Panix Public Access Networks Corporation

Created by	Alexis Rosen & Jim Baumbach
Services	Community/Social Networking ISP Internet service provider An Internet service provider is a company that provides access to the Internet. Access ISPs directly connect customers to the Internet using copper wires, wireless or fiber-optic connections. Hosting ISPs lease server space for smaller businesses and host other people servers...
Founded in	1989
Location	New York City, New York, USA

Panix is the third-oldest ISP in the world after NetCom

Netcom (USA)

NETCOM On-Line Communication Services, Inc. was an Internet service provider headquartered in San Jose, California.It was established in 1988 by Bob Rieger, an information systems engineer for Lockheed and Bill Gitow of System V. Netcom started off in San Jose, California as a service to allow...

 and the World

The World (internet service provider)

The World is an internet service provider originally headquartered in Brookline, Massachusetts. It was the first internet service provider offering dial-up access to the general public, doing so since 1989....

. Originally running on A/UX

A/UX

A/UX was Apple Computer’s implementation of the Unix operating system for some of their Macintosh computers. The later versions of A/UX ran on the Macintosh II, Quadra and Centris series of machines as well as the SE/30. A/UX was first released in 1988, with the final version released in 1995...

 on an Apple Macintosh IIfx

Macintosh IIfx

The Macintosh IIfx was a model of Apple Macintosh computer, introduced in 1990 and discontinued in 1992. At introduction it cost from US $9,000 to US $12,000, depending on configuration, and was the fastest Mac...

, Panix has gone through a number of transitions as the Internet has grown. It maintains a vibrant community of shell

Shell account

A shell account is a user account on a remote server which gives access to a shell via a command-line interface protocol such as telnet or ssh....

 users and posters to its private panix.* USENET

Usenet

Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980...

 newsgroups. Panix also hosts regular get-togethers for fellow Panixistas in Central Park

Central Park

Central Park is a public park in the center of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The park initially opened in 1857, on of city-owned land. In 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they entitled the Greensward Plan...

.

Panix was started as a commercial venture to fill the void created after New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

's primary USENET connected public access system (which was donation supported), The Big Electric Cat

The Big Electric Cat

The Big Electric Cat, named for an Adrian Belew song, was a public access computer system in New York City in the late 1980s, known on Usenet as node dasys1.-History:...

, ceased operations.

Panix is a vocal supporter of free speech and uncensored internet access

Network security incidents

Panix was one of the first sites to identify the 1996 SYN flood

SYN flood

A SYN flood is a form of denial-of-service attack in which an attacker sends a succession of SYN requests to a target's system in an attempt to consume enough server resources to make the system unresponsive to legitimate traffic.-Technical details:...

 Denial of service
.

In 2005, the "panix.com" domain name was hijacked over a (US) long holiday weekend.