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I have a lot of fond memories of my time in the BBS scene. As much as I love the internet it's a very different creature and you really lose the local/community

I have a lot of fond memories of my time in the BBS scene. As much as I love the internet it's a very different creature and you really lose the local/community aspect. My dream was that we'd eventually get a similar local BBS culture back in the form of small neighborhood wireless mesh networks offering forums along with LAN gaming and P2P file sharing - instead we got things like facebook groups, subreddits, and Nextdoor

vladvasiliu 4y ago
I think that's because setting up and maintaining the small neighborhood networks is work. People mostly don't care for that, they just want to have that group going with a bunch of people / play that game / etc. The "geeky" aspect of things is just a hindrance to their goals. 30 years ago, they had to do that if they wanted to participate. Mostly, they chose to not participate at all. Today, they can outsource those things, so they gladly do so. I also have those memories and am a bit nostalgic of the internet of olde, and maybe even somewhat annoyed with some aspects of what it has become, but I can't help but notice a certain discrepancy even in myself. While I absolutely love tinkering with my computers, and, for lack of interested neighbours, doing the small network all by myself in my apartment, I really don't have the same relationship with my phone, which I consider just like an appliance: allow me to call people, play some music, show me a map, and leave me alone.
- lifeisstillgood 4y ago
  But, there is a reasonable chance that a local wireless mesh will be far less work than you might think (ie technically an appliance) - but it will still need / benefit from moderation and participation- the "fun" bits.
  - lgas 4y ago
    But there's an already an alternative that allows you to spend exactly zero time and effort maintaining a local wireless mesh network. And you still get to have the fun bits. So why bother involving the local wireless mesh at all?
    - wizzwizz4 4y ago
      The local wireless mesh makes it much harder for l33t script kiddies on the other side of the world to pwn ur base. (You still have to watch out for sophisticated malware, but you're not going to get hit by, say, DDoS attacks.)
  - b112 4y ago
    When most people started to discover the internet, early 00s, facebook wasn't as it is now. It appeared less malign, wasn't able to track as much, and just less creepy. It grew into what it is, slowly. So when the potential for this dream of community owned stuff could have born fruit, facebook was simple, easy, and far more appealing. You see facebook now, after the vine has slowly grown, twisted about its users, crushing, but at first it was a pretty plant. Facebook would have never, ever, ever been as popular, or twitter, if they started as they did.
bebna 4y ago
briar has the potential to become it, but sadly it doesn't has the popularity or the reach yet.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
jolmg 4y ago
> My dream was that we'd eventually get a similar local BBS culture back in the form of small neighborhood wireless mesh networks Less anonymous than phone lines, I would imagine. Kind of curious how hard it is to find the source of a wireless signal.
- autoexec 4y ago
  I think it'd be pretty easy to see who was connected to what network, at least for someone else in range and collecting wireless traffic, and triangulation could track down any one of them. Phone lines might even be worse though since that would mean having a record of your every call and its duration handed directly over to the state by the phone company and maybe even sold to any number of interested third parties as well. Total anonymity wouldn't really be the point though. In the BBS days we used to have regular meetups/events and so at least for most of the frequent users you could already put a face to a username/handle. Making meatspace friends with the people near you was often a part of the appeal.
  - jolmg 4y ago
    > and triangulation could track down any one of them. You know, I used to think that, but I'm not sure anymore that triangulation is easily done with radio signals. I mean, if we're talking about triangulating as measuring the difference in time of reception of a signal between 2 or 3 antennas, because light travels so fast you need an impractical distance between them, like the distance between GPS satellites, or maybe at least cell towers. There's probably other techniques that are more achievable though, like measuring changes in signal strength as you change positions, or using a directional antenna and pointing it in different directions. > Phone lines might even be worse though since that would mean having a record of your every call and its duration handed directly over to the state by the phone company and maybe even sold to any number of interested third parties as well. Was thinking more about anonymity from the general public you're communicating with. You know, the threat model being someone taking offense at some comment, political or otherwise, and deciding to do something extreme. Death threats for dumb stuff like opinions are seemingly not super rare. > Total anonymity wouldn't really be the point though. In the BBS days we used to have regular meetups/events and so at least for most of the frequent users you could already put a face to a username/handle. Making meatspace friends with the people near you was often a part of the appeal. Yes, but I imagine you had the level of control for not anyone to know your physical address, at least. I didn't mean total anonymity.
rock_artist 4y ago
I was also a sysop as a child. Every night / 4am I had an incoming call from FidoNet syncing latest state. that also included emails… So the ‘local’ community was indeed nice, but then some of my family moved abroad. and suddently Skype with a dial-up and internet was a game changer for them. Maybe the newer decentralized approaches will get some of that.
sneak 4y ago
We are all still here. I run a small BBS on the internet. The link is in my profile. (It's not the traditional terminal based kind, but the idea is the same.)
- tsukikage 4y ago
  Indeed; the little enclaves haven't gone anywhere. It's not where most people are, but this was always the case. The big change is that there's giant mainstream places where large swathes of the public get to talk to each other as well now.

