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Phrack Inc. Volume 04 Issue 43 File 18
==Phrack Magazine==
Volume Four, Issue Forty-Three, File 18 of 27
The LOD Communications Underground H/P BBS Message Base Project:
Price Listing of Currently Available Message Bases and Order Form.
Holdings List Version #1, 5/15/93
This file contains:
- Background information on the project;
- Currently completed message bases with prices; and,
- Order form and stipulations.
If you have already seen some of the background information contained in the
following paragraphs, note that additional information has been added. The aim
was to make this file as self-contained as possible. It is approximately seven
pages in length (23K) and it should answer all of your questions.
The Project:
------------
Throughout history, physical objects have been preserved for posterity for
the benefit of the next generation of humans. Cyberspace, however, isn't very
physical; data contained on floppy diskettes has a finite lifetime as does the
technology to retrieve that data. The earliest underground hacker bulletin
board systems operated at a time when TRS-80s, Commodore 64s, and Apple ][s
were state-of-the-art. Today, it is difficult to find anyone who has one of
these machines in operating condition, not to mention the brain cells left to
recall how to operate them. :-(
LOD Communications has created a historical library of the "dark" portion of
Cyberspace. The project's goal is to acquire as much information as possible
from underground Hack/Phreak (H/P) bulletin boards that were in operation
during a decade long period, dating from the beginnings (in 1980/81 with 8BBS
and MOM: Modem Over Manhattan) to the legendary OSUNY, Plover-NET, Legion of
Doom!, Metal Shop, etc. up through the Phoenix Project circa 1989/90.
Currently, messages from over 50 different BBSes have been retrieved, although
very few message bases are 100% complete. However, not having a complete "set"
does not diminish their value.
Who Benefits From This Information?:
------------------------------------
- PARTICIPANTS who were on the various H/P BBSes may want to see their
contribution to history or reminisce about the "golden era" of hacking;
- ENTHUSIASTS who came into the "scene" after most of these boards were
down may want to see what they missed;
- COMPANIES who may want to see if their (or their competitors') phone
systems, computers, or networks were compromised;
- SECURITY PROFESSIONALS/LAW ENFORCEMENT who may want to see what
techniques were used to subvert computer security systems;
- SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES (including their libraries) who may want to use
the information for research in sociology or computer science as well as
for educational purposes in courses such as Computer Law, Computer
Ethics, and Computer Security;
- AUTHORS/PRESS who may want to finally get the facts straight about
"hackers;" and,
- THE CURIOUS PUBLIC who may want to sneak a peek into the inner realm of
the Computer Underground, especially those Restricted Access BBSes and
their Private sub-boards where only a small handful of "the best"
resided.
Were the individuals involved in the Computer Underground out to start World
War III, selling secrets to the Soviets, working with organized crime,
conspiring to do evil, or just a bunch of bored teenagers with nothing better
to do? How much did they know, and how did they find it out? Did they have
the capability to shut down phone service of Area Code portions? Could
they ruin someone's credit? Could they "move satellites in the heavens?"
Could they monitor packet switching network conversations or YOUR
conversations? The answers lie within the messages themselves.
Why is LODCOM Charging Money For The Message Bases?:
----------------------------------------------------
As happens with most projects, the effort and monetary investment turned out
to be substantially more than originally anticipated. With all of the high-
tech equipment available today, people sometimes forget that in the early
1980s, 14.4K baud modems and 250 MB hard drives were just a fantasy for the
home computer user. Most messages Lodcom has recovered were downloaded at 300
baud onto 143K disk drives, with each file usually no larger than 15K in size.
