What is an 'internet shell account' and why are ISPs so tight about who they give them to ?

Son of The Household Cavalry

Your shell account is an account you can connect to in order to get an all-text representation of the Internet. Individuals who have older computers that can only display text find shell accounts valuable, because when you connect to a shell account, you can send mail, read newsgroups, and even browse the web with an all-text interface. I did not think there was a problem with ISPs if you are prepared to pay Apr 04 02, 10:59 PM

eliasen

A shell account is a command-line interface to an operating system (primarily some flavor of UNIX.) As such, you are able to start programs, delete files from the computer, create files on the computer, or possibly compile and run new programs. Obviously, any of these activities can cause problems for other users of the computer. You can start programs that run for days, using up lots of processor time, and making the system run slow for others. You can delete other users' files that have the permissions set wrong. You can compile script-kiddie programs that can be used to hack other computers. You can fill up the hard drives. All of these problems can be somewhat avoided if the administrator has set up proper security and limits, but you see that a shell account gives you vast magnitudes more power than a simple PPP account. Thus, shell accounts tend to be given out only to people who need them and can prove that they understand what they're doing in UNIX, and can stop runaway programs, and can be somewhat trusted. Apr 04 02, 11:16 PM