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#bbs

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in case anyone was wondering what a 1995 era dial-up ISP might look like in 2025

nothing has been hooked up yet, as i need to craft a bunch of very arcane cables for the job.

this is how it works in theory:
that fat scsi-looking plug on the Mediatrix 4124 is to attach 24 plain old analog telephone lines via a fat octopus cable. the mediatrix is an ATA or Analog Telephone Adapter. it translates VOIP/voice-over-IP calls to plain old telephone service that you could hook up any old telephone to.

but we're after dial-up internet service, so - normally those 24 lines would go to external modems, but it'd be silly to have 24 black boxes with 24 power adapters plugged into the wall.

so, instead, the Mediatrix telephone lines run to that black US Robotics Total Control Modem Pool 16. it lets 16 modems ask for an internet connection via SLIP or PPP - the dial-up protocols you used in the 1990s.

the total control appliance has sixteen 33.6Kbaud internal modems inside (each on a small circuit board). the modems speak analog on the telephone line side, and speak digital on the serial side.

the serial side of the total control box then runs sixteen RS-232 serial cables to the box above it: a Cisco 2511 Access Server.

the access server has sixteen serial ports on the back, which accept the serial connections from the modem pool. this is where the internet magic happens.

the rear of the cisco 2511 has a port for connecting to the outside world on behalf of each modem line. it gives an IP address to each modem line, and routes all traffic to the internet. this is where the SLIP/PPP protocol is used.

so in essence:

your modem dials my number ->
mediatrix 4224 accepts the incoming call ->
total control mp16 accepts the call on one of its modem ports ->
cisco 2511 accepts the modem's request for an IP address and begins routing internet traffic back to you, via the exact same chain of hardware in the opposite direction.

(also pictured just for fun: a big yellow google search appliance, circa 2002 - back when the company featured useful tools like searching the web for things. the GSA is a fancy Dell server with a tool that lets you search document databases on an intranet. the kind of thing a medical firm, oil company or rich dentist office would have)

look, i don’t have all the answers

but i do have all the modems.

this US Robotics Total Control modem bank just arrived. this is what some ISPs used in the mid-90s for incoming dialup lines. your 33.6Kbaud modem would dial into this machine, which would forward all of the incoming/outgoing data to the terminal server for SLIP/PPP

waited 3 long years for one to show up on ebay at a reasonable price.

now i can finally start offering the 16 line dialup service the world needs more than ever.

Michael Nordmeyer reminisces on how he has been accessing online services and the Internet since the early 1990s, from BBSes and CompuServe to ISDN, DSL, and fiber. Over this online journey his setup was typical of those years.

michaelnordmeyer.com/in-1993-i

Michael Nordmeyer · In 1993 I Went on the Internet for the First TimeThe Internet was scarce, slow, and expensive, but very exciting.

Zaskakująca historia odkrycia luki w starym oprogramowaniu #BBS, prowadząca do uzyskania dostępu do shella. Mateusz Kocielski pokazuje, jak „demony przeszłości” mogą stanowić skuteczną ochronę, a wykorzystanie podatności bywa bardziej skomplikowane, niż się wydaje.

Zobacz wykład z #OMH 2024 i przygotuj się na tegoroczną edycję:
▶️ youtube.com/watch?v=PzAMBZuh-PU 🍿

🎫 Rejestracja na #OhMyHack 2025 trwa ➡️ bit.ly/OMHbilet

now nearly 20 years after it was first published, rob o’hara’s Commodork remains to be the most faithful recollection of the bbs era. i’ve re-read it almost every year since it was printed, and i’m always struck by how accurate his memory for the warez and modeming scene is.

i’m amazed that we still do not have a comprehensive written history of BBSes to this day.

