Subj : Re: SSH on BBSes
To   : boraxman
From : echicken
Date : Mon Apr 04 2022 06:41:41

  Re: Re: SSH on BBSes
  By: boraxman to echicken on Sat Apr 02 2022 13:19:13

 bo> There is justifiable reason for this. BBS's WERE private in the 90s. You
 bo> couldn't find out what was on a BBS without dialing in, creating an

That's not so much privacy as it is a barrier to entry: must have computer and modem. Unless the sysop went to pains to scrutinize new users, pretty much anyone could come along and do whatever they wanted with what they saw there. 
Was it private in practice? Sure, probably. In theory? No.

 bo> Today, the same mentality holds. The fact it is accessed via TCP/IP
 bo> doesn't change anything.

It changes a great deal. The barrier to entry has been obliterated. Connectedness has increased. Why would anyone assume that the BBS is *less* networked and discoverable today than in decades past?

 bo> BBS's were NOT searchable from the web in their heyday, and by default are
 bo> NOT searchable unless someone takes very, very specific steps in order to
 bo> rebroadcast that information. 

Those steps are easy, especially with Synchronet. Some sysops may put their website online without pausing to consider message bases and privacy. Their thought process might end at "play door games from the browser".

It's not safe to assume privacy on some random BBS or message network. I have little sympathy for anyone who posts a message to a forum on the internet, without specific guarantee of privacy, in 2022, and later learns to their dismay that it turns up in a web search.

 bo> That is my point of contention, or should that be, soreness, that sysops
 bo> are choosing to make text which remains within the net, more public by
 bo> their actions. That is the behaviour and action, that I believe doesn't
 bo> have a place in todays climate. 

It's not safe to assume privacy on a message network. It assumes too much about the motivations and values of other sysops and users. For everyone who thinks this stuff should be private, there's another who thinks that it should be searchable and free.

 bo> There is no need for this at all. Some people are happy putting their

You can set up a BBS and lock it down to keep stuff off the public web, and you're reasonably assured of "privacy". It's unlikely that any user or bot is going to start leaking stuff (but they could).

You can set up a message net and make it a rule that things be locked down and kept "private", and then try to police that. Maybe you'll have some success, but it's less assured.

Beyond that, on message networks without specific rules or mechanisms in place to keep things private? It's incorrect to expect privacy in such a forum.
  
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echicken   
electronic chicken bbs - bbs.electronicchicken.com
 * Origin: electronic chicken bbs - bbs.electronicchicken.com (21:1/164)

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