Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: Mark Kerr Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Telephone Company "Inside Humor" Message-ID: <12450@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 22 Sep 90 12:16:24 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Organization: TELECOM Digest Lines: 65 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 667, Message 12 of 12 In-Reply-To: message from ggw%wolves@cs.duke.edu >Oh get off it Pat, Your holier than thou attitude in relation to the >telco antics issue is getting old. Just because you didn't think of >it or get a chance to do it is no reason to be a puritan and deny >others their own enjoyment of a situation. I am willing to bet that >you are not spotlessly clean in terms of abusive humor. That's probably true ... someone should ask Pat about the things he used to do with some BBS software that a branch of the Chicago Public Library used to run. Something about "back doors". I'm sure none of us are perfect. Heck, I still remember getting my wrists slapped in college over using the state tie line to call friends at other campuses. Hey, the tie line was programmed and available from my dorm phone! Mark Kerr UUCP: ....!crash!pro-charlotte!markke ARPA: crash!pro-charlotte!markke@nosc.mil INET: markke@pro-charlotte.cts.com [Moderator's Note: The Chicago Public Library used to run a BBS for book and movie reviews, plus social issues discussion. This was in the period 1981-83. It ran on an Apple II computer donated by Friends of the Chicago Public Library. It originally used the ABBS program. Three of us donated money to buy the People's Message System (PMS) software which had recently been written by Bill Blue. The same three of us installed it. I was the volunteer Sysop for several months in 1982-83, and maintained the board from home most of the time. The library staff was supposed to turn on the machine on at 9 PM each night when the library closed, and turned it off in the morning. Library patrons used the computer and a variety of software during the day. I never knew what I would find from one night to the next or if in fact they would remember to turn on the BBS before closing for the night. The only trap door I knew of in the PMS software was the one the author put there and documented in the manual: a certain command permitted the Sysop or super-user to exit to DOS for maintainence work on the board, followed by a PR#6 to bring it back up again, although frankly there were so many people getting involved there what you say about additional trap doors -- if there were any -- doesn't surprise me. I finally resigned in May, 1983 when my own BBS was about to go on line. There were various differences of opinion between the supervising librarian and myself about how the library BBS should and should not be operating. One such difference centered on the lack of security on the BBS. In the early eighties, only a few of us were demanding verifiable user information before issuing passwords. Most BBS', including the library, ran wide open in those days. The attitude of the supervising librarian was that 'it had to be open to all users since it (the library) was a public, tax-supported institution.' Needless to say, the message base was a mess much of the time and apparently the software got that way also. It made better sense to spend my energy on my own board instead, although I still do volunteer work for the Chicago Public Library, as I have since 1981. Now I produce programs for the visually handicapped in the library's Radio Information Service which are broadcast over closed-circuit SCA (Subscriber Carrier Access) radios throughout northern Illinois. If you are interested, our signal travels with WBEZ, the Chicago Board of Education radio station. PAT]