History
The forum was started in 1997 as bbs.mit.edu at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, hence the "MIT" in its name. However, its history can be traced to two earlier forums: the Unknown BBS at Peking University, China from 1996-1997, followed by the Space BBS at Center for Space Science at Chinese Academy of Sciences. Unlike the two precursors which were located in China, the MIT forum is much less affected by Internet censorship in mainland China, and grew in popularity among Chinese students studying abroad.
In 2002, the Chinese government blocked access to the entire mit.edu domain. Some have speculated that the main reason was to prevent domestic users from accessing the uncensored political discussions on this forum. Eventually, due to the popularity of the forum and bandwidth limitations, the forum was moved from the mit.edu domain to its own permanent domain at mitbbs.com.
In 2004, to circumvent the block in place in China, a self-censored server was opened to facilitate access by users in China.
Currently there are about 300 topic groups. The website claims that it has hundreds of thousands of registered users, most of whom are Overseas Chinese, and 85% of their internet traffic is generated from within the US. The forum allows http and telnet access for public postings, private messaging, exclusive groups (clubs) and, most recently, blogging.
Read more about this topic: MIT BBS
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“If you look at history you’ll find that no state has been so plagued by its rulers as when power has fallen into the hands of some dabbler in philosophy or literary addict.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)
“We are told that men protect us; that they are generous, even chivalric in their protection. Gentlemen, if your protectors were women, and they took all your property and your children, and paid you half as much for your work, though as well or better done than your own, would you think much of the chivalry which permitted you to sit in street-cars and picked up your pocket- handkerchief?”
—Mary B. Clay, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 3, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“It is the true office of history to represent the events themselves, together with the counsels, and to leave the observations and conclusions thereupon to the liberty and faculty of every man’s judgement.”
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626)