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.