vladvasiliu 4y ago

I think that's because setting up and maintaining the small neighborhood networks is work. People mostly don't care for that, they just want to have that group going with a bunch of people / play that game / etc. The "geeky" aspect of things is just a hindrance to their goals. 30 years ago, they had to do that if they wanted to participate. Mostly, they chose to not participate at all. Today, they can outsource those things, so they gladly do so. I also have those memories and am a bit nostalgic of the internet of olde, and maybe even somewhat annoyed with some aspects of what it has become, but I can't help but notice a certain discrepancy even in myself. While I absolutely love tinkering with my computers, and, for lack of interested neighbours, doing the small network all by myself in my apartment, I really don't have the same relationship with my phone, which I consider just like an appliance: allow me to call people, play some music, show me a map, and leave me alone.

lifeisstillgood 4y ago
But, there is a reasonable chance that a local wireless mesh will be far less work than you might think (ie technically an appliance) - but it will still need / benefit from moderation and participation- the "fun" bits.
- lgas 4y ago
  But there's an already an alternative that allows you to spend exactly zero time and effort maintaining a local wireless mesh network. And you still get to have the fun bits. So why bother involving the local wireless mesh at all?
  - wizzwizz4 4y ago
    The local wireless mesh makes it much harder for l33t script kiddies on the other side of the world to pwn ur base. (You still have to watch out for sophisticated malware, but you're not going to get hit by, say, DDoS attacks.)
- b112 4y ago
  When most people started to discover the internet, early 00s, facebook wasn't as it is now. It appeared less malign, wasn't able to track as much, and just less creepy. It grew into what it is, slowly. So when the potential for this dream of community owned stuff could have born fruit, facebook was simple, easy, and far more appealing. You see facebook now, after the vine has slowly grown, twisted about its users, crushing, but at first it was a pretty plant. Facebook would have never, ever, ever been as popular, or twitter, if they started as they did.

bebna 4y ago

briar has the potential to become it, but sadly it doesn't has the popularity or the reach yet.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

jolmg 4y ago

> My dream was that we'd eventually get a similar local BBS culture back in the form of small neighborhood wireless mesh networks Less anonymous than phone lines, I would imagine. Kind of curious how hard it is to find the source of a wireless signal.

autoexec 4y ago
I think it'd be pretty easy to see who was connected to what network, at least for someone else in range and collecting wireless traffic, and triangulation could track down any one of them. Phone lines might even be worse though since that would mean having a record of your every call and its duration handed directly over to the state by the phone company and maybe even sold to any number of interested third parties as well. Total anonymity wouldn't really be the point though. In the BBS days we used to have regular meetups/events and so at least for most of the frequent users you could already put a face to a username/handle. Making meatspace friends with the people near you was often a part of the appeal.
- jolmg 4y ago
  > and triangulation could track down any one of them. You know, I used to think that, but I'm not sure anymore that triangulation is easily done with radio signals. I mean, if we're talking about triangulating as measuring the difference in time of reception of a signal between 2 or 3 antennas, because light travels so fast you need an impractical distance between them, like the distance between GPS satellites, or maybe at least cell towers. There's probably other techniques that are more achievable though, like measuring changes in signal strength as you change positions, or using a directional antenna and pointing it in different directions. > Phone lines might even be worse though since that would mean having a record of your every call and its duration handed directly over to the state by the phone company and maybe even sold to any number of interested third parties as well. Was thinking more about anonymity from the general public you're communicating with. You know, the threat model being someone taking offense at some comment, political or otherwise, and deciding to do something extreme. Death threats for dumb stuff like opinions are seemingly not super rare. > Total anonymity wouldn't really be the point though. In the BBS days we used to have regular meetups/events and so at least for most of the frequent users you could already put a face to a username/handle. Making meatspace friends with the people near you was often a part of the appeal. Yes, but I imagine you had the level of control for not anyone to know your physical address, at least. I didn't mean total anonymity.

rock_artist 4y ago

I was also a sysop as a child. Every night / 4am I had an incoming call from FidoNet syncing latest state. that also included emails… So the ‘local’ community was indeed nice, but then some of my family moved abroad. and suddently Skype with a dial-up and internet was a game changer for them. Maybe the newer decentralized approaches will get some of that.

sneak 4y ago

We are all still here. I run a small BBS on the internet. The link is in my profile. (It's not the traditional terminal based kind, but the idea is the same.)

tsukikage 4y ago
Indeed; the little enclaves haven't gone anywhere. It's not where most people are, but this was always the case. The big change is that there's giant mainstream places where large swathes of the public get to talk to each other as well now.