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July 26th, 2006

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03:20 pm - LLLLL
The end of the ISCABBS, once the largest telnet-based BBS on the entire Interbutt, appears to be nigh. The story, which I'm quoting third-hand from a post on another telnet-based BBS, started when a sysop started deleting, er, salacious posts in a public forum.
The rest of the users were told to take their sex talk to the forum called Kama Sutra>, which is age verified. Unfortunately, very few users on ISCA are age verified, and none of the users in quesiton were. More than willing to play along, the users sought age verification, but the system, which requires snail mailing a photocopy of picture ID with birthdate, is defunct. Not to mention the IDs of all those who had been verified were lost years ago. This left the userbase in an impossible place, and the Sysops unwilling to do anything about it without the permission of the actual Iowa Student Computer Association, which hasn't had a meeting in over a year and only has two or three allegedly active members. Some upset users have attempted to contact the University of Iowa, which has only led to UofI being made aware of a machine on their network that they didn't even know existed anymore. It's the Hindenburg alright, and everyone on board is smoking cigarettes. ISCA has been down since 8am Central Time for unknown reasons...
This ending, which involves sysop powers, "sexxxy chat", bureaucratic mumbledy-peg and an administration which has forgotten about it, is more than fitting. I'm sure I'll be able to wax rhapsodic on the whole ISCA experience later on tonight, but for now, I'm just laffin.

(28 comments | Leave a comment)

Comments:

[User Picture]
From:slit
Date:July 26th, 2006 07:28 pm (UTC)
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The University of Iowa didn't even know about it?? Oh, that's fitting.
[User Picture]
From:betweenstations
Date:July 26th, 2006 07:52 pm (UTC)
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It wouldn't shock me. UI's hand doesn't know where it's asshole is, even though they're auto-fisting themselves.
[User Picture]
From:slit
Date:July 26th, 2006 08:40 pm (UTC)
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I'm not surprised either. I just think it's funny.
[User Picture]
From:allicat42
Date:July 26th, 2006 07:29 pm (UTC)
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Say it isn't sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
[User Picture]
From:stopword
Date:July 26th, 2006 07:35 pm (UTC)
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given the propensity of the userbase to perpetuate lame pranks, I'd put money on this being someone taking advantage of known downtime to make people remember iscabbs exists.
[User Picture]
From:derspatchel
Date:July 26th, 2006 07:41 pm (UTC)
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A good point. The rest of the article, which I left out of the ol' blockquote, was pretty snarky ("All the userbase except one protested; the other one is a known troll") and kinda stupid.

But honestly, after the "We lost the source, guys" and other things, this kind of ending is not only unsurprising, but completely plausible.
[User Picture]
From:stopword
Date:July 26th, 2006 07:43 pm (UTC)
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True. And the people who are really going to be freaking out will be a small percentage of the userbase, I expect.
[User Picture]
From:betweenstations
Date:July 26th, 2006 07:51 pm (UTC)
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Especially given that the whole 'we lost the source!' is krap.

I've seen the source. Since that event.
[User Picture]
From:derspatchel
Date:July 26th, 2006 08:18 pm (UTC)
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You've seen a lot of things.
[User Picture]
From:abbetaka
Date:July 26th, 2006 07:44 pm (UTC)
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"... led to UoI being made aware of a machine on their network that they didn't even know existed anymore." That is bloody awesome.

I hope it's really gone. It seems kind of wrong that it still existed. Hrm.
[User Picture]
From:giantfightbot
Date:July 26th, 2006 07:53 pm (UTC)
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I find it a little surprising that the university didn't know it existed, seeing how it was such a massive enterprise back in the day. You know, when there was a queue of a thousand people waiting to get in.

What is Bearwalker going to do for fun now?

Though there's a near-equivalent level of discourse on the IMDB forums.

My ISCA account died years ago, but this does make me a little sad.
[User Picture]
From:derspatchel
Date:July 26th, 2006 08:14 pm (UTC)
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Though there's a near-equivalent level of discourse on the IMDB forums.

