I was in another state and in correspondence with Amber when she created ASPD way back when. She had some problems from some guys running boards outside of Texas who were trying to pressure her. I provided some help.
The name actually comes from a misunderstanding of the Usenet newsgroup naming conventions, and she had chosen the name before I had a chance to suggest otherwise.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet_newsgroup
Usenet is still alive but not nearly as dominant as it was before the advent of the web. It's a service on the internet that doesn't rely on a single central server. Rather messages are passed from system to system, and in some ways it's more like a public email system with predefined folders so messages are pre-sorted by topic. The naming scheme is hierarchical. "alt" is for various alternative topics... e.g. non-computer science topics which instead are filed under "comp." "alt.sex" is for sex related topics. "alt.sex.prostitution" is for prostitution related topics. "alt.sex.prostitution.discussi on" is restricted to *meta-discussion* about the alt.sex.prostitution newsgroup. E.g. what topics are and aren't appropriate? Can providers post ads? How can spamming be minimized? etc.
In other words alt.sex.prostitution.discussio n isn't for discussions about prostitution, it's for discussion about the alt.sex.prostitution newsgroup. People discuss prostitution in alt.sex.prostitution.
So calling the board ASPD was vaguely inspired by the Usenet group, and it was a misunderstood inspiration at that. In no technical sense, however, did ASPD spring from Usenet.
