36C3¶

This page exists to coordinate and describe the Retro-Networking / BBS-Revival setup at 36C3, the 36th annual Chaos Communication Congress

The "BBS-Revival / Retronetworking" assembly

• has been registered at https://signup.c3assemblies.de/assembly/050e89eb-841d-4722-a640-c2b2eba695b
• has a 36C3 event wiki page at https://events.ccc.de/congress/2019/wiki/index.php/Assembly:Retronetworking_/_BBS-Revival
• it is located in Halle2, please use c3nav and look for "Retronetworking"

There's also a related thread on the mailing list, see http://lists.osmocom.org/pipermail/bbs-revival/2019-October/000014.html

WTF? How can I use this setup? What is this for?¶

The rationale for this setup is to re-discover (or discover, if you're of younger generations) how data communications and early internet access worked in the 1980ies and early to mid 1990ies: The dialup experience.

Physical Connection to our telephony network¶

First you have to get physically connected:

• you can bring your own computer/terminal and modem and connect to our PBX via anlog (POTS) or ISDN (S0)
• you can bring your own computer and borrow a modem (and USB Serial adapter) to connect
• you can simply use one of the retro laptops we set up with modems attached

What can I dial into?¶

You can dial the number 03111 from both ISDN and analog lines. If the dial-up connection works, you will receive a "login:" prompt which we use to differentiate services:

User	Purpose
acid	You get forwarded to ACID Underworld on Searchlight BBS. This is a BBS with an amazing collection of RIP artwork galleries. Please consider donating to the SysOp for keeping this alive!
ppp	You get a dynamically allocated IPv4 address over PPP and can use dial-up internet at up to 64kBps. You can also simply start to send PPP frames, which will automatically trigger the 'ppp' user. There is no password.
vert	You get forwarded to Vertrauen BBS, home of the Synchronet BBS software
kuehlbox	You get forwarded to Kuehlbox BBS
evsfy	You get forwarded to a 36C3 specific BBS operated by evsfy (bbs.36c3.evsfy.com) in Taiwan. use 'guest' as username + password
telnet	You can telnet to any BBS on the internet by entering the IP / hostname

We are planning to add more services as 36C3 progresses. If you'd like to offer any specific service, we can either offer you analog or ISDN lines so you can operate that service with your own modem, or we can offer telnet/rlogin or raw TCP break-out from our RAS.

Equipment used in this setup¶

• PBX with analog and ISDN ports
• Livingston Portmaster 3 RAS with DSP cards (30 modems)
• FreeSWITCH with 4-port DAHDI E1 card using FreeTDM + libpri to interconnect both above
• Various User_Equipment_(Modems_ISDN_Adapters)

Who¶

• Harald "LaF0rge" Welte