Oh man, I cringed and went "BURRRRRRN!" but I know it's true.
[User Picture]
From:slit
Date:July 26th, 2006 08:46 pm (UTC)
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it was such a massive enterprise back in the day

But you see it wasn't something thought up by a tenured professor that went through three years of departmental meetings and Board of Regents approval before being implemented. It was students? Who? They're doing whut? Thinking without permission?
[User Picture]
From:derspatchel
Date:July 26th, 2006 09:00 pm (UTC)
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They made up for that, however, by adding more layers of bureaucracy to the project than absolutely necessary. The Board should've been proud.
From:mhaille
Date:July 26th, 2006 08:33 pm (UTC)
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It's back online.
[User Picture]
From:derspatchel
Date:July 26th, 2006 08:54 pm (UTC)
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oh no, did we just get punked?

not like I'm going back to re-register, mind you...
[User Picture]
From:trysha
Date:July 26th, 2006 09:36 pm (UTC)
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Jul 26, 2006 16:32 from Devil Lady (Sysop)

Welcome back to ISCABBS! The BBS was down this morning due to power problems
at the University of Iowa. Thanks to Tiberius for gettin us running again once
power was restored.
[Lobby> msg #2207 (0 remaining)] Read cmd ->
[User Picture]
From:derspatchel
Date:July 26th, 2006 09:39 pm (UTC)
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Why does reality have to be no fun? :(
[User Picture]
From:lexinatrix
Date:July 27th, 2006 12:42 am (UTC)
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Awww, damn. It was fun while it lasted, however.
[User Picture]
From:misquoted
Date:July 26th, 2006 10:23 pm (UTC)
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Why, that Tiberius, he's just a peach.
[User Picture]
From:elkabong
Date:July 27th, 2006 12:06 am (UTC)
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I think the ISCA machine is UIowa's version of Milton - laid off 5 years ago, never left, can't find its stapler, burns the whole thing down eventually.
[User Picture]
From:derspatchel
Date:July 27th, 2006 01:43 am (UTC)
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Yeeeah, we're gonna hafta move
but I don't have to go to the basement
We're gonna hafta move your server
but you said I could stay
Yeah, so if you could just move your server down to the basement by tomorrow...
but... but... but...
...that'd be greeeeat.
[User Picture]
From:elkabong
Date:July 27th, 2006 01:48 am (UTC)
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I thpecthifically thaid NO THALT!
[User Picture]
From:fleep513
Date:July 27th, 2006 05:35 am (UTC)
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HAHAHAHAHAH OH GOD THAT MADE ME LAUGH
[User Picture]
From:abbetaka
Date:July 26th, 2006 08:43 pm (UTC)

giant.net

(Link)
This reminds me...

Is anyone here still in contact with Always/Suman?

I have several very old web accounts (whose password I don't know) registered to abbe@giant.net. Naturally I haven't had access to giant.net in ages, I don't even know if people still use it. But if they do, and if abbe still exists there, I would *love* to put in a .forward or somesuch.

If anybody happens to be able to hook me up, please let me know! Either putting Suman in contact with me or telling me if my user still exists on the box, or whatever.

Um, yep.
[User Picture]
From:ooshiny
Date:July 26th, 2006 10:44 pm (UTC)
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Man, how long has it been since my account died over there... I remember I stuck around for Y2K just to see the calendars roll over to 100, but I think that was about the end of it. I'm kind of surprised people still frequent it given everything else out there, but then again, I am logged into a MUD right now and I like it that way.
[User Picture]
From:coffeebeanben
Date:July 26th, 2006 10:46 pm (UTC)
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!@H3;bJ'wwwwwww~
NO CARRIER

[User Picture]
From:quodlibetic
Date:July 26th, 2006 11:09 pm (UTC)
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Regardless of the disproving, I still must reply:

LOLOLOLOLOLOL!

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