B1FF or BIFF was the most famous pseudonym and the prototypical newbie on Usenet.

Articles from BIFF were characterised by all uppercase letters sprinkled liberally with bangs, typos, "cute" misspellings, use (and often misuse) of fragments of chat abbreviations, a long sig block, sometimes even a doubled sig, and unbounded naïveté.

A sentence describing BIFF is

EVRY BUDY LUVS GOOD OLD BIFF CUZ HE'S A K00L DOOD AN HE RITES REEL AWESUM THINGZ IN CAPITULL LETTRS LIKE THIS!!!

BIFF posts articles using his elder brother's Commodore VIC-20. BIFF's location is a mystery, as his articles appear to come from a variety of sites. However, BITNET seems to be the most frequent origin. The theory that BIFF is a denizen of BITNET is supported by BIFF's (unfortunately invalid) electronic mail address: <BIFF@BIT.NET>.

Origin

Later information indicates that BIFF was originally created by Joe Talmadge , also the author of the infamous and much-plagiarised "Flamer's Bible ". The BIFF filter he wrote was later passed to Richard Sexton, who posted BIFFisms much more widely. Versions have since been posted for the amusement of the net at large.

See also

• leet