One could not call a BBS and download the complete message base in 10 minutes
and save it into one file. Literally hundreds of man-hours have been spent
copying dusty Apple ][ disks, transferring them to IBM (or typing in hard copy
versions when electronic versions were unavailable), organizing over one
thousand individual files (thus far) according to what BBS the messages were
originally posted on, and splicing the files together. Also, after consulting
with the appropriate civil liberties organizations and our own legal counsel,
a slight editing of the messages (restricted to long distance access codes,
phone numbers, and computer passwords) had to be made to ensure that there is
nothing illegal contained within the messages. Every effort was made to keep
the messages in their pristine condition: 40 columns, ALL CAPS, spelling
errors, offensive language, inaccuracies of various kinds, and ALL.
Although a fairly comprehensive collection of the goings-on during a decade
of public and private computer underground activity has been accomplished,
there are more messages out there. It is our wish to continue to document the
History of the Computer Underground. In order to do this, and in order to
break even on what resources have already been expended (it is a LOT more than
most people realize), a dollar value has been attached to each set of message
bases. The dollar values were kept as low as possible and range from $1.00 to
$8.00 for each H/P BBS Message Base Set. Without your understanding and
support, this effort may not be able to sustain itself long enough to complete
the project. A large portion of any profits will be recycled for two other
projects in the works, whose aim is to provide additional historical background
on the Computer Underground Community. That is, no one involved is quitting
their day job :-)
One additional note: For those who purchase the Metal Shop Private Message
Base, 100% of the price ($4.00) will be donated to help pay for Craig Neidorf's
(Knight Lightning) Legal Defense bills (due to his successful campaign to
protect First Amendment rights for electronic publishing, i.e. the PHRACK/E911
case).
How The Prices Were Determined:
-------------------------------
Prices were determined based on the following considerations:
- The number of years ago that the BBS operated (affected availability);
- The total number of messages compiled (required more time to compile);
- Its popularity and message content (anticipated demand);
- Whether the BBS or portions thereof were deemed "elite" and, therefore,
restricted access to a small number of users (affected availability);
and,
- An additional factor to account for overhead costs such as diskettes,
diskette mailing containers, postage, time to fill orders, etc.
What Each "Message Base File" Contains:
---------------------------------------
- A two page general message explaining H/P BBS terminology and format.
- The BBS Pro-Phile: A historical background and description of the BBS
either written by the original system operator(s) or those who actually
called the BBS when it was in operation (it took months to track the
appropriate people down and get them to write these specifically for
this project; lesser known BBSes may not contain a Pro-Phile);
- Messages posted to the BBS (i.e. the Message Base);
- Downloaded Userlists if available; and
- Hacking tutorials a.k.a. "G-Philes" that were on-line if available.
It is anticipated that most people who are interested in the message bases
have never heard of a lot of the BBS names shown in the listing. If you have
seen one set of messages, you have NOT seen them ALL. Each system had a unique
personality, set of users, and each has something different to offer. If you
decide to order the minimum, we recommend that you mix a high-priced base
($7.00 or above) with a couple of medium-priced bases ($4.00 to $6.00) and a
few lower-priced bases ($1.00 to $3.00). This will provide you with a feel for
what was happening over a broad range of years and message quality. Of course,
nothing beats the full set (offered at a discount, see order form).
Formats the Message Base Files are Available in:
------------------------------------------------
Due to the large size of the Message Base Files, they will be compressed
using the format of your choice. Please note that Lodcom does NOT include the
compression/decompression program (PKZIP, PAK, etc.). ASCII (decompressed)
files will be provided for $2.00 extra to cover additional diskette and
shipping costs. The files are available for:
- IBM (5.25 or 3.5 inch)
- AMIGA (3.5 inch)
- APPLE MACINTOSH (3.5 inch)
- PAPER versions can be ordered but cost triple (due to increased shipping
costs, time to print order, and messages being in 40 column format and
therefore wasting lots of paper...save those trees!). Paper versions
take twice the time to deliver but are laser printed.
Orders are expected to arrive at the requesters' physical mail box in 2-4
weeks upon receipt of the order.
FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions):
----------------------------------
QUESTION: How long will these Message Base Files be available?
