Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Going Back To The Past of the Internet

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the blast-from-the-past dept.

*no comment* writes "deadly.org currently has a story about a new grassroot network springing up. It consists of free shell access, and is trying to revitalize the olden days of the Internet. Free speech, free information are the key features, but I wonder if this is jsut another free DDoS drone as well."

32 of 223 comments (clear)

  1. Way to ruin his whole goal... by the+Man+in+Black · · Score: 5, Funny

    I didn't want to get slashed so I avoided that like the plague.

    Thanks again,
    Scott

    Well, there goes that idea.

    --
    El riesgo vive siempre!
    1. Re:Way to ruin his whole goal... by Bonker · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Okay, we've heard your reasons for not wanting to post cache versions of /.'ed sites, but what's your explantion for allowing a site to be slashdotted when the maintainer is actively trying to avoid having his machine melted down by the slashdot effect let alone the inevitable DDOS that will follow, given the nature of his service?

      At the very best, this is kinda irresponsible.

      --
      The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
  2. The internet days of yore... by da3dAlus · · Score: 4, Funny

    Where pr0n was free and the only pop-ups were in your pants.

    --

    Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
    1. Re:The internet days of yore... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      I must be from a different era. I recall that pr0n FTP sites were rare, and those that existed were guarded secrets, because as soon as they became public (such as by somone posting the FQDN to Usenet) they'd collapse under the sudden surge of traffic.

      Now, instead of pr0n (which is in abundance), it is rapacious interest in geek news that brings machines down to their needs.

      Is this that thing they call progress?

  3. Gone are the days... by Bunjo · · Score: 3, Funny

    ... when those "I'm Heidi, want to make mad love to me and my college friends?" messages still had a one in a million chance of being real. Where does the time go?

  4. You can never go back by sane? · · Score: 4, Insightful
    That country does not exist, its faded; been erased from you memory.

    You can never return to the past, instead live in the present and create the future.

    Take what was good and move on.

    1. Re:You can never go back by John+Whitley · · Score: 4, Interesting

      True, True!

      For me, the most nostalgic thing about the old 'net was the sense of net community. This was a feature imparted by the very small population and the very age/academia/gov't skewed user demographics at the time. I.e. a bunch of geeks noodling around online.

      As universities started to open access to undergrads, the September Effect (cf. the Jargon File) came into play... which was still okay while the numbers were such that older netizens could impart netiquette to the newbies. Later, the online population explosion really started to ramp, perhaps marked by the Neverending September of AOL.

      Today's Internet is a very different place socially, characterized more by microcommunities. These, ironically, were enabled by the very same massive population that engulfed the old 'net community.

      It's all just been one big lesson in eternal change, AFAIC.

  5. ...how is this news? by jukal · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here is is just a couple of examples of free shell providers. Services like this have existed in about every country or bigger city since internet was born.

  6. The Glory Days of USENET ... by pjrc · · Score: 3, Interesting
    ... when your ticket onto the internet was admission into a graduate level program at a major university!

    To give credit, I first heard this phrase coined by Steve of Secure Design Software.

    --
    PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
    1. Re:The Glory Days of USENET ... by GuyMannDude · · Score: 3, Insightful

      IMHO, the spamming of USENET has been one of the great tragedies of the popularization of the Internet. There was once a time when a young 13 year old girl who had just been molested/raped by a trusted uncle or family friend could go to alt.sexual.abuse and find comfort that she was not alone. That others had suffered as she had. Find a place where she could talk with people who understood and could relate to her. She could have posted using the anonymous server in Norway (wasn't that where it was?) and felt secure that her real identity would never be uncovered. Nowdays, because of rampant spamming done on any newsgroup with the word 'sex' or 'sexual' in the title, a young rape/incest victim would go to this newsgroup and, instead of finding a supportive atmosphere, be bombarded by ads along the lines of "Cum see young teenage cum sluts who desparately crave cock!" or "Lolitas who can't get it often enough in the ass!".

      I haven't perused USENET in years and I have no plans to return. The spamming is terrible.

      GMD

      --
      watch this
  7. Wonderful times... by dciman · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Ahhhh... reminds me of dialing into various BBS's that I could get numbers for on my 8088 (When my parents had went to bed and I sneaked back down to the computer) Or making the long distance call to the nearest CompuServe node and racking up enormous phone bills (the enjoyment wasn't worth the punishment I got from my parents in return though:) )

    But seriously... I loved those times... logging onto servers that you had little clue about.. seeing what was there... who was there... etc.

