Subj : Re: Long Day
To   : tenser
From : boraxman
Date : Tue Jan 25 2022 22:40:51

 te> I trust the security of Element a lot more than I trust the
 te> security of Mystic, but anyway, there are command-line Matrix
 te> clients; why not use one of them?  Or even a private IRC server
 te> for that matter?  IRC over TLS has pretty decent support.
 te> 
 te> For kids, a private timesharing Unix machine would be a lot
 te> more interesting than a BBS: you can provide all the traditional
 te> BBS functionality but a whole lot more, too.  And with a modern
 te> Unix variant, it can be approximately as secure as anything else
 te> out there.
 te> 
 te> We've got a "family" timesharing box down in the basement; it's
 te> a SiFive unmatched board running OpenBSD-current.  The kids like
 te> to login and play "robots" and "rogue".
 te> 

I suppose Mystic is dependent on the crypto library it uses.  But access is done by SSH, and SSH IS secure.  A timesharing Unix machine is interesting, I have used public access Unixes which comprise the "Smolnet".  Exposing children to Unix and how to use it is worthwhile, but I think if they just want to message and chat, it should be through a program designed to do just that.

I've looked at the Pidgin client, which should work with Finch.  They work, but from what I've read, they can be behind on features.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/11/06 (Linux/64)
 * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

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