By this time, the price of hard drives had come down
significantly, and recordable CD was the latest thing. I
suddenly had an idea! What if I started accepting
donations in return for things like more time allowed
online each day, ability to download more files before
having to contribute files back, AND, making a custom CD
full of the latest programs people uploaded each month?
The people paying an extra $10 or so in a given month
would receive a copy of one of these CDs, saving them a
lot of time and hassle trying to download the programs
they wanted from the BBS.
It turned out not very many people were willing to pay to
use the formerly free-of-charge BBS, but I did have a
small group of "regulars" who wanted to make sure I kept
it up and running. Out of this group, some were happy to
pay the extra money to receive their monthly CD - so that
part of my plan seemed to be a success. I finally had
just enough money coming in to cover my phone bills, most
months. That motivated me to add a few more features
(such as multi-user chat capabilities, and several new
online multiplayer games), despite being fairly burnt-out
on the whole hobby at this point.
What I *hadn't* considered, however, was that government
was starting to pay more and more attention to BBS's,
believing them to generally be "bad things" after a
couple folks were arrested for running child pornography
rings and the like, using a BBS as their "hub".
Unbeknownst to me, my bulletin board system became a
target for investigation, after someone got ahold of one
of the custom-made CDs and turned it in to local police,
thinking it indicated a giant counterfeiting or piracy
ring of some kind. The local police didn't have any idea
what to do with the CD, so they decided to hand it off to
the "computer crimes division" of the FBI. (Apparently,
this was a relatively new "arm" of the FBI, still eager
to prove its usefulness.)
This (eventually) resulted in a group of FBI agents
appearing at my parents' house, search warrant in hand
(and guns drawn!). They proceeded to confiscate all of
the relevant computer hardware and software (and
apparently, quite a bit of "not so relevant" items too,
such as mouse-pads and until my parents put up enough of
an argument, THEIR computer and laser printer). They even
had a brief discussion over whether or not a Radio Shack
bass subwoofer for my stereo was part of one of the
computers. One agent took several Linux distribution CDs
until a senior agent explained to her that those were not
possibly "illegal" to own or copy.