Freaks Macintosh Archive/Freaks Macintosh Archive.bin/Freaks Macintosh Archives/Textfiles/zines/DCMG/DCMG1.sit/DCMG1/DCMG Newsletter Vol.1-No.1 Colr.rsrc/TEXT_133_aText.txt

Text File | 1990-08-15 | 3KB | 51 lines

 
                                       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.