Setting up age verification for my BBS

[kboyd@phpc.social]

@foone (I was 12 when I got in trouble for connecting to a BBS from a school computer... in the early 90s. In fairness to "kids these days", they get up to some pretty impressive stuff. But I don't think they'd care much about BBS tech - at least not until they need to.)

[foone@digipres.club]

@domi I'm not, never have been, never will be.

But when were you 12? I'm gonna take a guess that it wasn't super recent.

I definitely new how to connect to a BBS when I was 12, but that's because I was 12 in 1996, when BBSes were still somewhat of a thing.

In 2026? Why would a kid waste their time knowing this?

[domi@donotsta.re]

@foone@digipres.club i’m '02, so 2014? i remember logging onto BBSes through HyperTerminal on win95 and a null modem cable connected to a linux box running some utility that proxied telnet to a serial port… it took me a couple more years before I figured out how to configure SLIP/PPP

(i was a Weird kid for that timeframe, i’m fully aware)

[littlefox@gotosocial-dev.svc.0x0a.network]

@domi @foone you're so young

Sowwy

[alienghic@timeloop.cafe]

@foone

Yay I don't have to mail you a copy of my resume on a cassette.

[domi@donotsta.re]

@littlefox@gotosocial-dev.svc.0x0a.network @foone@digipres.club like, sure, fuck me for this. i know, i suck

it’s not like i picked this ,__,

[littlefox@gotosocial-dev.svc.0x0a.network]

@domi @foone you don't suck o.o

[littlefox@gotosocial-dev.svc.0x0a.network]

@domi @foone

[littlefox@gotosocial-dev.svc.0x0a.network]

@domi @foone sorry

goes hide in a cave

[xerz@soc.masfloss.net]

@foone @domi

In 2026? Why would a kid waste their time knowing this?

do not underestimate the ability of teenagers to obsess over retro computing

[domi@donotsta.re]

@littlefox@gotosocial-dev.svc.0x0a.network @foone@digipres.club it’s okay

this is just why i don’t tell people how old I am. i should just adopt some fake truth, it’s not like you could tell that i wasn’t born in 1992 given the amount of stupid trivia i amassed ,_,

[fogti@chaos.social]

@foone @domi I read a book about this when I was like ≈15, so I also knew about this.

[xan@xantronix.social]

@xerz @foone @domi I, a teenager in 2003, already owned a fucking NeXTcube lol

[jackryder@infosec.exchange]

@foone

[peribotsarah@babka.social]

@kboyd @foone oh gosh, that was the year I got a 1200bps modem for my C=64... being 12 is magical.

[foone@digipres.club]

@domi well hell yeah then, here's to all us Weird Kids.

(I'm just a Weird Kid who hasn't been a kid for two decades)

[doskel@masto.doskel.net]

@domi @foone (ftr this is knowledge that never goes away, i was born in '09 and actively ran a bbs, albeit one over packet radio rather than IP, and i have several friends younger than me who know of them)

[pseudonym@mastodon.online]

@domi @foone @littlefox

ATH+++

<Carrier disconnected>

[doskel@masto.doskel.net]

@domi @foone I think a good form of bbs age verification would be the way they grant authorization for gmrs repeaters, they give you a call and you chat for a few minutes until the owner with an extremely southern accent says "awright 'en you seem like a good fella, I'll 'end over the details soon"

[tafnn@universeodon.com]

@foone I had a BBS back in the day.
I ran it on an old 286 PC.