    This seems like a good project to play around with.

    1. Re:Wonderful times... by Amazing+Quantum+Man · · Score: 4, Funny


      You had an 8088? Why back in the day, we didn't have no fancy 8088s! We had our fingers! And tin cans and string! And we were glad to have them, too! Sure, it took forever to get the latest pr0n, but once we found someone to go into the drugstore for us, then we had it. Of course, we had to walk fifteen miles through a raging snowstorm to get it, uphill, both ways!
      You young whippersnappers have it so easy... rassum-fassum-mumble-grumble
      </OLD-GEEZER-RANT>

      --
      Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
  8. Re:I'd be wary.... by dattaway · · Score: 4, Insightful

    A great advantage of using wireless is the ability to put up a box for learning without using internet bandwidth. Put up a tall mast for your antenna, open all the ports, and watch the fun begin! More fun that any lame net honeypot for everyone.

  9. I predict.. by NanoGator · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ... that within a few years, there'll be informal networks across the country. I can just see my apartment complex linking all the computers together via 802.11 and sharing what they got. Once you've got a network at an apartment complex (for example), then it isn't hard to link it to a neighboring complex. Anybody remember that story of the guy getting a 3-mile LOS wirless connection going in San Fran? (I may have the details wrong, but the idea mostly works..)

    If/When that becomes popular, before long people'll be able to look to these informal nets when the corporate internet lets them down. Maybe I'm just fantasizing, but I do think networking has become cheap and easy enough, and I think the internet is getting regulated enough that people will have interest in doing these kinds of things.

    --
    "Derp de derp."
    1. Re:I predict.. by dattaway · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Anybody remember that story of the guy getting a 3-mile LOS wirless connection going in San Fran?

      3 miles? That's nothing.

  10. Oy. by American+AC+in+Paris · · Score: 3, Funny
    new grassroot network springing up...olden days of the Internet...Free speech, free information are the key features, but I wonder if this is jsut another free DDoS drone as well.

    ...what, you think they've already set up their own version of Slashdot?

    --

    Obliteracy: Words with explosions

  11. RA Way to save the whole thing by cosmosis · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Ok here is the plan/possibility. Request slashdot feedback:

    The idea mentioned in the story is a noble one, but what about this:

    Already 801.11a-b networks are emerging. And soon UWB networks as well. What is to keep new protocols and p2p networks, and what Crngley mentioned as ad-hoc wireless mesh networks from popping up spontaneously all over the globe, and eventually having this island wireless networks start to connect and talk with each other - and before you know it - we have a whole NEW internet, one that does not go thru the big boys, one that is anarchistic, spontaneous, unregulated and wireless.

    With 802.11 being built into all future chips, such a possibility seems more and more likely. Imagine the new internet - NAN's, WAN, LANS, all over the place.

    Is this where things might go, or is it also doomed to invasion from large corporate and governmental forces?

    --
    www.enthea.org
  12. pretty neat idea by trybywrench · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I missed the good old days of the Internet by about 15-20 years or so having never really gotten into the Internet until college (fall of '95). Unfortunately I bet this just turns into a haven for IRC bots and the like.

    If you are looking for something cool to be involved in and has a sense of community i'd advise checking out the 6bone (www.6bone.org), the IPV6 testbed. Everyone there is very helpful and friendly and there is a sense of some greater good. Hehe its kind of cool because not everything works in IPV6 so people are working on porting old taken for granted apps like different MTA's and other servers. I wonder if the way the 6bone folks work togather is similar to the old days of the Internet.

    --
    I came to the datacenter drunk with a fake ID, don't you want to be just like me?
  13. Going Back To The Past of the Internet... by BrookHarty · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Humm, The good ole days.

