"What the fuck happened to the Internet?" A rant, by Tokachu June 12, 2004 --- TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction 2. Text Files a) High School Angst b) Script kiddie-isms 3. Web Pages 4. Instant Messaging 5. Piracy 6. Conclusion --- 1. Introduction In all honesty, I thought the Internet would be better -- MUCH better -- than it has become nowadays. Oh, I can see you saying to yourself, high speed broadband, file sharing, etc., etc., it's great. I'm sorry. I must've mistaken the Internet for a strip mall. You don't believe me when I say that the Internet was better? Well, don't. Yes, the TECHNOLOGY has gotten better, faster, stronger, and so forth, but the people on it, and their intentions, cannot be described in words more complicated than a second-grade bully's vocabulary. "Retarded" is the word that comes to my mind (since "stupid" simply doesn't cut it). But you don't have to take my word. Just look at what I have to say... --- 2. Text Files Recycling is good for the environment, but it doesn't cut it in the barely-surviving text-phile scene of the 21st century. Unfortunately most of the text files I see uploaded, apart from carbon copies downloaded from Textfiles.com, can be categorized under the following: a) High School Angst For the most part, life in high school in 2004 is no different than life in high school in 1984 (so I'll file all the "HS SUX" files under "Carbon Copies" above). The only big difference that I can see is that nowadays high schools have very up-to-date computers and high-speed Internet access instead of modemless Apple ][e's (funny story: my junior high school finally ditched their Apple ][e's in 2000, a year after I left). Of course with all this great new technology that the average person can use, there are limits and restrictions. Just like any other high school institution. I know of practically EVERY kind of restriction, protection, and monitoring tool that high schools use. How? Because I've seen the evolution. Originally, everything depended on the client computer loading the file-protection software (and the BIOS was password- protected, so only the hard drive could be booted from). So of course there are lots of text files documenting on how to "disable the file protection" (CTRL-ALT-DEL if it's not disabled, or some process killer if it is). Instructions on disabling or resetting any BIOS protection usually involve opening the computer and removing the battery -- only practical if you're dealing in stolen school property. Today's protections depend on some sort of disk-imaging program that resets the contents of the hard drive, no matter what kind of changes you thought you made. A warm reboot takes care of that, and the computer will probably have some sort of service on it that allows it to be rebooted remotely from the high school system administrator's office. Along with that service, there is probably a "remote view" program that lets the administrator see exactly what you see on the screen (similar to RealVNC). Couple that with a very attentive administrator looking at a network traffic analyzer, and you'll see that your text files will only get you in deep shit, and nowhere else. Take my advice and just wait 'til you get home. b) Script Kiddie-isms All I can say is "wow" when I see one of these loads of human feces converted to text format. For the most part, the header consists of some gaudy program-generated ASCII art, and the footer the "greetz". I always suspected the rappers at Cash Money Records had about as much (well, as little) intelligence as script kiddies, but I never suspected they were one in the same! You can tell if a text file falls under this category by looking at the title. If it contains any of these words: * AIM/AOL * Buffer Overflow * Cracking (must be accompanied with "passwords") * DoS (not to be confused with DOS) * "Free Cellular Phone Calls Without Cloning" * Hacking (must be accompanied with "Windows") * Hotmail/Yahoo! (usually includes "hacking" or "cracking") * Trojan * Proxy * Virus * Windows ...it's probably a script kiddie talking. Just close the text file, and pretend you never saw it. Your brain cells will thank you. --- 3. Web Pages Yeah, I know. Faster Internet nowadays. But that doesn't give you or anyone else on this planet an excuse to fill their site up with 800 KB of Flash animations, Java menus, and the obligatory "right-click protect" JavaScript snippet. Oh, and shove in the HTML code that only renders at all in Internet Explorer 6 (and has some self-centered "IE pwns j00" message for anyone not sending money to Redmond). Yep, that's the World Wide Web of THE FUTURE!! ("NOT!!" -- Wayne Garth) Hey, I've got an idea: SLIM DOWN YOUR WEB SITES! Learn to consider other people than yourself when designing it. Don't try to duplicate interfaces from the movie "Hackers". Don't insert Java applets on the front page. Don't put in Flash animations on the first page, either. A 100 Mbps connection downloading a 1 MB page is no faster than a 28.8k modem downloading a 40K web site. And speaking of web browsers, since when did it become common practice for businesses to write computer viruses? Oh, you know who you are. The people who force me to be barraged with "messages" from people on my buddy list telling me to "DOWNLOAD THIS COMPUTER PROGRAM IT IS GOOD!!". What, you think people aren't willing to track you down? This goes for all the assholes who jam up MY business with people calling me, asking to "clean their computer" of your programs (programs that a skilled pirate and crack team would have difficulty removing). 4. Instant Messaging Do you remember a time where people would close their IM software when they didn't want to be contacted? I do. Do you remember a time where people's profiles and message text were vanilla black-on-white text? I do. Do you remember a time where people would put the word "away" in their away message? I do. So, let's bring these great memories back, okay? 5. Piracy Like marijuana, piracy on the Internet is the cool thing that all the kids are doing. And like marijuana, there are lots of people who Bogart stuff, and few who provide back to the community. I blame the parents. People on the Internet have been expecting something for nothing for a very long time. Free Web space flowed like water not too long ago, and thanks to horrific abuses (mostly from the warez community), it died. Now setting up a web site with a free provider is like playing Russian Roulette with your HTML. Nowadays you've got to PAY for good web hosting (it isn't that expensive: at most $100 a year for domain and ample space and transfers), but people still expect to get everything they want for free. So, what better way to get free stuff than with file sharing? After all, why go through the trouble of searching through FTP networks, meeting quotas (where you had to GIVE in order to RECEIVE), and gaining a reputation on IRC channels? Fuck that! Gimme gimme gimme! Is it no wonder that video pirates are finding more and more annoying ways to watermark their releases? (Watermarking is still very annoying. I avoid it, and so should you.) Unfortunately it's gotten SO out of hand that corporations have actually decided to become very active in the investigations. And, no, buying that copy of KaZaA doesn't give you any legal backing. Sharman Networks and the thugs that run it are nowhere past the lameness level of script kiddies. It's estimated that 75% of traffic on the Internet is the transfer of pirated materials, with another 10% being port scans, DoS attacks, and the like. With only 15% of the bandwidth left, there isn't too much room for INTELLIGENCE. --- 6. Conclusion There's no conclusion here. Just don't become the assholes that I've described. Because if you do, you'll find yourself to be very unpopular in both the digital and the real world.