I wasn't on the same newsgroups, other than rec.games.rouguelike.nethack, but I did spend much of me teens on usenet and bad geocities pages, and I too think it's unfortunate that pseudonymity is no longer the norm. I don't think think the perception of that kind of usage has changed as much as she does though. People used to think that anyone who spent a lot of time on the Internet must be a scary hacker or looking for porn.