERqvylzSSAhswrinqB9lw+bjf8T0PpjsoxX 01ftHNPHiZO/uPCWvsjmsaKATduNesnOmNgOFxMFN7Dp+KmcchjKwl3coBQbOY9J W9Ijlv2RV/I= =JERo -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----