back in the 90's there were a few BBS pranks sysop's would pull on their callers.
one that got me was at the logoff screen it would say call this BBS (BBSNAME) @ 911-**** I fell for it and got a call back from 911 asking me if everything was ok, I embarassingly explained that I had been duped.
---
þ Synchronet þ outwestbbs.com - the Outwest BBS
back in the 90's there were a few BBS pranks sysop's would pull on their callers.
one that got me was at the logoff screen it would say call this BBS (BBSNAME) @ 911-**** I fell for it and got a call back from 911 asking me if everything was ok, I embarassingly explained that I had been duped.
back in the 90's there were a few BBS pranks sysop's would pull on their callers.
one that got me was at the logoff screen it would say call this BBS (BBSNAME) @ 911-**** I fell for it and got a call back from 911 asking me if everything was ok, I embarassingly explained that I had been duped.
Re: BBS Pranks
By: Denn to All on Thu Oct 17 2019 11:30 pm
For awhile around my area, they introduced a new series for phone numbers "991-XXXX"
The ISP I worked for part-time had a dial-in number that started with 991, but it was even worse than that. the number was "991-1XXX".
I also worked at Circuit City at the time, selling computers. We used my dialup account at the store to connect some of our PCs to the internet.
Most companies with an internal phone system require you to dial a "9" to get an outside line.
See where I'm going with this?
If you didn't explicitly put a "9" in front of the number, you wound up calling "911" with the modem.
It happened on more than one occasion. The phone company stopped assigning 991 numbers shortly there-after.
DaiTengu
... California is a fine place to live -- if you happen to be an orange.
---
þ Synchronet þ War Ensemble BBS - The sport is war, total war - warensemble.com
back in the 90's there were a few BBS pranks sysop's would pull on their callers.
one that got me was at the logoff screen it would say call this BBS (BBSNAME) @ 911-**** I fell for it and got a call back from 911 asking me everything was ok, I embarassingly explained that I had been duped.
My favourite Sysop prank was the NO CARRIER. Then there'd be some line noise That would really **** a lot of users off.
back in the 90's there were a few BBS pranks sysop's would pull on their callers.
one that got me was at the logoff screen it would say call this BBS (BBSNAM @ 911-**** I fell for it and got a call back from 911 asking me if everythin was ok, I embarassingly explained that I had been duped.
If you didn't explicitly put a "9" in front of the number, you wound up calling "911" with the modem.
Re: BBS Pranks
By: The Millionaire to Denn on Fri Oct 18 2019 05:23 am
Used to run Frontdoor mail tosser, changed it from saying 'Press Escape or wait for BBS' ( or whatever the exact text was ) to say 'Press Ctrl-Alt-Del for the BBS'
So many calls... so many disconnects. lol
--
H
---
þ Synchronet þ - Running madly into the wind and screaming -
bbs.ujoint.org
I don't recall sysops doing pranks like that in my area, but I used to use IceChat on my BBS for chatting with users, and IceChat had a feature where i could simulate line noise by putting some random characters at a random location on the screen.
I loved Frontdoor. Was my favourite mailer/tosser software back then. IREX is very similar I find but bloated.
My favourite Sysop prank was the NO CARRIER. Then there'd be some line
noise That would really **** a lot of users off.
Used to run Frontdoor mail tosser, changed it from saying 'Press Escape or wait for BBS' ( or whatever the exact text was ) to say 'Press Ctrl-Alt-Del for the BBS'
Does anyone remember ansi-bombs in messages would destroy the whole bbs like a virus and had to be reconfigured from scratch again? A few Sysops I knew went through that. Those were the worst times ever of being a Sysop of a BBS.
My favourite Sysop prank was the NO CARRIER. Then there'd be some
line noise That would really **** a lot of users off.
Does anyone remember ansi-bombs in messages would destroy the whole bbs like a virus and had to be reconfigured from scratch again? A few Sysops I knew went through that. Those were the worst times ever of being a Sysop of a BBS.