    1. People on IRC who talked about things other than mod chips/xbox/playstation isos/porn/divx/mp3s...
    2. Usenet newsgroups without spam, and the occasional flame war.
    3. No Private message forums, only Usenet (sorry Slashdot)
    4. Email without spam.
    5. Shell accounts used for ppp emulators (no thanks!)
    6. More than one tcp/ip stack choice.
    7. Any web browser could display a website.
    8. FTP search engines that worked.
    9. No paying to download files (ala like Fileplanet)
    10. The age of unencrypted innocence.
    11. No pop ups ads.
    12. No mass free-email accounts.
    13. Letting the Internet regulate itself, no Government interference.
    -

    Read at your own risk - Open Letter to America from a Canadian

    1. Re:Going Back To The Past of the Internet... by brer_rabbit · · Score: 5, Funny

      14.

  14. Because by www.sorehands.com · · Score: 4, Funny
    The big boys will buy laws to prevent it. They will claim, if unregulated mediums are allowed to exist [child molesters | pirates | hackers | terorists] will use it to [destroy | bankrupt | harm ] [society | people | children | industries].


    Don't forget, it is to protect [children | innovation | freedom | life].

    --
    Fight Spammers!
    1. Re:Because by edrugtrader · · Score: 4, Funny

      how can child molesters bankrupt children?? charge them money for the candy they entice them with?

      i think your regexp needs some work

      --
      MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
  15. Try this one dumb Ass by FreeLinux · · Score: 3, Informative

    HTTP://shells.open-network.net

  16. A copy of his page. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    shells.open-network.net

    Search The Open Directory Project - Note: Not this site.
    dmoz.org

    Just so everyone knows, accounts will generally be added in the evenings as I do have a day job. Just be patient, you're not paying for it anyway.

    Damn, Not SLASHDOT!!!!!

    Visit the message board

    What is this place?
    This is the very simple home of shells.open-network.net.

    What is shells.open-network.net?
    A free shell server. No strings attached, the box isn't the fastest and neither is the connection but if you desire a shell account, let me know.

    What will I have access to on this machine?
    All normal shell tools available on OpenBSD, Apache, MySQL, PHP, Perl, BitchX, and most other things you ask me to install.

    What is an open-network?
    By the book:
    The overall design of a communication carrier's basic network facilities and services to permit all users of the basic network to interconnect to specific basic network functions and interfaces on an unbundled, equal-access basis.
    My Definition:
    A set of computers, networks, software apps which allow users to have access not for money or prestige, just for the knowledge gained by running the network. Users should have seemless access to all machines on the network and should not be hindered by the all to familiar "Out-bound connections disabled". Passwords will be shared among all machines on the network thereby allowing users to have a single login on machines belonging to multiple people. The administrators of individual machines wil be responsible for overall system security or choosing a network power-user to assist in administration.

    Some Rules:

    If you screw up, I will kill your account. No questions, no debating, this is my machine, not yours!
    No Hacking (My box or others box from my box) See rule #1.
    No DOS-ing to or from my box. See rule #1.
    If you find a vulnerability on my machine, let me know, don't ever post the problem on the internet. See rule #1
    If you think you are doing anything questionable, See rule #1

    Will you host my domain blah.blah.com?
    Sure, don't expect miracle from this machine though. The internet connection is 384K/1500K and the machine is not the latest and greatest.
    Do not try to make any money in anyway from my box, if you do, you obviously don't know what an open-network is and you need to See rule #1.

    Can I get a forward zone from open-network.net?
    Of course, it wouldn't be open if you couldn't. Be aware, the final decision is mine.

    Why are you doing this?
    If you know me, you know my answer, if you don't know me, the answer is "Because I can!"

    What other sites do you run?
    http://www.open-network.net
    http://www.moon-bear.com
    and myself and one other administrator run the show at http://www.tissueinformatics.com

    Have fun and if you want an account, drop me a line at scotth@open-network.net

    This box is powered by:
    SPARC
    OpenBSD
    Apache
    PHP
    Perl
    And a bunch of BASH

    00779 hits since August 22, 2002

  17. Why does it have to be so primitive? by NoMoreNicksLeft · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The reason the internet was great back then, wasn't because it took 48 hours of hair pulling to get your DOS ip stack configured correctly.

    It was because dumbass politicians and greedy politicians hadn't touched it. They've spent the better part of a decade proving to us, that it wasn't because they couldn't.

    But what if we could build a network that was extremely difficult for them to mess with?

    What if it offered the same services as the regular net, fully routed static IP, DNS, and no restrictions. No one coming after you for posting files, building a website, or registering a domain name that some corps find offensive.

