[404] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
"Internet Accessible Dialouts"
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Barry Shein)
Thu Mar 21 23:13:25 1991
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 91 23:01:21 -0500
From: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein)
To: schoff@psi.com
Cc: com-priv@uu.psi.com
In-Reply-To: Marty Schoffstall's message of Thu, 21 Mar 91 21:59:22 -0500 <9103220259.AA25427@psi.com>
As near as I can tell the people who use that subject line in
alt.bbs.* are quite literally looking for outgoing modems they can use
from within the Internet: "telnet modem-pool.your.site", then use the
Hayes command set to dial-out.
I have two theories on this:
A) They are incredibly naive kids who think that phones don't
cost money and figure somehow the institutions have flat-rate
or no rate service or don't particularly think about these things
at all and just don't want to foot the dime whatever it takes.
B) That there ARE accessible, out-going modem pools out there
and some folks are in for some rude surprises when they find
out their internet address was posted! Or maybe they're local
only and it'll never amount to much other than tying up the
lines. Kind of like all the terminal server phone numbers which
could serve as free inbound TIPs that mostly are plugged up now (?)
I believe both these theories to be simultaneously correct.
Of course, there are areas with flat-rate or nearly flat-rate phone
service (I believe DC is like this, New England sure isn't, everything
is metered.) So perhaps someone in that area doesn't care a whole lot
so long as it's not over-used (ie. as long as there's a modem free for
them when they want one they won't look to see who's using the
others.)
Interesting phenomenon, but I think it's more in the realm of
phreaking than what we usually chat about here.
-b