ANSWER: We cannot say for sure. This is an ongoing effort and your support
will allow us to continue until we are satisfied with having
recovered the last decent scraps of messages out there. Assuming
there is a demand for these messages, all H/P BBSes of WORTH (i.e.
NON-"codez" and NON-"warez" systems) are expected to be offered by
the end of the Summer of 1993. A Guesstimate of what will be
offered is 80 to 100 Message Bases, half of which will be rather
partial. Orders are expected to be filled up until the end of 1993
although this may change. Regardless, we will send out
notification well in advance of ceasing operations.
QUESTION: "Can I help out? I have some old messages" (either on a C64,
Apple, IBM [best for us], or printout).
ANSWER: Contact us ASAP! We will work out an equitable agreement depending
on the quantity, quality, format, and "ancientness" of the
messages. Your contribution will not go unrecognized.
QUESTION: Say if I purchase BBS "X" which has 100 messages and the next
Version of your Price Listing shows BBS "X" now has 200 messages,
do I have to pay the for the first 100 all over again if I want
the other 100 messages?
ANSWER: No. If a small number of additional messages are added, they will
be sent for the price of a diskette and postage only, i.e. the
information will be free. If a larger number such as 100 new
messages are added, then if you previously purchased the message
base, the additional messages will be discounted. Those who pay
the Commercial Rate (corporations, government, etc.) will receive
updates of the purchased Volume for FREE regardless of how many new
messages there are, and LODCOM also pays for the postage and
diskette(s).
QUESTION: What if I purchase the minimum order now and, when the next
Version of the price list is released, I want to get more Message
Bases? Do I have to still pay the $20.00 minimum?
ANSWER: No. If you are a previous customer, the minimum is cut in half,
that is, $10.00. Commercial customers who bought Volume #1 (the
current "Complete Set"), are obviously not obligated to purchase
the added Message Bases (the next Volume).
QUESTION: I would really like to get a feel for what one or two of the
boards were like before I order them. Can I get more info?
ANSWER: Yes. A Sample of Actual Messages is available by performing the
following, so long as you have TELNET access to the Internet:
Telnet to: 198.67.3.2 [IP Address for PHANTOM.COM]
Type: mindvox [To enter the Mindvox system]
login as: guest [To look around]
At prompt: finger lodcom [To see our Sample Messages File]
If you do not have TELNET access to the Internet, AND your host will NOT
"bounce" a 50K file, Lodcom will send you the Sample Messages File if you
specifically request it.
The Price List:
---------------
LOD Communications (c) 1993: Price List of Hack/Phreak BBS Message Bases
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
BBS NAME A/C SYSOP(S) # MSGS DATES KBYTES PRICE
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alliance BBS 618 Phantom Phreaker 113 2/09/86 - 215 $ 3.00 B
Doom Prophet G,P 6/30/86
Black Ice Private 703 The Highwayman 880 12/1/88 - 580 $ 7.00 B
P,U 5/13/89
Broadway Show/ 718 Broadway Hacker 180 9/29/85 - 99 $ 3.00 B
Radio Station BBS 12/27/85
CIA BBS 201 CIA Director 30 5/02/84 - 30 $ 1.00
6/08/84
C.O.P.S. 305 Mr. Byte-Zap 227 11/5/83 - 196 $ 4.00 B
The Mechanic G,R,U 7/16/84
Face To Face 713 Montressor 572 11/26/90 - 400 $ 2.00 B
Doc Holiday * 12/26/90
