The Deep Web

Today I learned all about the DEEP WEB, which is pretty damn interesting. According to wikipedia, deep web just refers to any web pages that aren't indexed by search engines. Apparently, it is also several ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE bigger than the indexed internet.

While this doesn't seem all that surprising or even interesting, apparently the key websites on the deep web can only be accessed using a program called TOR, a system designed to allow you to surf with total anonymity - no way to track your internet activity. Standing for The Onion Routing project, it lets you access the top level domain .onion, which apparently has BBS or Craigslist like sites that feature things like child porn, snuff films, dealing in all sorts of illegal items and even assassins for hire. The anecdotal reports I've read tell me the snuff is the worst, most disturbing stuff they have ever seen. I'm not going to repeat anything specific but be assured it's much worse than what you can imagine. Here is some random person's description:

"Trust me as others have said, it makes /b/ seem like some kiddy pool. To put it into terms that you can come to terms with. The internet that you know including /b/ is sesame street or other toddler shows. The hidden wiki leads you to things that are so cruel and horrible they've caused some to go insane. There is nothing worse than the things that you shall see there. You don't know shit, and just because you've seen /b/'s bannable shit doesn't mean you know how far down the rabbit hole the hidden wiki will lead you.

Most of the shit lasts but a few minutes, and then it's taken down and reshifted. Stuff moves faster than you could ever imagine. Those who control the world live there, they are the ones who are doing everything. The internet that you know is almost nothing. It is as if i gave you the book 'everybody poops' and that's all you knew about literature. And then i took you to a local library, that's the entrance to the 'hidden wiki', from that library they lead you down a hall and then you see it's true entrance. All of humanities secrets, the darkest and most depraved things that we've ever done all there.

None of you stupid fags can deal with it. I'm giong to go kill myself now since i cannot make the nightmares of what i've saw cease."

Sounds a little over the top, but pretty intriguing right?

The reference to 'onion' is the onion routing technology that encrypts and bounces your connection across relays provided by volunteers worldwide. The onions encrypt in a multi layered manner (like an onion) to prevent supposed total secrecy. There's lots more information on the TOR wikipedia article if you want to know more details. Regarding the black market websites that use TOR, here's a sample home page someone posted:

* graffiti.onion - A simple, editable page. No rules, total anarchy. (LUP 2010-12-06)
* Free Tradecraft Forum - Talk about pretty much anything, wide range of topics
* Freedom Security - Attacks, Defenses, The Underground, Security, Off-topic chat (LUP 2010-12-06)
* Hosted by: CircleServices
o Assassination Market - Anonymous assassination market using Tor Bank and TorPM
o TOR Free For All - Unmoderated area for political and other topics. Anything goes. (Guest account: user=public01 pass=public01)
o TorTSE - A continuation of the infamous TOTSE forum which has existed since the late 80s covering almost every topic.
o Democrat Watch - Right-wing board dedicated to criticizing Democrats (registration required)
o The Intel Exchange - Know or need to know something? Ask and share at this underground intelligence gathering network...
* talk.masked, clearnet version (read only) - Talks/Notes. A Janitor Joint.
* K5 Odd Forums - Forum with a different interface than the common ones. Poop's joint. (Requires HTTP referrers)
* OnionWarez - Uncensored warez/multimedia forum. Eng/Pol. Pedo/necro/bestia/murder talk only in allowed channels.
* anonymous bbs, gopher interface, telnet interface - Another variation of the talks style of board.
* Tajna Community - A WIP Underground forum & file dump. Caters for most tastes. (LUP 2010-12-06)
* TextForest - Kinda like talk.masked, but personalized. A Janitor Joint.
* Hosted by: Freedom Hosting
o Warez and uncensored talk Forum - Forum for warez and uncensored talk
o HackBB - Forums for hacking, phreaking, cracking, programming, anti-forensics, and other topics centered around technology.
o Anarcho-Syndicalist Brigade - Forums for Collectivist Anarchists and leftists to discuss things, primarily revolution
* Muchan - Imageboard for discussing music and random stuff. Boards : /b/ (random)


The other interesting thing coming out of this is the currency that is apparently used by this shady underground. That is the "bitcoin" invented in 2009, it is a virtual currency and uses an encrypted, peer-to-peer technology to track how much money you have in your electronic wallet and how much you have spent. Bitcoins use a different transactional system opposite from other currencies: the transactions are kept public (because they are broadcast over the entire peer to peer network), but the ownership of the address is private.

