http://www.kumite.com/myths
Educate new employees about virus hoaxes the easy way
Reporters have already slain the spirit of the word "hacker." A moniker the computing community once wore with pride now brands you as a teenage geek who writes viruses and breaks into defense computers.
Go ahead, Mr. 40-year-old, walk up to someone and describe yourself as a computer hacker. That person will treat you like a repugnant teenage videogame addict -- or will call you a fool for thinking you know as much as some dangerous pimple-faced hacker.
What happened to "hacker" will soon happen to "BBS" thanks to the mass media. Society will cast you out for "hanging around on bulletin boards." BBSing may even corner you into a murder rap.
Seriously. Rumors abound right now about a cult murder in Phoenix supposedly linked to a bulletin board. A satanic cult, of course. Nebraska police arrested two BBS users not long ago for the kidnap/rape/murder of a university co-ed.
The killers probably hung out at bars too, but does that make news? No. Toss in the fact the guys logged onto bulletin boards - whoah, you've got one hell of a murder story.
A recent episode of Law & Order tantalized TV viewers with the fictional story of a teenage hacker bent on revenge. His computer virus creation killed two patients who relied on the medical analysis of an infected program. Naturally, BBS users helped the hacker write his virus, and he infected the medical computer via modem.
WHAT DO PARENTS usually hear about bulletin boards? They listen as some TV reporter describes how
he "pierced the underground" to find all sorts of stuff their son taps into on a daily basis.
Pornography, snuff software (think of it as binary snuff video), details on
how to read President Clinton's email, and phone numbers for the
National Rifle Association BBS. God forbid your child should ever log onto
that bulletin board!
The Mafia's talons dig deep here, the reporter grimly notes. Organized crime relies on bulletin boards for phone & credit card fraud; soon it will handle drug trafficking and gunrunning.
All of which explains why we have so many satanic cult murderers. I'll bet Charles Manson's dad gave him a modem once as a birthday gift. (It would explain the swastika tattoo on his forehead.)
I assume the surgeon general will one day call for warning labels on BBS software. "Bulletin board use causes illegal behavior and perversion, and turns adolescents into virus-writing hackers." You'll see signs posted by law at every computer store: "We do not sell modems to children under 21." People will soon need a federal permit to buy a semiautomatic assault modem.
It won't help. The BBS underworld, always one step ahead of the law, will spread its pestilence ever farther. It will continue to breed murderers and Republican gun-lovers while hiding behind a flimsy First Amendment right to free speech. Or so the media would have you believe. I can already visualize the reporter's prose upon capture of the next satanic BBS murder suspect:
"He lived in his own world, breaking into the bowels of the Chicago Board of Trade building after hours to play Dungeons & Dragons with friends, wearing a black cape and carrying intricately handpainted elf figurines. `He'd often walk up to fuse boxes, tap his chest, and say `Captain Picard to the Enterprise,' ' said a fellow NRA bulletin board user who calls himself `Recursion Master.' "(Which reminds me: the media portrays "Dungeons & Dragons" as an entry-level satanic ritual. To hear them say it, D&D leads teenage boys to things like human sacrifice, bestiality, and bulletin board use. The spirit of D&D has already died, hasn't it? But I digress...)
UNFORTUNATELY, THE MASS media doesn't care about many important contributions made by BBSing.
Numerous companies, for example, run bulletin boards so their employees can telecommute. Defense Department BBSs
transmit reports, make software available to field units, provide access to personnel records, etc.
Do you consider disk compression a "new" technology in DOS 6? You can thank BBS users for it -- they've used compression programs for over a decade. BBSing, more than anything else, advanced the state of the art in compression software and modem throughput speeds during the 1980s.
BBSing has advanced the state of the art in antivirus software; indeed, every major antivirus company today runs a bulletin board for their users. I could go on at some length about other important benefits we gain from BBSing...
But it doesn't matter. Reporters have portrayed bulletin boards as a conduit for satanic cults, organized crime, corporate espionage, treason, viruses, you name it. The moral of each news story: never trust anyone who owns a modem.
Yes, someday soon we'll toast the death of the spirit of BBSing, just as we toasted the death of the spirit of hacking. Long live the mass media.
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