The Millionaire wrote to Hemo <=-
I loved Frontdoor. Was my favourite mailer/tosser software back
then.
Just as a technical point - FD is a mailer only. Not a tosser.
... Internal Error: The system has been taken over by sheep at line 19960
--- MultiMail/Linux v0.52
þ Synchronet þ Palantir BBS * palantirbbs.ddns.net * Pensacola, FL
Hemo wrote to The Millionaire <=-
Used to run Frontdoor mail tosser, changed it from saying 'Press Escape
or wait for BBS' ( or whatever the exact text was ) to say 'Press Ctrl-Alt-Del for the BBS'
So many calls... so many disconnects. lol
Nightfox wrote to The Millionaire <=-
I loved Frontdoor. Was my favourite mailer/tosser software back then. IREX is very similar I find but bloated.
I thought IRex looked similar. I used IRex for a while, but I stopped using it and went to Radius for a while. Now I'm using BinkIt, since BinkIt is more a part of Synchronet (and since BinkIt is written in JavaScript, it should still work if I decide to move my BBS from
Windows to Linux).
Lupine Furmen wrote to All <=-
One of friends ran a BBS in Athens, AL. He got a LOT of users by
setting his PAUSE string to "Press Ctrl-Alt-Del to Continue". Had a
user call him all pissed off because his computer rebooted. We were
like "You've been using a PC for how long now and you didn't know that that key combo would initiate a reboot?" :P
I thought IRex looked similar. I used IRex for a while, but I stopped using and went to Radius for a while. Now I'm using BinkIt, since BinkIt is more part of Synchronet (and since BinkIt is written in JavaScript, it should sti work if I decide to move my BBS from Windows to Linux).
I don't remember exactly why I moved away from IRex, but I seem to remember other people saying IRex has some bugs.. I believe IRex was also shareware, and the author wanted registration to support more than 1 or 2 FTN networks something. I don't remember if IRex is still registerable.
I remember ansi-bombs but don't remember any taking out a BBS.
Just as a technical point - FD is a mailer only. Not a tosser.
Denn called it a mail tosser as well.
Well a Sysop I knew where I lived lost his whole bbs. Took him 3 days to get it back up again.
Re: BBS Pranks
By: The Millionaire to Denn on Sat Oct 19 2019 04:18 am
Well a Sysop I knew where I lived lost his whole bbs. Took him 3 days t get it back up again.
Only 3 days? When I started setting up Synchronet, it took me about a month (working on it after I got home from work and on the weekends) to get it set and working mostly like my old BBS I ran in the 90s.
The Millionaire wrote to Denn <=-
@TZ: c1e0
Does anyone remember ansi-bombs in messages would destroy the whole bbs like a virus and had to be reconfigured from scratch again? A few
Sysops I knew went through that. Those were the worst times ever of
being a Sysop of a BBS.
$ The Millionaire $
Re: BBS Pranks
By: The Millionaire to Denn on Fri Oct 18 2019 08:31 pm
Does anyone remember ansi-bombs in messages would destroy the whole b like a virus and had to be reconfigured from scratch again? A few Sys knew went through that. Those were the worst times ever of being a Sy of a BBS.
I remember ansi-bombs but don't remember any taking out a BBS.
I had no idea that it was possible to create a trojan with ANSI. Wikipedia has a paragraph on the topic.
WIKI> An interesting feature of ANSI.SYS is the ability to remap any key on
WIKI> the keyboard in order to perform shortcuts or macros for complex
WIKI> instructions. Using special escape sequences, the user can define
WIKI> any keystroke that has a character-code mapping to simulate an
WIKI> arbitrary sequence of such keystrokes.[6] This feature was also used by
WIKI> evildoers to create simple trojans out of text files laced with nefarious
WIKI> keyboard remaps, known as "ANSI bombs".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSI.SYS#Keyboard_remapping
Glad you mentioned it Millionaire.
