When the internet was mysterious...
much like one of the previous posters, (why am I now thinking of Athena?) I had only used the net exactly twice. When our school got a connection we all sat there huddled around a computer, I would love to say in aww, but I couldn't actually much see the point. This was 1994. Shift forward a few years, and I am on work experience in a very upto date office, that had an ISDN connection. As a treat after I had toiled for free for a week, I was shown how to browse. I was told under no circumstances should I look at anything rude, had I known there was access to this type of material I would have got a connection at home way sooner.

Fast forward a few years again, and I'm at uni, I did take a computer, a lovely 386 that didn't have a modem, in fact, I used it twice out of boredom. It sat there mocking me, whilst my richer mates had computers with CD drives, and access to the janet campus network.

One lad in our flat (halls) wasn't that odd, he liked football, a beer or two, studied the usual amount, wasn't that quiet, but would keep himself to his self. He also loved computers.

He started spending more and more time trapped away in his room, busily using his internets, after a while I asked what he was up to, I didnt ask him directly as I wasn't that close to him. So I got the gossip from a friend. He'd been on chat rooms and now had a Canadian girlfriend, they'd been chatting for a while and now he was due to fly out to meet her, she was 15, he 19/20ish, he'd been using someone else's photo and he was going to have to hide in her room as her parents were religious.

I know he paid the 800 odd quid for the flight, and I know he disappeared and never returned to uni. I can't recall his surname, so he must be living it up in Canadia land, dead, or in prison. Or a highly successful programmer somewhere.

Oh and another flat mate when he was 14 had his phone line tapped as he'd been naughty telnet hacking. He got away with a caution, today he would have been extradited he showed me what he did a few times its amazing you can still do it today. Slightly.
(feedingtimeatthezoo day 1 of his bikini diet started, Tue 27 Nov 2012, 16:27, 1 reply)

*aww
*awe
(wrigglesworth, Tue 27 Nov 2012, 17:23, closed)