OSUNY

OSUNY (Ohio Scientific Users of New York) was a legendary dial-up bulletin board that was run by two different sysops, "SYSOP" while in Scarsdale, NY and Frank Roberts in White Plains, NY (914) throughout the 1980s. Named for the Ohio Scientific computer it originally ran on, it attracted a large group of hackers, telephone phreaks, engineers, computer programmers, and other technophiles. It remained a haven almost exclusively for the hacker/phreaker community until gaining notoriety through mention in a Newsweek article, Hacking Through NASA: A threat- or only an embarrassment, and mention in the book The Hacker Crackdown as a favored hangout of the notorious hacker group The Legion of Doom, after which it was shuttered, and another board was brought up as a "replacement" known as The Crystal Palace, which was short lived. OSUNY was restarted soon after, using an Altos 5-15D running MP/M and the continuously evolving Citadel software. Also in the mid-1980s it became the first BBS to be associated with 2600 Magazine (The Central Office, run by The DataMaster was second). It ran via dial-up until its closing around 1988. Some of the original technical files, including bluebox, blackbox, redbox, silver box, and rainbow box plans can still be found in remote corners of the internet today.

Internet Revival

A screenshot from osuny.com, as it appeared on November 13, 1999

In April 1997, the osuny.com domain name was registered with intentions of reincarnating the board on the Internet. This new OSUNY became accessible via interactive telnet and ssh login at the hostname saturn.osuny.com. It ran on the Linux operating system and Citadel/UX conferencing software. As with its previous incarnations, OSUNY attracted a loyal group of users, in spite of only being sporadically available. Saturn eventually disappeared, much to the disappointment of its regular users, and has been offline since late 1999.

In November 2000, a new generation of technological enthusiasts and the remaining old-school who remembered the greatness, rose to the occasion and brought back the OSUNY name. Owing to changes in technology, this OSUNY would once again be accessible from the Internet rather than via dial-up modem. This new system became accessible via interactive ssh login under a generic Dynamic dns host name. Initially, it ran on the OpenBSD operating system and Citadel/UX conferencing software. It later migrated from Citadel/UX to BBS100, and is currently accessible via ssh at the host osuny.co.uk.

External links

• The osuny.co.uk web site
• Full text of The Hacker Crackdown, by Bruce Sterling
• Interview with one of the sysops of the original OSUNY