Farmers Of Doom 303 Mark Tabas 41 2/20/85 - 124 $ 2.00 B
G 3/01/85
Forgotten Realm 618 Crimson Death 166 3/08/88 - 163 $ 3.00 B
4/24/88
Legion Of Doom! 305 Lex Luthor 194 3/19/84 - 283 $ 6.00 B
Paul Muad'Dib * G,P,U 11/24/84
Metal Shop Private 314 Taran King 520 4/03/86 - 380 $ 4.00 BD
Knight Lightning P,R,U 5/06/87
OSUNY 914 Tom Tone 375 7/9/82 - 368 $ 8.00 B
Milo Phonbil * G,U 4/9/83
Phoenix Project 512 The Mentor 1118 7/13/88 - 590 $ 4.00 B
Erik Bloodaxe * G,R 2/07/90
Plover-NET 516 Quasi Moto 346 1/14/84 - 311 $ 5.00 B
Lex Luthor * G 5/04/84
Safehouse 612 Apple Bandit 269 9/15/83 - 251 $ 4.00 B
G,U 5/17/84
Sherwood Forest I 212 Magnetic Surfer 92 5/01/84 - 85 $ 2.00 B
P,U 5/30/84
Sherwood Forest ][ 914 Creative Cracker 100 4/06/84 - 239 $ 3.00 B
Bioc Agent 003 * G 7/02/84
Split Infinity 408 Blue Adept 52 12/21/83 - 36 $ 1.00 B
1/21/84
Twilight Phone ??? System Lord 17 9/21/82 - 24 $ 1.00
1/09/83
Twilight Zone/ 203 The Marauder 108 2/06/85 - 186 $ 3.00 B
Septic Tank Safe Cracker * G,U 7/24/86
WOPR 617 Terminal Man 307 5/15/84 - 266 $ 6.00 B
The Minute Man * G,U 1/12/85
_____________________________________________________________________________
NOTES: In SYSOP(S) column, * indicates remote sysop.
In #msgs column, P indicates that the BBS was Private, R indicates BBS
was public but restricted access sub-board(s) are included, G indicates
that SOME (or maybe all) of the G-files written by the sysop and/or
files that were available on the BBS are included, U indicates that a
BBS Userlist (typically undated) is included.
DATES column shows the starting and ending dates for which messages
were buffered (and therefore available) although there may be some gaps
in the chronological order.
KBYTES column shows size of complete file containing messages, g-files,
userlist, etc. COST column indicates current cost of message base in
U.S. Dollars, "B" indicates that a "BBS Pro-Phile" was written and is
included, "D" indicates that 100% of all orders for that BBS (Metal
Shop Private) will be donated to help pay for Craig Neidorf's (Knight
Lightning) Legal Defense bills.
LODCOM is currently organizing and splicing messages from over 30 more H/P
BBSes [shown below] and, as the files are completed and/or as additional
messages are procured for the above systems, updates of this listing will be
released. Next release is expected some time in JUNE of 1993: Modem Over
Manhattan (MOM), 8BBS (213), Mines of Moria (713), Pirates Cove (516) sysop:
BlackBeard, Catch-22 (617) sysop: Silver Spy, Phreak Klass 2600 (806) sysop:
The Egyptian Lover, Blottoland (216) sysop: King Blotto, Osuny 2 (a.k.a. The
Crystal Palace) (914), The Hearing Aid, Split Infinity (408), (303) sysop: The
ShadowMaster, ShadowSpawn (219) sysop: Psychic Warlord, IROC (817) sysop: The
Silver Sabre, FreeWorld II (301) sysop: Major Havoc, Planet Earth, Ripco (312)
sysop: Dr. Ripco, Hackers Heaven (217) sysop: Jedi Warrior, Demon Roach
Underground (806) sysop: Swamp Ratte, Stronghold East Elite (516) sysop: Slave
Driver, Pure Nihilism, 5th Amendment (713) sysop: Micron, Newsweek Elite (617)
sysop: Micro Man, Lunatic Labs (415) sysop: The Mad Alchemist, Laser Beam
(314), Hackers Den (718) sysop: Red Knight, The Freezer (305) sysop: Mr. Cool,
The Boca Harbour (305) sysop: Boca Bandit, The Armoury (201) sysop: The Mace,
Digital Logic's Data Center (305) sysop: Digital Logic, Asgard (201), The KGB,
Planet Earth (714), PBS (702), Lost City of Atlantis sysop: The Lineman, and
more.
