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segfaultbuserr | 1 year ago

In 1987, doxxing yourself was the norm. ~80% of the Usenet messages from the 1980s (to early the 1990s) had names, institutions, office addresses, and phone numbers attached to them too. Most were universities, governments, or corporate R&D addresses, but there were many small businesses and home users as well. Some phone numbers are probably still valid today. In fact, an Usenet archive (UTZoo) has already been taken down from the Internet Archive due to an alleged legal threat made by an individual (despite that this archive was indispensable if anyone wants to find any historical information from this era, and that it had been available online for the last ~20 years before it was taken down, with multiple copies still online). I suspect the legal status of these kinds of early online community archives will be increasingly problematic over time.

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mmcgaha|1 year ago

Magazines used to have pen pal sections where kids would post their name, age, and address so anyone could write them. It was a different time.

Mountain_Skies|1 year ago

BBSes usually required your name, home address, and phone number as part of signing up for an account. I never gave it much thought when entering my information nor later when collecting it from others when I was a SysOp. Once in a while when driving around I might see a street sign and think "Oh, that's where Frisbee_Guy lives" if I recognized it but never considered using it for anything nefarious. Also remember computer magazines of the time often had sections where people would get their problems published along with an address for anyone wanting to contact them about it. Sometimes even a phone number.