Have anyone had interesting experiences, or found any noteworthy sites, while browsing the net's nether-regions?
Yep, I used to finger that shit when I was a kid. I have some friends who are active in the
internet-occult.
BBS, IRC, and Minecraft is representative of the natural evolution and emergence of this underground network. Nowadays you can end up in the nether by crafting a nether-portal.
You can go on
IRC, and download hard to find documents and files that are not easily accessible on the internet. At the time, it was safer to download software or whatever from IRC than the internet because of viruses.
The
anarchist cookbook was a popular document that circulated through these channels. It covered topics from hacking vending machines, to creating credit card readers from a VHS head. This was probably the most interesting part for me.
Basically, the cookbook would get passed around and users would add pages to it if they had something valuable to add. Because it was anarchy, each copy was different and the formatting changed between sections. I wonder if it's still floating around?
You can sit in an IRC room, and talk to a
bible-bot. You can create custom functionality using the existing IRC protocols just as you can create custom game types in Minecraft.
Newsgroups are another way to download movies and software applications and it is safer that the P2P applications. They expire so it's only good for downloading pre-releases and new movies.
IRC is still the best place to find the goodies, however you have to know where to look. You have to get past
gatekeepers, and know people to get into the real underbelly of the internet.
Bash.org is a website that is a fun read and is based on IRC chats between nerds.
Many WordPress websites are hacked by these same people so they can be used for whatever purpose, like a
DOS attack. Websites are hosted with direct access to large back-bones so they are more useful than taking over personal computers with a trojan horse. They are operated directly via the IRC channels. You could technically create something with redstone circuits in Minecraft that could spread porn like viruses throughout the internet.
I can only imagine... "What does this switch do?"... Flick!
That was a thing that people did on IRC before. They would upload illegal and embarrassing shit to private computers via trojan horses as a joke. I'm sure that they could get some child-porn on personal computers of elected officials and end their careers. It's a strange and fucked up place and much of it is centralized on IRC. And it's just a chat protocol so it is dynamic.
When banks and grocery stores get hacked, sometimes it's just a warning message. Who knows, and the internet is nearly impossible to regulate so it's actually a beautiful thing.
Net-neutrality at its finest!
Some people buy and
sell identities and
credit cards. You usually have to buy in bulk or learn how to steal them for yourself. I have no idea what they use them for but I guess it's something that you just have to get used to.
There's a bunch of websites that are operated by the similar groups of people. It's basically the
red-light district of the
internet.
It shows that anarchy does work and can be effective on the internet. I'm guessing that they are the same people who created anonymous. Who knows? I have been out of that circle for a long time so I wouldn't know anymore.
It would be quite interesting to find out more about this hidden part of the internet from those that have accessed it.
Honestly, it's only slightly interesting. If you are looking for something specific, IRC a good place to start. Otherwise, just stay the hell out because unless you know what you're doing; you may end up swimming in child porn and viruses.
What would you like to know about it?