Hacking/Phreaking Tutorials a.k.a. "G-Philes":
----------------------------------------------
Along with the above H/P BBS Message Bases, LODCOM has collected many of the
old "philes" that were written and disseminated over the years. A list of all
of them would take up too much space here, however, we can tell you that the
majority are NOT files that were originally written for electronic newsletters
such as Phrack, PHUN, ATI, etc. (with the perhaps obvious exception of the
LOD/H Technical Journal). Those files/newsletters are readily available from
other sources. This hodgepodge of files includes files from Bioc Agent 003,
Legion of Doom members, and many others that somehow fell out of widespread
circulation. A Table of Contents of the collection is included but the
tutorials are all grouped together in four large files of approximately 250K
each. This collection will have additions with each update of this file. See
the order form for the price (price will go up as more files are added).
The Order Form:
---------------
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - C U T - H E R E - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
LOD Communications H/P BBS Message Base ORDER FORM
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PERSONAL RATE: Due to the economics involved in diskettes, disk mailing
containers, snail mail costs, and time to fill orders, a MINIMUM ORDER of
$20.00 is required for all personal requests. If all 20 message bases are
ordered (containing 5700+ messages), the cost is discounted to $39.00; if you
order $20.00 worth (the minimum) or more, you get $5.00 worth in addition as a
discount. That is, pay for $20.00 and get $25.00 worth of message bases.
COMMERCIAL RATE: Corporations, Universities, Libraries, and Government
Agencies must order the complete set (Volume #1) and pay a higher rate. For
Price Listing Version #1 Released 5/15/93 (20 boards total), the price is
$99.00 (note that new messages that surface for any BBS purchased will be sent
completely FREE of ANY additional charge).
H/P BBS Names: ____________________________________________________________
[Write: COMPLETE ____________________________________________________________
SET if you want
all messages] ____________________________________________________________
"G-Phile" Collection Version #1 (Optional): $____________ ($10.00 Personal)
($25.00 Commercial)
Disk Format/Type of Computer: _____________________________________
(Please be sure to specify diskette size [5.25" or 3.5"] and high/low density)
File Archive Method (.ZIP [preferred], .ARJ, .LHZ, .Z, .TAR) ____________
(ASCII [Non-Compressed] add $2.00 to order)
Texas Residents add 8% Sales Tax.
If outside North America please add $5.00 for Shipping & Handling.
Total Amount (In U.S. Dollars): $ ___________
Payment Method: Check or Money Order please.
Absolutely NO Credit Cards, even if it's yours :-)
By purchasing these works, the Purchaser agrees to abide by all applicable U.S.
Copyright Laws to not distribute or reproduce, electronically or otherwise, in
part or in whole, any part of the Work(s) without express written permission
from LOD Communications.
Send To:
Name: _____________________________________
Organization: _____________________________________ (If applicable)
Street: _____________________________________
City/State/Zip: _____________________________________
Country: _____________________________________
E-mail address: _____________________________________ (If applicable)
PRIVACY NOTICE: The information provided to LOD Communications is used for
sending orders and periodic updates to the H/P BBS Message Base Price List.
It will NOT be given or sold to any other party. Period.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - C U T - H E R E - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Remit To: LOD Communications
603 W. 13th
Suite 1A-278
Austin, Texas USA 78701
Lodcom can also be contacted via E-mail: lodcom@mindvox.phantom.com
Voice Mail: 512-448-5098
_____________________________________________________________________________
End Order File V.1
LOD Communications: Leaders in Engineering, Social and Otherwise ;)
Email: lodcom@mindvox.phantom.com
Voice Mail: 512-448-5098
Snail Mail: LOD Communications
603 W. 13th
Suite 1A-278
Austin, Texas USA 78701
