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The sky calls to us ...
Super Moderator
Location: CT
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Quote:
Originally posted by Mr Mephisto
Define "true, hardcore, old-school geeks"
Mr Mephisto
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Nobody has addressed the quote from my original post yet, so I'll assume that nobody knows what I was really talking about.
http://www.midnight.demon.co.uk/conspiracies.html
This website has conveniently plagarized a summary of the Usenet Cabal from CONSPIRACY Files
Quote:
With the growth of the Internet over the last few years, the number of people now regularly on-line is growing swiftly. One of the primary tools of communication across the net is the World Wide Web, but in the late 80s and early 90s, before the Web arrived, a discussion board conferencing system known as Usenet stood in its place. Usenet conferences were each themed around a specific topic, and numbered in their hundreds. A user could post a message to a conference - called a 'news group' - which would then be visible to anyone reading that news group. Similarly, people were free to reply. Usenet News is still active, and there are now tens of thousands of groups, but it's importance to the Internet community as a whole has decreased sharply as the web has gained prominence.
At its peak though, Usenet was the primary Internet tool for communicating with people outside of your sphere of acquaintance, and from this the Cabal was born. The Usenet Cabal was a secret society of Internet users, led by an anonymous figure referred to as Aleph Null at Node-1. Each member recruited three others, and no more, but you did not inform the person above you in the chain of the people you recruited. The membership list was entirely secret, even from Aleph Null. The Cabal's own documentation described it as being "... like the Freemasons, or the Shriners", and declared that "We will never know how many members we have. As far as each of us is concerned there are only four members of the Cabal." This meant that the leaders of the Cabal were guaranteed anonymity.
It wasn't totally futile, though. Each member knew the people he or she recruited, and the person who recruited him or her, and so could pass messages down - and up - the chain. Official documentation declared "Once we are part of the network we can send requests up and down the chain, using the organisation to achieve our ends. The Cabal does have a purpose. We are a way of harnessing the forces of chaos without getting our arms torn off in the process."
In practice, Aleph Null sent instructions down through the ranks, instructing members in certain areas to undertake specific actions, for unknown purposes. Because no-one could say how many different branches of the Cabal came off from Node-1, it was easy to send part of an action plan to one branch, another part to a second, and so forth, so that no part of the Cabal actually knew what it was doing. College kids, out for a laugh, cheerfully obeyed their seemingly innocent instructions. The result was a loyal army of dupes, in place to wreak all sorts of havoc if that was what Aleph Null had in mind... but the chances are, Aleph Null was a college kid out for a laugh too.
ODD FACTS
The Cabal seemingly disintegrated in the early 1990s under the weight of pressure from the Web, but it appears to have recently reformed as The Internet Cabal. Membership applications have been sighted, along with bulletins from Aleph Null. This time however, members are encouraged to anonymously email requests and comments to Aleph Null directly, at the email account aleph0@webinbox.com. The Internet Cabal instructs members to keep it completely secret, claims to be the successor of the Usenet Cabal, and declares that its interests are "To save the planet, to promote the advancement and enrichment of all Cabal members in society, and to make the world a cooler place".
THE USUAL SUSPECTS
Kibo
One of Usenet's 'gods', James "Kibo" Parry was omnipresent on Usenet for a while in the late 80s/early 90s. Any time his name was mentioned in any Usenet conference, he would find it and reply to that group, making himself legendary in the process. A cheerful freethinker, he has often been tipped as the benevolent and mischievous founder of the wholly innocent Cabal.
The Freemasons
In sharp contrast, the other top theory is that the Cabal was controlled by a circle of leading Freemasons, manipulating the Internet community. These patriarchs carefully couched the Cabal in anarchic terms so as to appeal to the primarily student-based Usenet community.
THE UNUSUAL SUSPECTS
The Democratic Party
One unusual idea is that the Usenet Cabal was set up by a techno-savvy member of the Democrats, who wanted to undermine republican governmental dogma so as to influence the next election. When Clinton came to power in the early 90s, its work was done, and the group was disbanded.
MOST CONVINCING EVIDENCE
Perhaps the best thing to be said for the Cabal as a simple student prank is that it insists that it itself is not to be believed, and that no member should ever heed any apparent call for money to be sent to anyone - a fairly unusual set of instructions for any secret society.
MOST MYSTERIOUS FACT
One of the new dictates to Internet Cabal members asks new members to write the message "The Hour is come, but not The Man." on a piece of cardboard and tack it to any convenient telegraph pole or street lamp. What does this signal mean, and who is it for?
SKEPTICALLY SPEAKING
The chances of getting clear information down a chain of people as scattered as the Cabal is small. Individuals will modify messages, and the overall effect will be like Chinese Whispers - perhaps only the first five or six tiers of the Cabal would ever actually be getting clear instructions from Aleph Null.
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