Episode: 1117
Title: HPR1117: The Wayback Machine-SDF.org
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1117/hpr1117.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-17 19:17:50

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Hello, this is NY Bill, and this is Thorough, and this is Benny, and we recently, well,
you guys recently were talking about SDF.org on Identica.
How did you guys find that?
I actually was through a comic op cast planet, comic panic op cast thing, I just found
it through, through, he posted it on Identica, I think, or in cheap plus, anything like
this.
Yeah, because I saw you guys talking about it for a couple days, and then finally I was
like, alright guys, what is this?
And you sent me the SDF.org, it's a public access unit system that's been running since
1987, which is, it's pretty old school, it's retro cool.
But anything with the shell is cool.
Exactly.
It was so nostalgic when I made an account, and I logged in, and it brought me back to
like 1990, that's the last time I was on a Unix system, was in college.
I think I always on a Unix system back in college as well, fun times.
So I'm the young one here who hasn't been on the Unix system, because I'm too young
for it, we had, we had Windows boxes in high school.
He just called us all through.
Yeah, I just said, I may be younger than you, but, yeah, you're the BSD guy of the three
of us.
Yeah, I'm just, I'm just trying out three BSD, I'm not really a BSD guy, I use Linux, I started
to use Linux in back in 1997, when I was at high school, or what, this school we have
that's kind of high school, and it just started free BSD a few years back.
So this is a SDF.org is free to sign up for, and you can get a lifetime account for $36,
which is pretty cool.
I think we've all done that, right?
Yep.
Yep, exactly.
And I had to order a T-shirt and some stickers, because it was just that cool.
Yeah, I didn't order a T-shirt, because the shipping is too expensive, so I ordered some stickers
for my car.
I like stickers on the back of my car.
You need stickers, especially on your laptop.
Yeah, exactly.
On the laptop, at the moment, it's one bike, sticker, and one, I think it's a beer.
Yeah, it's a brew dog sticker, this small brewery in Scotland.
Weird thing happened when I signed up, and I got in there, and it brought me like back
20 years, and I knew you guys were in there somewhere, in the system somewhere, and I saw
a type who, and it said, you are amongst, I don't know, it said, like, 768 users, but
it didn't list the users.
And then I go, finger through, and I hadn't even thought of the command finger since 1990.
It just brought my head right back to where it was back then.
Yeah, I think most, most unique boxes you use nowadays have just, like, a few users
that you put there yourself.
We're not used to unique boxes with loads of users locked in anymore.
I was just surprised that the command just popped back into my head without, like, put me
back in time.
Another thing that happened along those lines is, I wanted to sign up for the ARPA membership,
$36, and I wanted the T-shirt and the stickers.
So I opened up my drawer, and I wrote a check, and I put it in, and I'll open a stamp,
and I put it in my mailbox, and then I get all the way back upstairs, and I go, what
the hell am I doing?
I mean, this is 2012, I'm sure they can take PayPal or something, but it's just...
Yeah, I used PayPal, because I don't have any dollars lying around that could send
to them, and I don't know whether dollars would make it to the U.S. from Switzerland.
I basically used PayPal as well, so you see, it's the way to get around the problem.
I don't really like supporting PayPal, but it's the easiest way to do it.
So when I got to my log, I was telling the guys at the log about SDF.org, and probably
a third of the room knew about it already, and some of them even had accounts.
So I don't know why I hadn't heard of it so long.
Yeah, I think, yeah, it's strange, because now when I'm on it, I see a lot of people that
I know who's on it as well, so yeah, wait, come on.
When was the last time anybody was in a mud?
I think I tried some mud back in 2000, or something, but it wasn't that famous then anymore.
So no one was there, it was just like an empty mud, so it wasn't that interesting.
Yeah, he's designed into a local BBS system that had a mud.
That was probably about 91.92.
I haven't seen a mud in forever, and they got zork in there, and all the old stuff.
There's a lot of games in there as well.
I was actually the reason why I found it with that Ukraine was talking about playing Tetris
on here.
I actually found him on there.
He's on there too.
Yep, just log into Tetris and look at the high school.
Oh, that right.
Okay, you just tied it all together.
This is where I recall him talking about Tetris, but I missed that it was on this system.
Yeah, but that's a lot of funny things in here.
Never used the fool.
One of the guys at my log said it was the super, I got it written down.
Super dimension for Fortress, SDF, it has something to do with a Japanese anime.
Yeah, I think back when they founded it as a BBS, I think it wasn't on NAPL2.
It was a BBS for anime fans.
That's how it started.
It only became a unique system, like two years later or something.
It was a BBS on NAPL2 for like two years.
Actually, though, it wasn't the next step Linux and they were getting hacked.
No, that was in 1998, if I'm correct.
Oh.
They used some weird Unix first, but they didn't go online with that one and then they started
using System 5 and they used System 5 to, I think it was 97, 98, something and then they
looked for an alternative and NAPL2 was up to the challenge then.
So they started using Linux and because, well, what's his name, the guy from...
I've got that written down too and I'm not sure how to pronounce it, but I'm thinking Ted
Olamin?
And no, I mean the other one, the one that's still around today, I think Ted is the founder
but Ted went away in 92 or 93 to found some ISP.
He was into making money and the other guy isn't into making money, so that's why he's
still around now.
Stuff in Jones.
Is that it?
Yeah, it's the guy that interviewed on the BSD talk.
Oh, nice.
Yeah, and he said that Linux was...
They were hacked because Linux was too famous and people knew about Linux, so they knew
what to do to kind of hack the system.
Linux is pretty rock solid, I'm curious.
It would be neat to hear some of the stories of what was going on.
Yeah, I think the big problem was that whenever you find Linux box somewhere on the web
people start trying to hack it, if there is a NAPBSD box, no one even knows where to
start.