I was once at graphics.social but it had its limits related to default config and it was supposed to be a place that binds me toward my interests in graphics (software development) and demo scene as common denominator. But it's not that important any more. So I'm giving myself a fresh start at place connected to #BBS scene where my heart continually belongs to! thanks @meatlotion for hosting me here! :)

some shitheel over at wikipedia deleted a very obscure and super interesting article about the LeechModem series of bbs protocols, that i learned about buried deep in a bbs documentary interview

what was (X/Y/Z)-Modem?

a thumbnail sketch of the original protocols: bbs file transfers using the X/Y/Z-modem file transfer protocols relied upon a similar structure. the entire file would be sent from modem to modem, one packet at a time. each packet was successfully sent (and the checksum verified), the receiver would sent an ACK (acknowledgement) that the packet was received. if the packet wasn't received, or failed the checksum, the receiver sent a NAK (negative-acknowledge) response. after 10 NAKs, the sender aborted the file transfer.

why did this matter for bbs's?
back in the day, (mostly pirate) BBSes relied on "credit" systems which limited the amount you could download before you had to do work like upload new files, or participate on the message boards. this was done to discourage "leechers" from tying up the board's phone line downloading dozens of files for hours at a time.

the BBS software only withdrew a download credit from your account when a file transfer *was successful*.....
... try to imagine how this could be exploited.

how did LeechModem work?
the creators of leechmodem realized that if the file transfer protocol sent 10 NAK responses on the very last byte of a file, the BBS would think it was a failed file transfer and abort the download. since aborted downloads didn't count against your download credits, it was like you had never downloaded the file. in reality, you already had the entire downloaded file on your computer.

it took a long time for sysops and BBS software authors to figure out how to defeat leechmodem in its many variants. one of my favourites was the second the BBS detected a user running a leechmodem protocol, it would immediately cancel the file transfer, and then withdraw *twice as much credit* from their account and send a LEECHER! message to their terminal 😆

the (now deleted) wikipedia article:
web.archive.org/web/2022062621

web.archive.orgLeechModem - Wikipedia

Picked up the absolutely beautiful "Crackers" two book set by Marco Breddin. Extensive history of software cracking and cracktros (and BBSes, the demoscene, etc). Some small errors here and there but overall a great history and amazing photos and screenshots. So many good memories - can't wait to dive in more!

there were dozens of bulletin board system software packages available in the 90s, but for a fourteen year old kid with warez scene aspirations, there were two that stood above the rest for wannabes like me:

oblivion/2 and iniquity

each grew out of the same software: Telegard (which itself inherited the WWIV source code)

aside from technical and QoL improvements, the most obvious differences for teenagers were the kinds of prepackaged ANSI art the boards came with. you could start an elite board overnight with a careful selection of menus and login screens.

here are two of the best from each bbs

Who are some folks that are in to #BBS #retrocomputing #C64 that are catching up on missed experiences from earlier in life?

I want to connect with you and expand my social circle some more :)

I previously was a senior/lead programmer, sysadmin, and dba. Now I'm a pentester.

Going backwards to simpler times and an Internet experience that isn't dominated by a handful of tech fat cats.

I'm building a BBS having not logged into one in 30 years, and also learning as I go about BBS things and culture.

I know I'm longing for a time that is long past, but I'm OK with that if you are :)

growing up on the internet story time

when i was 14 years old, i made my first homepage using my mom's university shell/webspace allotment (5 megs) which was supposed to be for posting homework and email storage

there was no such thing as a profile pic in 94, but i decided that i should have a photo of me at the top of the page. i inexplicably decided that instead of scanning in a school photo, it made more sense to post a gif of some kid i found on a bbs with Night Owl cd-roms. today, i found that exact photo - it is uncredited sadly - just "boy eating watermelon"

for my bio, instead of writing about my hobbies and interests, i proceeded to fabricate an entire identity that claimed i was the captain of the volleyball team, a straight-A student, and one of the coolest kids in my school. 0/3 of those things were even close to reality. i figured - hey, who cares? no one's ever gonna see this.

a year later, my junior high school got its first internet connection - a 28.8k modem shared among 20 macintosh LC's in the lab. my computer ("information processing") teacher decided that our class should learn how to make a web page as a unit project.

i told him that i had already made a homepage ages ago, and wanted to submit that as my final assignment so i could go play Bolo instead. he asked me to show him the site.

the entire class crowded around my monitor as it loaded the page a few bytes at a time. i was feeling pretty smug until i saw the straw hat, and realized that the bio was pure bullshit. i tried to turn off the monitor but it was too late - 20 kids and my teacher got to read how this bony kid in front of them was apparently a world class athlete, One Of The Cool Kids, and future valedictorian.

i deleted the entire site the second i got home 😅