-Zoo
--- MultiMail/Linux v0.49
Gamgee wrote to The Millionaire <=-
I loved Frontdoor. Was my favourite mailer/tosser software back
then.
Just as a technical point - FD is a mailer only. Not a tosser.
Denn called it a mail tosser as well.
Just as a technical point - FD is a mailer only. Not a tosser.
Denn called it a mail tosser as well.
you're both mistaken, then... frontdoor had no way to toss mail at all... the only thing it could do with PKTs was netmail... it had no idea what was inside the bundles so it could not pull netmail out of them...
Well a Sysop I knew where I lived lost his whole bbs. Took him 3
days t get it back up again.
Only 3 days? When I started setting up Synchronet, it took me about a
month (working on it after I got home from work and on the weekends)
to get it set and working mostly like my old BBS I ran in the 90s.
took me 3 hrs.
Re: BBS Pranks
By: MRO to Nightfox on Sat Oct 19 2019 03:14 pm
Well a Sysop I knew where I lived lost his whole bbs. Took him 3 TM>> days t get it back up again.
Only 3 days? When I started setting up Synchronet, it took me about a
month (working on it after I got home from work and on the weekends)
to get it set and working mostly like my old BBS I ran in the 90s.
took me 3 hrs.
I backed up my BBS every sunday night and had userfiles printed so worst cas would restore backup and enter a few user accounts by hand.
I have always made it clear that you have full access to my BBS from the first call. I'd still have people asking for 3l337 access to the board, so I put a menu option called "3l337 FileZ" and bound it to the hangup command.
poindexter FORTRAN wrote to Gamgee <=-
I loved Frontdoor. Was my favourite mailer/tosser software back
then.
Just as a technical point - FD is a mailer only. Not a tosser.
You are correct, sir - I ran Telegard at first, then Maximus with
Squish as a tosser.
Nice. Always liked calling a Maximus board. Long ago I ran
PCBoard with Intermail (FD clone) as my mailer, and it's companion
tosser called Interecho. Really worked well.
I still marvel at how we were able to get all that stuff working
under something as primitive as DOS - all tied together by fairly
complicated batch files. I still have my 'run.bat' file archived
with the rest of that era's BBS stuff. Looked at it recently and surprisingly to me it all kinda made sense still... ;-)
... Backup not found: (A)bort (R)etry (P)anic
--- MultiMail/Linux v0.52
þ Synchronet þ Palantir BBS * palantirbbs.ddns.net * Pensacola, FL
I still marvel at how we were able to get all that stuff working
under something as primitive as DOS - all tied together by fairly complicated batch files. I still have my 'run.bat' file archived
with the rest of that era's BBS stuff. Looked at it recently and surprisingly to me it all kinda made sense still... ;-)
Nightfox wrote to Gamgee <=-
I still marvel at how we were able to get all that stuff working
under something as primitive as DOS - all tied together by fairly complicated batch files. I still have my 'run.bat' file archived
with the rest of that era's BBS stuff. Looked at it recently and surprisingly to me it all kinda made sense still... ;-)
I've had the same thought. Back in the day, I felt great that I
had accomplished something after getting my BBS working,
particularly the batch file I used for running my BBS and doing
the proper things according to errorlevels, etc..
Nice. Always liked calling a Maximus board. Long ago I ran
PCBoard with Intermail (FD clone) as my mailer, and it's companion
tosser called Interecho. Really worked well.
poindexter FORTRAN wrote to Gamgee <=-
Nice. Always liked calling a Maximus board. Long ago I ran
PCBoard with Intermail (FD clone) as my mailer, and it's companion
tosser called Interecho. Really worked well.
My first experience calling a Fido board was an Opus CBCS BBS in
San Francisco; I loved the streamlined interface, and it just
felt right.
