[loydb]

> SJG's BBS was swarming with elite hackers.

Untrue. The BBS the hackers all hung out on was the one I ran called the Phoenix Project. There may have been a couple of people who were also gamers that hung out on IO, but they were there for the dice.

Source: Hi, I'm Loyd.

[caymanjim]

Hi Loyd! I didn't mean that imply that IO itself was a hotbed of hacker activity, but rather that there was a large number of hackers on it, due to the intersection of hackers and tabletop gamers. My comment does come off as hyperbolic.

I'm not sure if you and I ever interacted back in the 80s, but it's possible. I was active on lutz, QSD, and a bunch of more closed systems/BBSen whose names escape me. I wasn't a member of any group, but ended up deep into that scene and others related to NYC's 2600 scene (MoD and other affiliates).

Right around when SJG was raided, the home of our tabletop gaming group's GM was raided, primarily for more pedestrian phreaking and wardialing activity. I managed to avoid ever getting into any legal trouble myself, although I don't know how.

It was a fun time to be a hacker. Ultimately, despite thinking of myself as a badass cyberpunk cowboy, I was just in it for the Unix. Between the availability of GNU/Linux (obviating the need to break into other systems for a Unix fix), the spread of Internet availability (obviating the need to phreak and hack into X.25/Internet gateways), other legal venues, and being busy in college, I got out of the scene in the early 90s.