Page 169 - DLIS408_INFORMATION_TECHNOLOGY-APPLICATIONSL SCIENCES

Information Technology and Application

Notes 2600 Magazine at the time. The notorious Rusty n Edie’s BBS, in Boardman, Ohio, was raided by the
FBI in January 1993 for software piracy, and in November 1997 sued by Playboy for copyright
infringement. In Flint, Michigan, a 21 year old man was charged with distributing child pornography
through his BBS in March 1996.

Networks

Most early BBSes operated as stand-alone islands. Information contained on that BBS never left the
system, and users would only interact with the information and user community on that BBS alone.
However, as BBSes became more widespread, there evolved a desire to connect systems together to
share messages and files with distant systems and users. The largest such network was FidoNet.
As is it was prohibitively expensive for the hobbyist SysOp to have a dedicated connection to
another system, FidoNet was developed as a store and forward network. Private electronic mail
(Netmail), public message boards (Echomail) and eventually even file attachments on a FidoNet-
capable BBS would be bundled into one or more archive files over a set time interval. These archive
files were then compressed with ARC or ZIP and forwarded to (or polled by) another nearby node
or hub via a dialup Xmodem session. Messages would be relayed around various FidoNet hubs until
they were eventually delivered to their destination. The hierarchy of FidoNet BBS nodes, hubs, and
zones was maintained in a routing table called a Nodelist. Some larger BBSes or regional FidoNet
hubs would make several transfers per day, some even to multiple nodes or hubs, and as such,
transfers usually occurred at night or early morning when toll rates were lowest. In Fido’s heyday,
sending a Netmail message to a user on a distant FidoNet node, or participating in an Echomail
discussion could take days, especially if any FidoNet nodes or hubs in the message’s route only
made one transfer call per day.
FidoNet was platform-independent and would work with any BBS that was written to use it. BBSes
that did not have integrated FidoNet capability could usually add it using an external FidoNet front-
end mailer such as FrontDoor, BinkleyTerm, InterMail or D’Bridge, and a mail processor such as
FastEcho or Squish. The front-end mailer would conduct the periodic FidoNet transfers, while the
mail processor would usually run just before and just after the mailer ran. This program would scan
for and pack up new outgoing messages, and then unpack, sort and “toss” the incoming messages
into a BBS user’s local electronic mailbox or into the BBS’s local message bases reserved for Echomail.
As such, these mail processors were commonly called “scanner/tosser/packers.”
Many other BBS networks followed the example of FidoNet, using the same standards and the same
software. These were called FidoNet Technology Networks (FTNs). They were usually smaller and
targeted at selected audiences. Some networks used QWK doors, and others such as RelayNet
(RIME) and WWIVnet used non-Fido software and standards.
Before commercial Internet access became common, these networks of BBSes provided regional and
international e-mail and message bases. Some even provided gateways, such as UFGATE, by which
members could send/receive e-mail to/from the Internet via UUCP, and many FidoNet discussion
groups were shared via Usenet. Elaborate schemes allowed users to download binary files, search
gopherspace, and interact with distant programs, all using plain text e-mail.
As the volume of FidoNet Mail increased and newsgroups from the early days of the Internet became
available, satellite data downstream services became viable for larger systems. The satellite service
provided access to FidoNet and Usenet newsgroups in large volumes at a reasonable fee. By connecting
a small dish and receiver, a constant downstream of thousands of FidoNet and Usenet newsgroups
could be received. The local BBS only needed to upload new outgoing messages via the modem
network back to the satellite service. This method drastically reduced phone data transfers while
dramatically increasing the number of message forums.

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