    And as a side bonus, it might be just as complicated to get connected to it, as the internet originally was...

    Read my unfinished webpage about it.

    1. Re:Why does it have to be so primitive? by Fizzlewhiff · · Score: 3, Interesting

      And it will exist the way you like it until it becomes noticed. I don't think the politicians have screwed it up as much as the business people have. The politicians didn't wake up one morning and say lets fuck with the internet. Business people on the otherhand did.

      --

      'Same speed C but faster'
    2. Re:Why does it have to be so primitive? by flonker · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And please, if you want to criticize do so, this is a bare outline of an idea, not a carefully crafted thing. Point out the flaws, and offer solutions, if they occur to you.
      Of course. That said, here's my take on it.

      Your system looks very strong, and very robust. It lacks deniability, and decentralization is difficult, but otherwise, it works. I'm a bit tired right now, so I'll probably think of things later, and add them to my system, and tell you of them, assuming this conversation is still going.

      Routing is an incredibly delicate process. Routing without a central authority is damn near impossible. The Internet uses ARPA to distribute IP addresses, and thusly, they can track down each IP to its owner.

      With the VPN system you propose, you still need a central authority to allocate IPs. A central authority is a single point of failure, if you haven't gotten that yet. It's a single point of accountability. If you can get away from that single point, then you open yourself up to spoofing, spamming, authority hijacking, and all sorts of bad things. (This is a point of weakness, fill it in, and you'll have a much stronger system.)

      The current method of anonymous routing is P2P flooding. This, obviously, doesn't scale well. I haven't figured out anything better. Freenet has a significantly optimized flooding algo, but it still relies on flooding to some extent. O(log n) compared to O(n) or something along those lines. IP is much closer to O(1), although you could make an argument for it being O(n/c) with a very large c. (That would mean that the IP wouldn't scale well for values that are orders of magnitude higher than c.) No rigorous proofs here, so keep that grain of salt handy.

      The thing that gets me, is what sort of social policy should there be?

      This relates strongly to a project I'm thinking on right now. It (obviously) isn't anywhere near complete. But you may be able to cull some interesting ideas from it. I hope you find it helpful.

      Assuming an anonymous network, create "virtual countries" with laws of their own. You create an anonymous virtual identity. That virtual identity can be a citizen of a virtual country. By being a citizen, you gain access to the resources of the county. (Bandwidth, access controls, distributed content, etc.) This makes virtual citizenship more of a choice matter, than a "That's where I happen to live" matter.

      Assuming some kind of enforcement mechanism for the laws, and access treaties, you can develop a nice system. Virtual Country A has laws against spam. Virtual Country A agrees to exchange traffic with Virtual Country B, as long as Virtual Country B doesn't send any spam to Virtual Country A. You've got a nice trust system. A Virtual Country is responsible for the actions of its citizens, and thusly has a collective bargaining strength.

      You also can create Virtual Countries with strong Intellectial Property laws, and enforce that with treaties. If a country wants to ignore IP, then they lose access to the websites of that country that enforces IP with treaties.

      And you'd be able to enforce things like your "emergency broadcast system" service. inside a specific virtual country (and, again, by treaties, if necessary.)

      I haven't gotten into the punishment for breaking laws yet. All I can think of is rescinding citizenship. This, obviously, doesn't provide enough granularity. And creating a new identity is also a rather difficult problem.

  18. Internet Flower Childern... by Mulletproof · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Free love, free speech and free downloads, man... Just we'll forget to bention that back in the good ol' days the internet was primarily used as a DoD line of communication that couldn't be interupted. Yeah, fight the power!

    --
    You need a FREE iPod Nano
  19. There are feasible, legal ways to cache... by for(;;); · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Malda could have the slashcode automatically create a cache of the victim's site, but by default point the link to the actual site (not the cache.) Allow the webmaster several easy ways to turn caching on. Allow permission to be granted in robots.txt files! Allow permission to be granted in some slashdot form! Allow permission to be granted by email! Allow permission to be granted by phone!

    Of course, none of this will be done. Slashdot's coders once tried to innovate; then they became part of a corporation. Nothing kills real progress like hopes of profit.

    --

    "Whatever happened to fair use?"
    -- Duff-Man
  20. Remember the good old days when... by dh003i · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Back in the good old days, remember when....

