In 1988, the year before the WANK worm attack on NASA, Australia was on an upswing. The country was celebrating its bicentennial. The economy was booming. Trade barriers and old regulatory structures were coming down. Crocodile Dundee had already burst on the world movie scene and was making Australians the flavour of the month in cities like LA and New York. The mood was optimistic. People had a sense they were going places. Australia, a peaceful country of seventeen or so million people, poised on the edge of Asia but with the order of a Western European democracy, was on its way up. Perhaps for the first time, Australians had lost their cultural cringe, a unique type of insecurity alien to can-do cultures such as that found in the US. Exploration and experimentation require confidence and, in 1988, confidence was something Australia had finally attained.
Yet this new-found confidence and optimism did not subdue Australia's tradition of cynicism toward large institutions. The two coexisted, suspended in a strange paradox. Australian humour, deeply rooted in a scepticism of all things serious and sacred, continued to poke fun at upright institutions with a depth of irreverence surprising to many foreigners. This cynicism of large, respected institutions coursed through the newly formed Australian computer underground without dampening its excitement or optimism for the brave new world of computers in the least.
In 1988, the Australian computer underground thrived like a vibrant Asian street bazaar. In that year it was still a realm of place not space. Customers visited their regular stalls, haggled over goods with vendors, bumped into friends and waved across crowded paths to acquaintances. The market was as much a place to socialise as it was to shop. People ducked into tiny coffee houses or corner bars for intimate chats. The latest imported goods, laid out on tables like reams of bright Chinese silks, served as conversation starters. And, like every street market, many of the best items were tucked away, hidden in anticipation of the appearance of that one customer or friend most favoured by the trader. The currency of the underground was not money; it was information. People didn't share and exchange information to accumulate monetary wealth; they did it to win respect—and to buy a thrill.
The members of the Australian computer underground met on bulletin board systems, known as BBSes. Simple things by today's standards, BBSes were often composed of a souped-up Apple II computer, a single modem and a lone telephone line. But they drew people from all walks of life. Teenagers from working-class neighbourhoods and those from the exclusive private schools. University students. People in their twenties groping their way through first jobs. Even some professional people in their thirties and forties who spent weekends poring over computer manuals and building primitive computers in spare rooms. Most regular BBS users were male. Sometimes a user's sister would find her way into the BBS world, often in search of a boyfriend. Mission accomplished, she might disappear from the scene for weeks, perhaps months, presumably until she required another visit.
The BBS users had a few things in common. They were generally of above average intelligence—usually with a strong technical slant—and they were obsessed with their chosen hobby. They had to be. It often took 45 minutes of attack dialling a busy BBS's lone phone line just to visit the computer system for perhaps half an hour. Most serious BBS hobbyists went through this routine several times each day.
As the name suggests, a BBS had what amounted to an electronic version of a normal bulletin board. The owner of the BBS would have divided the board into different areas, as a school teacher crisscrosses coloured ribbon across the surface of a corkboard to divide it into sections. A single BBS might have 30 or more electronic discussion groups.
As a user to the board, you might visit the politics section, tacking up a `note' on your views of ALP or Liberal policies for anyone passing by to read. Alternatively, you might fancy yourself a bit of a poet and work up the courage to post an original piece of work in the Poet's Corner. The corner was often filled with dark, misanthropic works inspired by the miseries of adolescence. Perhaps you preferred to discuss music. On many BBSes you could find postings on virtually any type of music. The most popular groups included bands like Pink Floyd, Tangerine Dream and Midnight Oil. Midnight Oil's anti-establishment message struck a particular chord within the new BBS community.
Nineteen eighty-eight was the golden age of the BBS culture across Australia. It was an age of innocence and community, an open-air bazaar full of vitality and the sharing of ideas. For the most part, people trusted their peers within the community and the BBS operators, who were often revered as demigods. It was a happy place. And, in general, it was a safe place, which is perhaps one reason why its visitors felt secure in their explorations of new ideas. It was a place in which the creator of the WANK worm could sculpt and hone his creative computer skills.
The capital of this spirited new Australian electronic civilisation was Melbourne. It is difficult to say why this southern city became the cultural centre of the BBS world, and its darker side, the Australian computer underground. Maybe the city's history as Australia's intellectual centre created a breeding ground for the many young people who built their systems with little more than curiosity and salvaged computer bits discarded by others. Maybe Melbourne's personality as a city of suburban homebodies and backyard tinkerers produced a culture conducive to BBSes. Or maybe it was just Melbourne's dreary beaches and often miserable weather. As one Melbourne hacker explained it, `What else is there to do here all winter but hibernate inside with your computer and modem?'
In 1988, Melbourne had some 60 to 100 operating BBSes. The numbers are vague because it is difficult to count a collection of moving objects. The amateur nature of the systems, often a jumbled tangle of wires and second-hand electronics parts soldered together in someone's garage, meant that the life of any one system was frequently as short as a teenager's attention span. BBSes popped up, ran for two weeks, and then vanished again.