I've been wondering about something and I'm curious how other sysops and users see this.
A large number of BBSes today still only offer plain Telnet connections, which means usernames, passwords, and session data are transmitted completely unencrypted. Anyone able to sniff the connection somewhere along the path could theoretically read (and re-use) credentials.
On my system I ended up running TelnetS (simply using the stunnel daemon) and websockify on the BBS server, which allows fTelnet users to connect via WSS directly to the server. The browser connection is encrypted end-to-end and the websocket bridge just forwards locally to the BBS.
So my question to other sysops and users is:
Why does the community seem comfortable with plain Telnet being the default when encrypted options exist and are relatively easy to deploy? This is my perception at least, happy to stand corrected.
I am using Wildcat! 4 from 1995 which does not even support Telnet, all of the above can be built and offered outside the DOS runtime. I did not add SSH to my BBS, but some sysops do, another good option to offer end-to-end encryption.
Related thought about Telnet BBS Guide
First off, huge thanks to the operator of telnetbbsguide.com. It's an incredibly useful resource and one of the best directories for discovering BBS systems.
While looking at the embedded browser client there, I noticed it still uses the original fTelnet template. The newer fTelnet v2 embed supports a few improvements that might be interesting: Direct websocket connections to the BBS instead of routing through the central proxy End-to-end encryption (WSS) when the BBS provides a websocket gateway File transfers (Zmodem/Xmodem/Ymodem) supported in the browser client
Currently all connections go through the fTelnet proxy in the US, which can add latency for BBSes and users located elsewhere. For example my BBS is in Switzerland and many of my users are as well.
With the v2 approach a BBS can run a small websocket bridge locally, so users connect directly and encrypted without an extra hop.
Just a thought for future improvements. The guide itself is already a fantastic resource.
Curious to hear what other sysops think about this.
P.S.: I posted a while ago about my Wildcat! BBS' resurrection a while ago in here: https://www.reddit.com/r/bbs/comments/1nu0s2f/buema_bbs_is_back_after_30_years
Marc Sysop, BUEMA BBS submitted by /u/s0ftice [link] [comments]