Plover-NET

Last updated May 02, 2019

Plover-NET, often misspelled Plovernet, was a popular bulletin board system in the early 1980s.^[1]^[2] Hosted in New York state and originally owned and operated by a teenage hacker who called himself Quasi-Moto,^[3] whom was a member of the short lived yet famed Fargo 4A phreak group.^[2] The popular bulletin board system attracted a large group of hackers, telephone phreaks, engineers, computer programmers, and other technophiles, at one point reaching over 600 users until LDX, a long distance phone company, began blocking all calls to its number (516-935-2481).^[2]^[4]

A Bulletin Board System or BBS is a computer server running software that allows users to connect to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, the user can perform functions such as uploading and downloading software and data, reading news and bulletins, and exchanging messages with other users through public message boards and sometimes via direct chatting. In the early 1980s, message networks such as FidoNet sprung up to provide services such as NetMail, which is similar to email.

Phreaking is a slang term coined to describe the activity of a culture of people who study, experiment with, or explore telecommunication systems, such as equipment and systems connected to public telephone networks. The term phreak is a sensational spelling of the word freak with the ph- from phone, and may also refer to the use of various audio frequencies to manipulate a phone system. Phreak, phreaker, or phone phreak are names used for and by individuals who participate in phreaking.

Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build, and test machines, systems, structures and materials to fulfill objectives and requirements while considering the limitations imposed by practicality, regulation, safety, and cost. The word engineer is derived from the Latin words ingeniare and ingenium ("cleverness"). The foundational qualifications of an engineer typically include a four-year bachelor's degree in an engineering discipline, or in some jurisdictions, a master's degree in an engineering discipline plus four to six years of peer-reviewed professional practice and passage of engineering board examinations.

Naming and creation

The name Plover-NET came from a conversation between Quasi Moto, and Greg Schaefer. The topic of computer games came up. One of them, the 'Extended Adventure' game which was based on the 'Original Adventure' fantasy computer game was mentioned. This game was available on Compuserve and during game play the magic word PLOVER had to be used.

Past sysop of Plover-NET included Eric Corley, under the pseudonym Emmanuel Goldstein, and Lex Luthor, the founder of the notorious hacker group Legion of Doom.^[5]

Eric Gordon Corley, also frequently referred to by his pen name of Emmanuel Goldstein, is a figure in the hacker community. He directs the non-profit organization 2600 Enterprises, Inc., publishes a magazine called 2600: The Hacker Quarterly, and hosts the hacker convention Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE). His pseudonym is derived from the fictional opposition leader in George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.

The Legion of Doom (LOD) was a hacker group active from the 1980s to the late 1990s and early 2000. During its heyday from around 1984–1991 Legion of Doom was widely considered to be the most capable hacking group in the world. To this day, LOD ranks as one of the most influential hacking groups in the history of technology. Their name appears to be a reference to the antagonists of Challenge of the Super Friends. LOD was founded by the hacker Lex Luthor, after a rift with his previous group the Knights of Shadow.

Quasi-Moto personally recounted the creation of Plover-NET,^[2]

I met Lex in person while we lived in Florida during the Fall of 1983 after corresponding via email on local phreak boards. I was due to move to Long Island, New York (516 Area Code) soon after and asked him about starting up a phreak BBS. He agreed to help and flew up during his Christmas break from school in late December 1983. We worked feverishly for a couple of days to learn the GBBS Bulletin Board software which was to run on my Apple with a 300 baud Hayes micoSLOWdom %micromodem% and make modifications as necessary. The system accepted its first phone call from Lex in the first week of January 1984 and it became chronically busy soon after.

Legion of Doom

Lex Luthor, under the age of 18 at the time, was a COSMOS (Central System for Mainframe Operations) expert, when he operated Plover-NET.^[5] At the time there were a few hacking groups in existence, such as Fargo-4A and Knights of Shadow. Lex was admitted into KOS in early 1984, but after making a few suggestions about new members, and having them rejected, Lex decided to put up an invitation only BBS and to start forming a new group. Starting around May 1984 he began using is position on Plover-NET to contact people he had seen on Plover-NET and people he knew personally who possessed the kind of superior knowledge that the group he envisioned should have. He was never considered to be the "mastermind of the Legion of Doom", more the cheerleader and recruiting officer.^[5]

COSMOS was a record-keeping system for main distribution frames (MDFs) in the Bell System, the American Bell Telephone Company and then, subsequently, AT&T–led system which provided telephone services to much of the United States and Canada from 1977 to 1984.