    * 99% of the data transmitted on the net was useful informtion; now, 99% of the data transmitted on the net is porn, spam, advertisements, and useless graphics. Pretty soon, even Google won't be able to find a website that actually has text on it.

    * You didn't get 1000 e-mails a day telling you about the latest greatest super-duper penis enlargment plan where you could make your penis larger just by "jilking it".

    * You didn't get 1000 spam messages a day telling you about easy quick idiot-proof ways to make a million dollars in a few hours.

    * The evil forces of the dark side, the raiders of the lost net, the proprietary corporate IP mongers, hadn't yet started bending the internet to their perverse Orwellian ideal of perfect control?

    * News groups and message boards actually had mostly intelligent conversaion, as opposed to being flooded with, "YOU SUCK, I'M RIGHT YOU STUPID ****, EAT **** AND DIE".

    * Al Gore was busy inventing the net.

    --
    social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
  21. You are making a common mistake, I think... by mwillems · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...in not recognising that the useful 1% of a godzillion megapieces of information is a hell of a lot more useful than 99% of 100 www pages.

    I, too, grew up in the early days and I recall them well. No noise, you could use newsgroups, and receiving email was a real event. Archie, remember archie? And Gopher? Veronica?

    BUT... in those days I could not do a tenth of what I can do now. Not one hundredth. Use google. Use google groups (nee dejanews). Look up song lyrics. Bank online. Download videos. Find any company I do business with. And P2P (ha ha... 1200 bps modems, remember those??)

    So, the noise is despiccable but do realise it is a side phenomenon of the great cyberworld we are creating.

    Give me today's 'net anytime!

    --

    ---
    BDOS ERR ON A:>
  22. How would the four uses you mentioned work? by yerricde · · Score: 3, Interesting

    [With a shell account,] you wouldn't need to [haul big files] very often - you do most of your work in your shell account on the remote box, right?

    Much of my current work involves image editing, audio editing, and development of interactive graphical simulations. Do those work well over SSH?

    The thought process is that since you have so little bandwidth and probably less power, disk space, memory, etc. at home that there's not much point in using that computer as anything but a glass terminal, and doing interesting things only on the remote system.

    I'm still unclear on some of the uses of a shell account. Let's cross-check your thought process against your list of applications:

    You can run servers, read mail, send mail, transfer files around, develop software, and so on.

    Not according to the AUPs of most of the free shell providers I've seen. (Free shell providers are the subject of this Slashdot article.)

    You can run servers, read mail, send mail, transfer files around, develop software, and so on.

    Which is limited by the speed of the eyeballs and fingers. How is reading mail over SSH any better than reading mail over SSL'd IMAP? And unless you run a mailing list, why would sending mail need a lot of server bandwidth?

    You can run servers, read mail, send mail, transfer files around, develop software, and so on.

    To what? To other people's shell accounts? Transferring big .jpg files using a shell account doesn't get them to my screen any faster.

    You can run servers, read mail, send mail, transfer files around, develop software, and so on.

    I assume you're just talking about logging into a remote machine to maintain a CVS repository such as on OSDN's own service. Otherwise, doesn't a fellow who develops software want a fast connection from the box where the application runs to the box where the application's display runs? That's likely to be a lot faster on localhost than on dial-up. In addition, using a programmer's text editor such as GNU Emacs or Vim over a network connection with a 200+ ms ping is a pain in the donkey.

    The shell account is the network pc taken one step further, and is effective even with fairly slow networks.

    Unless you want to run anything that's image or audio based and interactive. Take too much intelligence off the client, and you run the risk of having the cumulative effects of long-haul latency (speed of light across a big country such as the United States) and last-mile latency (slow dial-up connection) ruin the interactive experience. Has X11 been optimized to run efficiently over 48 kbps down, 24 kbps up?

    Still, if you didn't think thin client computing was a good idea, you probably don't find shell accounts useful either.

    Makers of modern network computers recognize that thin client does not mean as thin as a teletype machine's paper. They try to achieve a compromise between the shell account setup (all intelligence on the shell server; client is just a terminal or X server) and the PC setup (all intelligence on the client; only data is shared across the network) by using applets compiled to a cross-platform bytecode and run across the network. For more about this approach, look at Java(tm) technology or its competition.

    --
    Will I retire or break 10K?