<P>
I have a bit of history with Prime Anarchist and his friends, and since
the purpose of this site is to capture the feelings and experiences of
the 1980's BBS era, I might as well go into it here. The story is
completely, utterly true.
<P>
While I was running The Works BBS, I naturally got the occasional
weirdo on the line. After all, the system was open, and anyone could
post comments to me or leave feedback or request a chat. You know, the
usual off-beat personality, coming in from the night, who would make
the whole thing seem kind of funny with their pathetic antics.
<P>
Well, at some point I started getting an inordinate amount of calls
from someone who went by several names, but generally called themselves
YOUR MOTHER, all capital letters. While this character started out just
leaving comments in all capitals that were goofy and completely 
nonsensical (and of course I wouldn't grant this person access), the
calls kept coming, the comments kept getting left, and some of the
postings got rather sinister indeed:
<P>
<PRE>
FUCK YOU JASON I WILL KILL YOU AND THAT HOMOSEXUAL FERRET. I NOW KNOW OF
ONE PLACE WHERE YOU ARE ALWAYS ON TIME FOR.. YOU ARE DEAD MEAT I WILL
LET YOU FIND OUT WHO I AM..... BUT BY THEN IT WILL BE TOO LATE FOR ANY
HELP.  MY FRIENDS THINK I'M CRAZY BUT THEY DON'T UNDERSTAND THAT YOU ARE
A DICK AND SHOULD BE KILLED FOR HUMANITY SAKE.  THERE IS ABSOLUTLY
NOTHING YOU CAN DO TO PREVENT YOUR ONSLAUGHT SO SAY YOUR GOODBYE'S FOR
ONE DAY SOON YOU SHALL DIE... IT WILL NOT BE A GOOD YEAR FOR YOUR
FRIENDS BUT I KNOW YOUR PARENTS WOULD PROBABLY THANK
ME...................KISS OFF HOMO............FOR THE END IS NEAR!!!!!!
</PRE>
<P>
So suddenly I went from running a BBS to being hounded with death 
threats online. Within a short time, I started getting screaming
calls on my other telephone lines, including the special one that
wasn't in my name (it was a business line owned by my father's
employer of the time.). When I mean screaming calls, I literately
mean that, calls with people screaming on them. And the comments
kept coming:
<P>
<PRE>
HINT WHO I AM #1:I HATE YOU
              #2:I GO TO YOUR SCHOOL AND THE MAJORITY OF THE PEOPLE
THINK YOU ARE A FLAMING HOMOSEXUAL.
              #3:I HAVE HAIR
              #4:238-42??  DO I KNOW WHAT THE LAST TWO DIGITS ARE??
  STAY TUNED FOR MORE NEXT TIME BOYS AND FAGGOTS
</PRE>
<P>
and coming...
<P>
<PRE>
I AM STILL HERE DICKBREATH I WILL HAVE YOUR HOUSE NUMBER BY TONIGHT,
SLLEP TIGHT DEAD MEAT, YOU MAY THINK I AM KIDDING BUT I WOULD NOT WASTE
MY TIME IF I WAS FUCKING AROUND, YOU PISSED ME OFF, YOU WILL PAY FOR
IT....
</PRE>
<P>
Now, getting on 15 years later, this sort of thing is easy to laugh
off or trivialize, but for a 17-year-old kid living alone in his
father's house, this was pretty scary stuff.
<P>
Enter Prime Anarchist. I had made acquaintance with him and his friends
some time previous on The Works, and we had talked on the phone a few
times. At some point, I mentioned that I was experiencing this extreme
harassment, and they got very serious. They offered to help. And the
way they offered to help was to trace back the call. 
<P>
They came over and visited me. Scruffy fellows, but I still remember 
the eagerness to help me. They explained to me they had a friend in
the phone company, someone who could look at the special records they
had, the records where they see what numbers called a house (as 
opposed to the phone bills we see, where all the numbers the house
called are listed). In this way, if I gave them some times that
YOUR MOTHER had called and left some messages, we could clear up
this little problem. To sweeten the deal, they asked me if I could
give them something to give to the friend in the phone company,
something like twenty bucks. I paid up gladly.
<P>
A little later, somehow, someone broke into the Works machine with
a remote sysop password, a password only I knew, that I'd not written
down or given to anyone. After breaking in, this person had tried
to delete my entire hard drive, but was typing in Apple computer
commands to do so, and the system was on a PC. On at least one
occasion, I'd used this remote password to use my machine. More
on that in a moment.
<P>
Well, Prime and his buddy came back and told me their friend had
done his work. They'd traced back the guy who did it, but they 
couldn't tell me! Apparently he ALSO worked for the phone company!
According to my new friends, this fellow was TAPPING MY PHONE, and
picking up all this information to hack into my system and harass
me and the whole deal. So, they said, they'd go in and straighten
things out. 
<P>
Later, they called me, and proudly said that they'd gone to the
guy's workplace, and found him at his desk, where they'd presented
the evidence they had and told him to lay the hell off me, to 
never go near the Works BBS again, or he'd lose his job. The guy
supposedly freaked out, and swore up and down he'd never go
near my lines again.
<P>
I never found out who the guy was, and I never understood everything
that went down in that event, but I can say that I was honestly
freaked enough that I didn't really talk to Prime Anarchist and his
friend Cygnus ever again, and to be honest, the whole situation
as creepy. And to be fair, the harassment did stop after they 
claimed they'd talked about it. But either way, if you look at
it from any angle, is it any wonder I'm a little paranoid?
<P>



</BODY>
</HTML>