2600

Luthor met 2600 Magazine editor, Emmanuel Goldstein on the Pirates Cove, another 516 pirate/phreak BBS. He invited Goldstein onto Plover and it wasn't long before it became an 'official' 2600 bbs of sorts. When a user logged off the system, a plug for 2600 was displayed with their subscription prices and addresses.^[2]

2600: The Hacker Quarterly is an American seasonal publication of technical information and articles, many of which are written and submitted by the readership, on a variety of subjects including hacking, telephone switching systems, Internet protocols and services, as well as general news concerning the computer "underground."

North American area code 516 is a telephone area code in the state of New York. 516 serves the Nassau County portion of Long Island.

Operations

The Board initially ran on three Apple disk drives with 143 K byte capacity. After a few months of operation, New York hacker Paul Muad'Dib appeared at a TAP meeting being held at "Eddies" in Greenwich Village with a RANA Elite III disk drive in hand. The RANA Elite III had a capacity of about 600 KB which put the total storage capacity of the BBS to just over one Megabyte, fairly large for a phreak board in those days. They gladly accepted the donation but did not ask how he obtained the disk drive. The RANA was later passed on to Lex which he used to house his extensive collection of phreak philes that were available to Legion of Doom BBS users. The location of the overworked RANA is currently unknown although Lex believes he sent it back to Muad'Dib around 1986.

The Disk II Floppy Disk Subsystem, often rendered as Disk ][, is a 5 ¹⁄₄-inch floppy disk drive designed by Steve Wozniak and manufactured by Apple Computer, Inc. It went on sale in June 1978 at a retail price of US$495 for pre-order; it was later sold for $595 including the controller card and cable. The Disk II was designed specifically for use with the Apple II personal computer family to replace the slower cassette tape storage. These floppy drives cannot be used with any Macintosh without an Apple IIe Card as doing so will damage the drive or the controller.

Greenwich Village often referred to by locals as simply "the Village", is a neighborhood on the west side of Manhattan, New York City, within Lower Manhattan. Broadly, Greenwich Village is bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village also contains several subsections, including the West Village west of Seventh Avenue and the Meatpacking District in the northwest corner of Greenwich Village.

In early 1985 Plover-NET officially closed permanently after Quasi-Moto moved back to Florida and was unable to gain traction in re-establishing the bulletin board when he put it back up after moving.^[2]

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References

↑ "The LOD Communications Underground H/P BBS Message Base Project". Phrack Magazine. 4 (43): 18 of 27. May 15, 1993. ...to the legendary OSUNY, Plover-NET, Legion of Doom!, Metal Shop, etc. up through the Phoenix Project circa 1989/90.
1 2 3 4 5 6 Quasi-Moto (March 1993). "Plover-NET BBS Pro-Phile".
↑ Goldstein, Emmanuel (2010). Dear Hacker: Letters to the Editor of 2600. Wiley Publishing, Inc. p. 417. ISBN 978-0-470-62006-9. In the July 1984 issue of 2600, Quasi Moto, sysop of the late Plover-Net BBS..
↑ Dwivedi, Rahul (Feb 2014). The Core Of Hacking. RahulDwivediBook.
1 2 3 Gupta, Sandeep (2004). Hacking in The Computer World. Mittal Publications. p. 79. ISBN 81-7099-936-7.

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[1] "The LOD Communications Underground H/P BBS Message Base Project". Phrack Magazine. 4 (43): 18 of 27. May 15, 1993. ...to the legendary OSUNY, Plover-NET, Legion of Doom!, Metal Shop, etc. up through the Phoenix Project circa 1989/90.

[prophile-2] 1 2 3 4 5 6 Quasi-Moto (March 1993). "Plover-NET BBS Pro-Phile".

[hackerquarterly-3] Goldstein, Emmanuel (2010). Dear Hacker: Letters to the Editor of 2600. Wiley Publishing, Inc. p. 417. ISBN 978-0-470-62006-9. In the July 1984 issue of 2600, Quasi Moto, sysop of the late Plover-Net BBS..

[corehacking-4] Dwivedi, Rahul (Feb 2014). The Core Of Hacking. RahulDwivediBook.

[gupta-5] 1 2 3 Gupta, Sandeep (2004). Hacking in The Computer World. Mittal Publications. p. 79. ISBN 81-7099-936-7.