bbsers
2 HN recommenders · recommended in 4 months, 2014–2019
44:01 · 7.3K views · Mar 11, 2012
Part 4 of the BBS: The Documentary series, covering FidoNet, the amateur network that linked dial-up bulletin board systems together to relay messages and files worldwide.
Recommended as a great documentary on FidoNet's rise, with interviews with figures like Tom Jennings.
4 comments from Hacker News
A great documentary on FidoNet's rise with superb music and universal themes: this video A modern tale of care for a bright and reliable future, search: project byzantium fidonet
BBS: The Documentary Part 4 ( this video ) has some great interviews with Tom Jennings & co. on the beginnings, growth and decline of Fidonet. "It just runs in spite of the idiots." (Tom Jennings)
TL;DR Microsoft tried to leverage its desktop monopoly to become a browser monopoly to a server monopoly and thus own and tax and sanitize the early web, we wuz saved by Firefox. The web freedoms we are losing today were hard won. Back when browser choice was NCSA Mosaic or Netscape , Microsoft was ignoring the web as a fad - Gates thought little of it then - sounds crazy now but in the early 90's, before access was readily available outside Universities, BBS was dominant for the public. The web was small then: registering a domain was altering a text file (no cost); SPAM didn't exist, every email was answered; all very university nice nice; ecommerce wasn't a thing. Microsoft 'awoke' to the webs potential and gave away Internet Explorer for free ( Netscape's browser cost money to buy unless you used the latest beta ) - this is what the antitrust case of win95 was about - Microsoft leveraging it's monopoly ( no Linux back then ) to aquire browser share. Why was this seen as a problem ? Because of Microsoft's strategy of embrace , extend , extinguish. It was feared Microsoft browsers would only talk 'properly' to Microsoft servers ( the server market was the 'big' money ) - thus Microsoft would dictate the web rather than Berners-Lee's democratic W3C. Everone else would be shut out of spec by dint of Microsoft end user browser monopoly leveraged from it's Desktop monopoly. This would certainly have slowed adoption as every site and every server would have to pay Microsoft's la
FIDOnet's temporary connections over POTS copper is arguably more resistant to censorship of a populace. FIDOnet is arguably the precedent to the Internet, certainly Net culture derives more primally from the BBS scene than any IP transported culture. Broadband connects an IP addy to a blameable citizen. This produces a fear of sharing a connection ( and thus liability ) - this is concurrent with the demise of public WiFi. Wynn Wagner III (Opus BBS) reports a support request from a doctor in Vietnam,[1] who states the (Vietnamese) internet is censored but the phones are not. For similar but different reasons Tom Jennings reports FIDOnet support requests from .ru domains.[2] The internets current distribution model seems unlikely to survive massive infrastructure attack, major connection bottlenecks are too narrow now. Radio HAMS remain the likely communication network of first resort after any large scale devastation. Facebook is not particuarly more than a very large BBS, (with the addition of Jeremy Bentham's panopticon[3]). "Though actual observation may be discontinuous, fear of observation is continuous. And, this constant fear of observation produces self-censorship, which, according to Winston, is a “habit that becomes instinct”. Consequently, the panopticon’s monopoly on the body gradually becomes a monopoly on the mind." [4] [1] this video [2] this video [3] [LINK] [4] [LINK]