I think all the hacker kiddies, or whenever you call them, were off to Linux boxes back
then.
So the BSD was security through obscurity.
Yeah, that's probably true.
Yeah, I was just thinking about the problem with NAPBSD at first.
It was NAPBSD back in 98 or whenever they tried it, had this problem that whenever you
change password, it had to rebuild the whole password database, and this took like one
minute.
So whenever someone signed up or changed password, it took one minute or something to do
this.
That's why they went away from NAPBSD to Linux.
And the thing has like 30,000 users right now, so I don't know what I had back then,
but...
I think about 15,000.
Yeah, I think so.
But it is old school, they have a lot of, I will use net access there and you get a
main address and stuff like that.
All depends on what you choose in there.
If nothing else, yeah, you get a free email address out of it, but I mean we've even talked
about, they offer, you can do SSH tunneling through them and like run screen and are busy.
Well, yeah, and I think they still offer a dialogue service to this day.
So I think there is no ISP that does this anymore.
You can dial up into a Unix box without any like of these protocols that they usually
use like PPP or whatever.
I haven't had a phone in about 10 years or a modem in 15, but that's cool that they
did.
Oh, I should mention that the SSH forwarding, that was, it's, you can sign up for free
and you get the email address and a shell account and then there's like different levels
where you can increase your access into the system.
So for the SSH port forwarding and stuff, that is...
36 dollars per year, which is, that's reasonable.
Yeah, you get a few other things there and I think it's quite reasonable.
You get a box you can SSH into and do a bit of port forwarding if you had an internet
cafe or something.
I do that now through my house and I'm sure, you know, it's slowing down as it's going
into my routers and then going back out through so that would probably be faster to hit
their servers.
Yeah, definitely.
I use my Shiva plug at home for this too at the moment, but I have an ISP that support
and not ISP, like a website holster that supports tunneling, so that's pretty cool, because
I'm a 10-foil hat, so I have to be tunneled everywhere.
Yeah, when I was on holiday last week, they still used WEP as encryption on the Wi-Fi.
That was happy to come to somewhere just to get proper encryption.
And you were playing with the Wiashock on that one.
That's a vacation.
Yeah, there were like a few other people on the campsite and they were all like over
six years.
I don't think it would have been that interesting.
No, probably been a bit dull.
Yeah, definitely.
But among other things, what you can do here is you can get a website on SDF.org, which
is pretty cool.
You can get a go for side and go for rocks.
Oh my goodness, I haven't seen that so long.
What?
You mean you haven't visited my go for side?
What's about my side?
Lost in Bronx one time, and I saw his, I didn't know to look for yours, I will now.
That was what got me started with the go for, and that was Lost in Bronx.
Yeah, I've decided I wanted one as well and put one on my, in quotes, web server.
So when did go was at the log when I was talking about this, and he signed up too, and he says
they have a Minecraft server also?
They have a status dot net service, they have a lot of cool things.
I've just SSHN and just dug around through in a terminal, I haven't really.
I found that they have a few, if you take type help, or frequently ask question.
They list what you can do, and it's a lot of cool things.
Yeah, they even have a jabber server.
If you're a meta-arple, like with 36 dollars a year, you get like 200 cakes of storage
on the meta array, so that's pretty good.
You don't get this amount of storage for 36 bucks a year anywhere else.
Yeah, the fees were quite reasonable.
I've been thinking about getting VPS to move a lot of stuff on doing at home up to that.
I mean, that's 20 a month for a decent one, an entry level, but a decent provider.
And SDF offers a VPS services too.
Yeah, they even have this entry level, like a really low-end box you can get for I think it's $60 a year.
So I was thinking about this because I don't need a VPS, but just to play around and have a box with a fixed IP would be nice.
Oh, another had you guys heard free shell?
Free shell.org, I think it turns out it's the same.
I'm going back to my look again.
Another guy that knew about this said he knew of it as free shell.org, and it just resolves to SDF.
Yeah, I still don't get the history of all the domain names.
I think when they first started on the internet, and they started to need a domain, it was SDF.loanstar.org.
And Loanstar.org was some kind of Texas-based group of VPSs.
And then they had SDF.org, but I think to remember something, they lost this domain again.
Oh, and then now they have it back, don't know.
And they've got free shell, and there are loads of domains.
When you're an ARPA member, you can choose what domain, what's up domain?
From what domain you want to your website to be on the subdomain.
So they have like 36 domains or even more.
I see.
Is your turn through?
Yeah.
I'm having a bit of problems with the shortcuts for mumble, because apparently my browser has some of the same ones.
Yeah, exactly, same problem here.
But one thing, I just discovered a few days ago, if you're a meta-arPA member, you get mush access.
That sounds for mobile shell.
That's a shell that works even with loads of lost packages.
So you could use your cell phone connection to SSH or not SSH and mush into the server.
There is even a story on the blog, not a vlog on Gofer, from a guy he was stuck in an elevator, and he wasn't able to get a phone connection.
And he wasn't able to get into the web over his Wi-Fi from the flat that was close to the elevator.
But he was able to mush into free shell or SDF and send an email to someone to tell them I'm stuck in an elevator.
That's a nice story.
All right guys, so it was cool to get together and do an HPR on SDF.org, and I'll see you guys back on Identica.
I'm NY Bill at SDF.org.
And I'm through, and you can find me on Identica, or you can email me at through at sfsc.org.
Yeah, I'm Benny, and I think you can email me over Benny at SDF.org, or find me on Identica's Navigium, or Navigium, or...
I don't know, I'm going with Navigium.
Okay, fine. I'll take that.
Okay, perfect. Then my beer's empty now anyway, so...
Perfect timing.
Exactly. See you guys.
All right, see you.
Bye.
See ya, bye.
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