A STUDY IN PARANOIA






					The pirate community has advanced much	over the last decade.  With the advent of thousands of	BBS systems across the country, pirates have a wealth	of information at their disposal.  With these		advancements, however, a new wave of paranioa has	just recently swept the BBS community as a		consequence of the governments attempts to stamp	out the pirate comunity,  resdulting from what the	general public knows as Operation Sundevil.  This		operation has attracted national attention, to the		point that Newsweek featured an article on the		operation in their July 2, 1990 issue.

 

























					While sysops have a right to feel		threatened by this crackdown, paranioa has reached	new proprtions.  One must realize that this crackdown	has mainly dealt with so-called carders, phreakers,	and hackers, many sysops have felt a need to step		security.  Stories of police raids on teenagers homes,	with guns drawn and family members forcibly		restrained(Newsweek, July 2, 1990) and tales of		thousands of disks being consficated by the feds have	prompted a new wave of paranoia sweeping across	the nation.  Case in point  
(the real handles have been	changed for obvious reasons) : The Hackster and his	pal, The Insane are both caught carding.  While one is	set free, the other, The Insane spends the weekend	at Juvenile Hall.  Word spreads around that a plea		bargain is being attempted and that The Insane will	be giving out the names and numbers of Elite boards	around the nation, and that soon, the feds will be		logging on under his handle and password, thereby	busting the sysop and the users of the board.  Within	days, word has spread around and log-on messages	have popped up on numerous boards around the		nation, all expressing the same ideas : This board is	legitimate BBS system, all fraudulent activities such	as carding, phreaking, etc..etc.. shall not be tolerated.	The sysop of one mega-board even thinks of shutting	his board down permanently, fearing that the feds	will come to his house and consfiscate his computer	equipment.  Meanwhile, The Terminator has done		nothing of the sort concerning any plea bargain, thus	the whole episode was a complete fiasco.

					Episodes such as the above are very		common nowadays.  When the major board BBC went	down, and the sysop began giving out the names of	various users on his board, many board went dowen	immediately.  However, in this case, the paranioa was	well justified.  However, in the above case, emotions	were carried too far and resulted in an unwanted		episode.

					The government claims to have seized 42	pirate and phreak/hack boards around the country,	along with approximately 23,000 floppy disks in 14	cities.  One must realize, however, that this is a very	small percentage of the BBS community.  Mainly,		Operation Sundevil have focused on upon the major	hack/phreak boards, but paranioa has spread too all	facets of the pirate community.  Sysops are afraid of	this so-called witch-hunt upon the pirates of the		world.  One can only hope that paranioa doesnt in fact	do more damage than the crackdown itself.