I tried running an Opus BBS at first, but one file per message
was a bit much on a 8 mhz AT with 32 MB drives.
Gamgee wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-
much about how it looked/felt. I certainly remember the name of
the software, it was one of the "founding members" of the BBS
world back then as I recall.
Gamgee wrote to Nightfox <=-
It's still an enjoyable thing to run a BBS today, but in many ways
it seems..... easier now. A lot of things are self-contained.
I discovered the scene at an opportune time and place. One of the first Fido BBSes I called was Tom Jennings' BBS.
... Repetition is a form of change
--- MultiMail/XT v0.52
þ Synchronet þ realitycheckBBS -- http://realitycheckBBS.org
Yeah that seems like a pretty inefficient method of storing
messages. I never ran/tried Opus as a sysop, and although I
probably called a few of them as a user, I can't really remember
much about how it looked/felt. I certainly remember the name of
the software, it was one of the "founding members" of the BBS
world back then as I recall.
On 10-21-19 07:37, Gamgee wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-
I still marvel at how we were able to get all that stuff working
under something as primitive as DOS - all tied together by fairly complicated batch files. I still have my 'run.bat' file archived
with the rest of that era's BBS stuff. Looked at it recently and surprisingly to me it all kinda made sense still... ;-)
On 10-21-19 13:45, Gamgee wrote to Nightfox <=-
Yes, it really was a great feeling of accomplishment to get all
those pieces talking and connected, and held together by the big
'master' batch file. Errorlevels, loops, goto's. All the
different (modem) connect strings/speeds, error correction
detection, init strings. All your nightly/weekly maintenance
actions based on mailer exit errorlevels. Upload processors that
might insert a custom BBS comment into ZIP files, etc... Being
careful to observe Zone Mail Hour if you were in Fidonet...
It's still an enjoyable thing to run a BBS today, but in many ways
it seems..... easier now. A lot of things are self-contained.
I have a pretty meaty "bbs.bat" file from my RA days kicking around. Those .bat files were a work of art.
On 10-23-19 09:19, Nightfox wrote to Vk3jed <=-
@VIA: VERT/DIGDIST
Re: Re: BBS Pranks
By: Vk3jed to Gamgee on Wed Oct 23 2019 12:17 pm
I have a pretty meaty "bbs.bat" file from my RA days kicking around. Those .bat files were a work of art.
Yep, I still have mine on a backup. When I took my RA BBS down in
2000, I zipped it up and burned it to a CD-R (and contrary to what some might believe, that CD has not degraded and I can still read it). I unzipped my RA backup not too long ago, and I've considered setting up
my old RA BBS as a door on my current BBS.
Re: BBS Pranks
By: Denn to The Millionaire on Fri Oct 18 2019 11:38 pm
I remember ansi-bombs but don't remember any taking out a BBS.
they could remap keys on the host system. so if you hit a key you could delete files with the yes confirmation or format your drive.
you just needed to use ansi.com or a different ansi.sys
Re: BBS Pranks
By: MRO to Denn on Sat Oct 19 2019 01:01 pm
Re: BBS Pranks
By: Denn to The Millionaire on Fri Oct 18 2019 11:38 pm
I remember ansi-bombs but don't remember any taking out a BBS.
they could remap keys on the host system. so if you hit a key you could delete files with the yes confirmation or format your drive.
you just needed to use ansi.com or a different ansi.sys
And not a single MS-DOS terminal program that I used (e.g. Procomm Plus, Tel etc.) or BBS software I ran *ever* sent received data to stdout (where ansi. could see/process it and remap keys). Unless you're "type"ing ANSI files fro command.com prompt, they're harmless.
Sysop: | MCMLXXIX |
---|---|
Location: | Prospect, CT |
Users: | 324 |
Nodes: | 10 (0 / 10) |
Uptime: | 123:46:49 |
Calls: | 499 |
Messages: | 218403 |