prove a board is yours

what this does

You show us something only the person who runs the board could put there: a TXT record in its name’s DNS, a file on a web server at the same host, or — for a board on a bare address or a dynamic-DNS name — a line on the screen it shows before login. Any one of them will do.

Publish your line, press the button, and the listing is yours: the card says so, only you can edit it from then on, and if you signed in with your Vortex handle the BBS list on The Vortex knows too.

Your line is yours alone, so sign in first. sign in

a TXT record

In the DNS for , add one TXT record. Nothing else about your board changes, and the record can stay for good — we look again now and then, and a listing whose record disappears quietly stops being verified.

is a dynamic-DNS name, so you cannot add a name under it — but several providers (DuckDNS, Dynu, FreeDNS, DynDNS, No-IP’s paid plans) let you set a TXT record on your name itself. If yours does, publish this:

name

—

type

TXT

value

—

either name counts. DNS takes a few minutes to publish, sometimes longer. Check as often as you like.

or a file on your board’s web server

If a web server runs on the same host as the board (many do: Mystic, Synchronet and ENiGMA all can), serve a plain-text file at this address, containing the value above — or just the token:

—

we fetch it over http, then https; a redirect does not count (it could point anywhere), and neither does a copy on another host.

or your login screen

cannot carry a DNS record under it, so you may also put your line anywhere on the screen your board sends before login — in the art, in a notice, anywhere a caller could read it:

—

The check calls your board and reads the screen back, just as the BBS list’s [P] then [S] does. Plain text is fine — a line in the banner, a notice, anything before the login prompt. It only has to be there when you press check: once the listing is yours you may take it down again, and the proof stays.

or, last of all, knock from the board’s own machine

No DNS you can edit, no web server, and you would rather not touch the screen your board shows before login? Then run this on the machine the board itself runs on. It fetches one address and does nothing else:

—

We compare the address that fetch arrives from with the address answers to right now. It proves the machine, not the person: anybody behind the same router, or the same carrier-grade NAT, could run it too. That is why it is the last route offered and why it is offered only to boards with nowhere to publish a record. The line is yours alone and lasts fifteen minutes.

then check it

check it now

one button tries every route that applies, in that order, and says what it found where.