[255D[0;1m
[32mEDITORIAL




  [37mAbout a month and a half, or two months ago, I logged onto a [33mBBS [37mthat was
  operated in a manner that was [35m180 degrees [37mof what I considered the
  standard way of running a [33mBBS[37m. I've always taken it for granted that when
  you log onto a [33mBBS[37m, you would have to go through [31msome kind of 3rd degree
  [37mtype of questioning, where you would have to provide information, sometimes
  of a personal nature, before you would be allowed the privelege to access
  that system. You would, at the least, have to give a real name, address,
  and phone number, as well as sometimes providing information on what kind
  of computer you operated, personal likes and dislikes, and if you could
  identify such [34macronyms [37mas "[34mACiD[37m", "[34miCE[37m", and "[34mDoA[37m".

  This system, however, required only [32mtwo pieces of information[37m; [36mA handle[37m,
  and [36myour general location[37m, oh, and [36mwhere you heard about the [33mBBS [37m(okay, [33mthree
  [37mpieces of info). That took me by surprise to say the least. While I have
  nothing to hide from anyone, [31mI'll admit[37m, I never really [35mfelt comfortable
  giving out my personal information [37mto an unknown individual or
  organization, and let's face it, unless you're calling something like [34mAOL
  [37mor [34mCompu[0;32m$[1;34merve[37m, you really don't know that much about who you're calling.

  Of course, most [33mBBS's [37mare [35mlegitimate[37m, and [36mmaintain your personal
  information [37min the strictest confidence, but not all. Those are the ones
  that I worry about. There was even a scandal involving [31mProdigy Online
  Services[37m, whose terminal program was alledgedly [32mcapable of scanning a
  member's hard drive for personal information [37mand would upload it to the
  service when the user connected to it. Of course, Prodigy denied it, but did
  offer a [33m"patch" [37mto users who complained of this.

  The [36mSysOp [37mof this [33mBBS [37mmade an excellent argument against the use of
  [34m"Big-Brother" [37mtype user verification methods as well as showing that the
  [31manonyminity [37mthat his lack of user verification actually made users feel
  more comfortable about logging onto the system and participating in it. His
  argument [34mmade so much sense to me[37m, that I decided to follow suit. I did
  away with all the [31mquestionaires [37mand [31mID verifications[37m, and granted all first
  time callers regular user access. While I don't suggest everyone do the
  same, I personally that in our Information Age, a little mystery is a good
  thing. Most [36mSysOp's [37mdefend the use of user verification as a means of
  thwarting [33mhack attacks [37mor system abuse by using multiple accounts, and to a
  point, I agree. But, the bulk of callers to any [33mBBS [37mare good people who
  aren't interested in crashing your system or grabbing as many file credits
  as they can, so why make them feel like they're the [0;36mcriminal[1;37m?

  As a side note, I must stress that I run a free [33mBBS [37mand do not require my
  users to [0;32mpay [37mfor their access[1m. As such, I don't have to worry about such
  things as [32mcredit cards [37mand [32mcredit card [35mfraud[37m, or having to dole out
  [34mdownload credits [37m(downloads on my system are free). In situations such as
  that, I totally agree with having some sort of way to [33midentify users[37m, it
  just makes business sense to do that.

[38CYojimbo

[0m
