Bianca.com
Encyclopedia
bianca.com, informally known as Bianca's Smut Shack, was an alternative
virtual community
that was created on 14 February 1994 by a group of Chicago (Later moved to San Francisco) dot-com
software developers including David Thau and Chris Miller. bianca was the world's first web-based chat room
. It later also became a popular theme camp at Burning Man
.
The site has long been infamous for its extreme free speech and raucous discourse, and its sociological effect on the Internet
and elsewhere has been extensively detailed in a thesis by "Freeform" (Miller), http://www.freeform.org/thesis/toc.html who studies bianca-style chat rooms as a sort of petri dish
for incubating deviant behavior
:
In 1997 Radio Shack
sought to prevent bianca's "Smut Shack" from using that name, citing their previous use of the word "shack" and claiming exclusive use. They later backed down from their legal action.
In 1999 the site was purchased by Nerve.com, but by 2001 they had given up on the venture due to excessive bandwidth costs. http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,43825,00.html Nerve announced bianca's impending closure, though they vowed to find a way to preserve at least part of the site.
Some anti flooding software was later added, but was shown to be less than impervious to persistent hackers.
Although it is unclear who was actually managing the server, Bianca's operated with intermittent functionality and frequent outages as late as early 2007. At some point after that, hackers were able to access the server and delete the contents, using a function that rendered the data irretrievable. For a while the home page continued to exist, along with some archived messages and the site's update page. Now all that remains is the "shack map" and an email contact link.
Alternative lifestyle
An alternative lifestyle is a lifestyle generally perceived to be outside the cultural norm. Usually, but not always, it implies an affinity or identification within some matching subculture...
virtual community
Virtual community
A virtual community is a social network of individuals who interact through specific media, potentially crossing geographical and political boundaries in order to pursue mutual interests or goals...
that was created on 14 February 1994 by a group of Chicago (Later moved to San Francisco) dot-com
Dot-com company
A dot-com company, or simply a dot-com , is a company that does most of its business on the Internet, usually through a website that uses the popular top-level domain, ".com" .While the term can refer to present-day companies, it is also used specifically to refer to companies with...
software developers including David Thau and Chris Miller. bianca was the world's first web-based chat room
Chat room
The term chat room, or chatroom, is primarily used by mass media to describe any form of synchronous conferencing, occasionally even asynchronous conferencing...
. It later also became a popular theme camp at Burning Man
Burning Man
Burning Man is a week-long annual event held in the Black Rock Desert in northern Nevada, in the United States. The event starts on the Monday before the American Labor Day holiday, and ends on the holiday itself. It takes its name from the ritual burning of a large wooden effigy on Saturday evening...
.
The site has long been infamous for its extreme free speech and raucous discourse, and its sociological effect on the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
and elsewhere has been extensively detailed in a thesis by "Freeform" (Miller), http://www.freeform.org/thesis/toc.html who studies bianca-style chat rooms as a sort of petri dish
Petri dish
A Petri dish is a shallow glass or plastic cylindrical lidded dish that biologists use to culture cells or small moss plants. It was named after German bacteriologist Julius Richard Petri, who invented it when working as an assistant to Robert Koch...
for incubating deviant behavior
Deviant Behavior
Deviant Behavior is an interdisciplinary journal which focuses on social deviance, including criminal, sexual, and narcotic behaviors.The journal is published by Taylor and Francis, Inc., and was ranked 41st out of 46 psychology journals and 46th out of 90 sociology journals in 2004 by the...
:
In 1997 Radio Shack
Radio shack
Radio shack is a slang term for a room or structure for housing radio equipment.-History:In the early days of radio, equipment was experimental and home-built. The first radio transmitters used a noisy spark to generate radio waves and were often housed in a garage or shed. When radio was first...
sought to prevent bianca's "Smut Shack" from using that name, citing their previous use of the word "shack" and claiming exclusive use. They later backed down from their legal action.
In 1999 the site was purchased by Nerve.com, but by 2001 they had given up on the venture due to excessive bandwidth costs. http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,43825,00.html Nerve announced bianca's impending closure, though they vowed to find a way to preserve at least part of the site.
Flooding, cyber attacks and the demise
At the time of the site's creation, the posts in bianca's chat rooms could be of any length. If a user had a 100-line-long poem they wanted to post, the chat software would have accepted and posted it. This was manageable when bianca was a smaller, more closely knit community. However, as bianca grew more popular, cyber vandals, eventually found their way to bianca. They too could post 100-line-long rants if they pleased, and the posted links which look as thyough they were porn links. As the site prided itself on allowing all users freedom of speech, little effort was made to correct what quickly became a problem in terms of both site management and bandwidth, bringing the system to its knees. http://www.freeform.org/thesis/deviant.htmlSome anti flooding software was later added, but was shown to be less than impervious to persistent hackers.
Although it is unclear who was actually managing the server, Bianca's operated with intermittent functionality and frequent outages as late as early 2007. At some point after that, hackers were able to access the server and delete the contents, using a function that rendered the data irretrievable. For a while the home page continued to exist, along with some archived messages and the site's update page. Now all that remains is the "shack map" and an email contact link.
bianca.org
The sister site bianca.org houses some information about the core group involved with bianca.com-related real world activities. Not updated since 2006 This site claims:bianca.org is the real-world extension of the online community known as bianca.com, which doesn't necessarily mean that we bare [sic] any resemblance or likeness to any of the activities of bianca.com but we do take our name and spirit from that which is the great bianca!