My people! I ran a BBS from around 84 to 86'ish -- until the Feds shut me down. reddit / bbs ---------------------------------------------------------------------- evilcounsel · 2016-02-18 03:40 I would have been 12 when the Feds came to my mom's house in a black car. I remember cringing when I heard my name being talked about. I had been using a script on my computer that would repeatedly try to hack phone card numbers. I wanted phone card numbers so I could call California -- Thrasher BBS. Mom had blocked long distance from my line, so the only way I could play around on Thrasher's BBS was to get phone card numbers. The FBI (I think they were FBI?) dudes asked to see my computer setup. They sat in my room for a while with my mom, who was mad as fuck and scared because they mentioned how they could take our house for the amount of money I had charged by letting that stupid script run all night for several nights. Maybe it was just a threat, but it was enough to make things feel very real. They left with a warning. My mom took my modem away. I tried to get it back so many times, but she would find out I took it from her room and hide it better. She finally hid it so well that I never found it. I wasn't able to get back online again until 93'ish. I had a BBS. It sucked, but it was fun to run and I met so many cool people. Also found out about a lot of cool local BBSs that I joined. For some reason I just randomly thought about BBSs and had a big smile. Those were fun times. Just had a random smile about my short stint into the BBS world and decided to see if reddit had a sub... and... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- temotodochi · 2016-02-18 07:53 Yeah, we do. But not very active. My BBS was up 94-97 and i had some 30 active users out of 100 overall. Pretty good, but i poured soo many hours into it. :) Still a "Sysop" of a sorts, even if serving customers is a faceless job nowadays and there are millions of them simultaneously. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- tadc · 2016-02-18 10:08 "Amnet" ring any bells? That was the LD network I first discovered, because it had 6 digit PINs and my friend guessed one on practically the first try, which was our gateway into 31337 LD BBSes and wardialing software that would run overnight and find more PINs for when the first one got shut down. Never had any FBI come to the door though (for that reason, anyway!). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [deleted] · 2016-02-18 14:11 [deleted] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- alteresc · 2016-02-18 15:05 Wow, great story - thanks for sharing. I was a sysop of my own board from about 92-97. Good times. Everything was so much more personal than the Internet. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- evilcounsel · 2016-02-18 17:53 Absolutely. I met a few people in real life since it was all local BBSs. Would skate with a couple of the guys. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- evilcounsel · 2016-02-19 01:09 I spent so much time on mine, too! I wasn't able to crack games or get good content, so mine became mainly a place just to hang out. I would always get excited when someone would call... then disappointed when they left in 10 minutes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- evilcounsel · 2016-02-19 01:11 That actually does sound really familiar. I'm not sure if that was it, but sounds about right. The program would just call the 1-800 number and try a 6 or so digit PIN and repeat until it found one that would connect. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- evilcounsel · 2016-02-19 01:11 Thanks! I'm checking it out now. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- samalex01 · 2016-02-19 16:40 Wow... The only thing I did was use A-Dial to automatically dial all numbers in an exchange (XXX-YYY-0000 through XXX-YYY-9999) and save the ones with carrier. No caller ID back then thankfully, but I'm sure I pissed off a few people. I never was 733t enough to do anything with the numbers I found, most were just private BBSes, fax machines, or RAS servers for various companies, none of which I could ever get into. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nolageek · 2016-02-20 00:03 Welcome back! :) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- evilcounsel · 2016-02-20 02:52 Thanks! It is fun to find the crowd again. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mak1405 · 2016-02-21 10:14 I never was on a bbs. I always tried to understand what they are. All I could figure out is that its like a website except it stored on your home computer ---------------------------------------------------------------------- drunkenpinecone · 2016-03-02 07:02 I was using a c64 back then using Multi-Hack to hack codes (9500488 9500266). Got busted with a friend by Local Police, Feds and MCI Security. Got my ass whooped pretty good too ;) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- kirktotes · 2016-03-12 15:24 Were you Zerocool? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- evilcounsel · 2016-03-13 08:12 I've always been zero cool. Still think of myself as a pretty decent guy. Edit: Just looked up who Zero Cool is. Nah, I wasn't nearly as bright. I was just a dumb kid with a script that could get numbers I needed. Didn't really take much brains. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- kirktotes · 2016-03-13 10:42 Hehe. It was a joke anyway, but thanks for responding. Many of us did things when we were kids that we'd love to tell others, but doing so would put some unwanted attention on us and possibly even ruin our current careers. I bet the guy who did the Max Headroom transmission would love to tell everyone without ending up in prison. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- evilcounsel · 2016-03-17 03:07 I really hope the Max Headroom transmission mystery gets solved. I've heard a bunch of things, but it's never been solved as far as I know. I remember when that happened and thinking how the hell a person could hack into cable transmissions. It was exciting news. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- kirktotes · 2016-03-17 03:34 Try that now and you'll be shipped off to a blacksite and held without trial for a decade while they parallel construct charges for various types of "domestic terrorism".