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| More (historical) Fear and Loathing in Cyberville. My second example of Internet Degeneration:
In 1999, Alexandre Varioukhine was crafting free utilities and distributing them from his German site; antimensch.de (long defunk and now parked).
I always thought his OpenScreens idea was clever.
AV's OpenScreens Project involved his ScreenSaver and a Some Text.
Folks would go to Alex V's Website.
They'd submit whatever stray line of thought demanded to be known.
Across the world,
the screensavers would promptly display the offering
and hilarity/boredom/offense ensued.
Most of the time it was pretty clean. Often enough, the messages were really funny, really odd or downright bizarre.
If the same line remained too long one might feel to contribute something to break the monotony. You get the idea.
After a time, one user began using OpenScreens to advertise his own site. Mostly nobody paid it much attention.
That is, until a few somebodies decided that OpenScreens was not to be used as an advertising vehicle.
They began a campaign, of sorts, against the poster.
Website Guy would post his link and the vigilanties would quickly respond with some insult or sarcasm. In response to which, Website Guy would post his link again. On and on this went until someone WhoIs'd his domain.
One Day, Site Guy posted.
The following post was a first and last name.
Site Guy's Link would quickly return.
Then that name again.
Back-and-Forth that went for a while.
(The origin domain of the current post also showed in small print. By now, a lot of these were like server.anon-addy.net.)
Later was (I assume) his wife's name. Then, her maiden name.
In a few more days we had what must have been
relatives names, addresses, phone numbers, etc;
interspersed with The Site Guy's Link and his snide comments.
The last part I remember, were a number of posts that went something like this:
"Martin Smith - Jennifer Smith - Maggie Sue Smith (age 1) 2222 runaway dr. Pike Snot, MO 66543 - 634-771-8846. Maggie's soooo cute!"
That seemed to do it for Site Guy.
Now he contributed all sorts of explitives in caps.
He also offered substantive cash bounties for the identities of his tormentors.
I uninstalled the screen saver. I don't know if he ever uncovered his nemesis-s (nemesi?).
A few months later I went back for a peek but it seemed the site author had had enough.
Alex now leads a nondescript life, quietly offering his IT Services, under a modified name; undoubtedly wiser for his experience.
I suppose I do like hanging out with a well moderated bunch.
But I don't think the minor internet happenings are as interesting as they once were.
NV
--
In my perfect religion, a giant hole appears and sucks up all the lousy people.
I call it the Crapture. |
