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Bill Atkinson doxxed Douglas Adams in 1987

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Re: Bill Atkinson doxxed Douglas Adams in 1987

#61

Post by rjsw »

zabzonk wrote: post #32
jhbadger wrote: post #4

>I read somewhere that Douglas Adams (writer of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) was the first person in Europe to own an Apple II computer. Not the 1977 Apple II, but the 1984 Macintosh. Adams owned a variety of computers from the obscure DEC Rainbow, to the also-obscure Apricot, to the BBC Micro, but as far as I know he never owned an Apple II, but he was a fan of the Macintosh from the first time he saw it an…

For those of you that might be interested, the Rainbow was an attempt by DEC to make an IBM-compatible AND a CP/M compatible in one box - it was a very nice box, and made a great VT200 terminal, but the compatibility was just not there. The Apricot was another attempt at an IBM PC compatible, this time from a UK company. It was awful. You could not fit an Ethernet card into it without using an expansion box, much lik…

The Apricot PC [1] was not an IBM PC compatible, it was a Victor 9000/Sirius 1 compatible.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apricot_PC

Re: Bill Atkinson doxxed Douglas Adams in 1987

#62

Post by vidarh »

justin66 wrote: post #44
fsckboy wrote: post #5

pre internet, your name, address, and phone number would published in the widely distributed telephone book. if you were a big celebrity, you could get an "unlisted" number (I think you had to pay for it), but that was relatively rare. you might recall, the opening of the original Terminator film (1984, same time period) hinges on this idea: the robot has a name and a city, he tears that page out of a phone book in a…

> not for fear of "stalkers", it was for fear of potential "heavy breathing" annoyance calls late at night. That's a weird distinction you're attempting to make.

It wasn't a weird distinction at all back then. One was a real-world threat. The other was a nuisance that likely didn't care where you lived. One was rare. The other was fairly common.

Re: Bill Atkinson doxxed Douglas Adams in 1987

#64

Post by happyopossum »

fsckboy wrote: post #5

pre internet, your name, address, and phone number would published in the widely distributed telephone book. if you were a big celebrity, you could get an "unlisted" number (I think you had to pay for it), but that was relatively rare. you might recall, the opening of the original Terminator film (1984, same time period) hinges on this idea: the robot has a name and a city, he tears that page out of a phone book in a…

> pre internet, your name, address, and phone number would published in the widely distributed telephone book

Not sure where you’re from, but at least in the countries where I’ve lived (Canada and the US) your address was not in the phone book. It was a book of phone numbers - nothing more.

Re: Bill Atkinson doxxed Douglas Adams in 1987

#65

Post by adsteel_ »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #37
fsckboy wrote: post #5

pre internet, your name, address, and phone number would published in the widely distributed telephone book. if you were a big celebrity, you could get an "unlisted" number (I think you had to pay for it), but that was relatively rare. you might recall, the opening of the original Terminator film (1984, same time period) hinges on this idea: the robot has a name and a city, he tears that page out of a phone book in a…

Ok but it’s still a jerk move that none of us would want to experience, right? Like can we at least agree it was malicious and unwanted?

The author says he scrolled past it quickly, so it "may have been an honest mistake," ie not malicious.

Unwanted? There's been a big cultural shift over the past 100 years about addresses. Papers used to print subjects' addresses alongside the subject. In the 80s addresses were still considered public knowledge via phone books. So maybe Douglas Adams didn't want his to be public, but he would have been in the minority. Either way, there's no evidence (here, anyway) that he gave it a second thought.

Re: Bill Atkinson doxxed Douglas Adams in 1987

#66

Post by Mountain_Skies »

segfaultbuserr wrote: post #38

In 1987, doxxing yourself was the norm. ~80% of the Usenet messages from the 1980s (to early the 1990s) had names, institutions, office addresses, and phone numbers attached to them too. Most were universities, governments, or corporate R&D addresses, but there were many small businesses and home users as well. Some phone numbers are probably still valid today. In fact, an Usenet archive (UTZoo) has already been take…

BBSes usually required your name, home address, and phone number as part of signing up for an account. I never gave it much thought when entering my information nor later when collecting it from others when I was a SysOp. Once in a while when driving around I might see a street sign and think "Oh, that's where Frisbee_Guy lives" if I recognized it but never considered using it for anything nefarious. Also remember computer magazines of the time often had sections where people would get their problems published along with an address for anyone wanting to contact them about it. Sometimes even a phone number.

Re: Bill Atkinson doxxed Douglas Adams in 1987

#67

Post by xattt »

gregmac wrote: post #25
fsckboy wrote: post #5

pre internet, your name, address, and phone number would published in the widely distributed telephone book. if you were a big celebrity, you could get an "unlisted" number (I think you had to pay for it), but that was relatively rare. you might recall, the opening of the original Terminator film (1984, same time period) hinges on this idea: the robot has a name and a city, he tears that page out of a phone book in a…

> if you were a big celebrity, you could get an "unlisted" number (I think you had to pay for it), but that was relatively rare. Anyone could do it. It almost seems like extortion: "pay us $$ or we'll publish your name, address and number in a huge book that we'll deliver to everyone in the city!" I guess you probably agree when you get a phone line hooked up, though.

It was a common thing for physicians to do to avoid having patients pester them in their time off. I believe it was a $20 charge, but can’t remember if it was per year or month.

Re: Bill Atkinson doxxed Douglas Adams in 1987

#68

Post by drfuchs »

happyopossum wrote: post #64
fsckboy wrote: post #5

pre internet, your name, address, and phone number would published in the widely distributed telephone book. if you were a big celebrity, you could get an "unlisted" number (I think you had to pay for it), but that was relatively rare. you might recall, the opening of the original Terminator film (1984, same time period) hinges on this idea: the robot has a name and a city, he tears that page out of a phone book in a…

> pre internet, your name, address, and phone number would published in the widely distributed telephone book Not sure where you’re from, but at least in the countries where I’ve lived (Canada and the US) your address was not in the phone book. It was a book of phone numbers - nothing more.

Yes, in the US, Bell Telephone White Pages absolutely showed your house address by default. How else would you know which John A. Smith was the one you were trying to look up? By the 1980's I recall being able to pay to remove your address from your listing (or pay even more to remove your listing entirely, as noted elsewhere). The excuse that Bell Telephone gave, by the way, for charging these fees is that you were decreasing the net worth of the network by not being listed.

See, for instance, https://www.loc.gov/resource/usteledirec.usteledirec08135/?s... (with bonus lovely exchange names!)

Re: Bill Atkinson doxxed Douglas Adams in 1987

#70

Post by mmcgaha »

segfaultbuserr wrote: post #38

In 1987, doxxing yourself was the norm. ~80% of the Usenet messages from the 1980s (to early the 1990s) had names, institutions, office addresses, and phone numbers attached to them too. Most were universities, governments, or corporate R&D addresses, but there were many small businesses and home users as well. Some phone numbers are probably still valid today. In fact, an Usenet archive (UTZoo) has already been take…

Magazines used to have pen pal sections where kids would post their name, age, and address so anyone could write them. It was a different time.
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