Bitcoins have no issuing authority, and cannot be artificially inflated. There is a built in deflation protection as well: the more coins springing into existence increases the value of each coin. I don't really understand how currencies work but apparently it is useful for black market trading since bitcoins are difficult to trace and regulate. The official website for bitcoins is https://mtgox.com/

Does Lorne Michaels have a monopoly on sketch comedy?

Someday, in the far distant future when I become funny, I would like to write things like sketch comedy. I prefer the absurd and things like satire, and I've watched enough that, on some level I think I have somewhat of a grasp on it, although maybe I'll just end up being a real life Neil Hamburger of comedy writing. I grew up watching Kids in the Hall and Saturday Night Live, and I love stuff like Mr. Show and Tim and Eric. Although 30 Rock isn't technically sketch comedy, it has the absurd elements and jam packed with genuinely funny jokes wrapped up in a satire about working behind the scenes on comedy. Most recently, I just started watching Portlandia and it's funnier than I thought it would be. And it's produced by, guess who, LORNE MICHAELS.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorne_Michaels#Selected_television_credits here's a complete list of the tv shows he produces, not including the huge list of movies:
-Hart and Lorne Terrific Hour
-Saturday Night Live
-All You Need is Cash
-Mr. Mike's Mondo Video
-The New Show
-Sunday Night
-Kids in the Hall
-Late Night with Conan O'Brien
-The Rutles 2: Can't Buy Me Lunch
-The Colin Quinn Show
-Suns and Daughters
-30 Rock
-Late Night with Jimmy Fallon
-Portlandia

I suspected Mr. Michaels had a stranglehold on comedy towards the American East Coast, but apparently I was being naive. Why is this one guy so involved? Does he have all the right connections? Is he the only person with money that cares about making comedy?
Most people I know don't even classify Saturday Night Live, Lorne's franchise, as actual comedy. A clever New York article written back in 1995: "there's more ailing Saturday Night than any particular personnel defections: The show that once broke all the rules is now obsessed with maintaining its internal pecking order, from where people sit in meetings to how much airtime new cast members deserve...And when it's as bad as it can be, and people still act like there' snothing wrong, then it's sort of like a fuck-you to the audience --'We don't have to be good, because we're Saturday Night Live!' It's like the post office. 'What are you gonna do, deliver the mail yourself?'"
It may or may not be remarkable how little has changed since that article was written. I actually ended up watching Saturday Night Live recently as Tina Fey was the star, and with my current 30 Rock obsession I was hoping for some sort of weird parody sketches or maybe just some exceptional jokes like when certain big stars come on. Alas, you could watch any random SNL episode and get the same feel. Laugh about once for every hour of it you watch; definitely not time effective if you have anything better to do. But really, that seems to be the whole point of the show. Its a bunch of filler for people with crying babies to pay half attention to or any other depressing imagined scenario where a person would find themselves in front of their TV late on a Saturday night. Like David Letterman or any other talk show, they just barely provide enough entertainment to escape the problems of your own life or maybe just fill the room with the voices of other people.


One thing that does impress me about SNL was the costumes. One sketch had Tina Fey as the little mermaid as Osama's corpse fell down the sea on top of her crab friend. Kind of a funny idea, or maybe Disney has some sort of stake in the show??? A separate sketch also referred to Pirates of the Carribean - maybe Disney movies are just really safe pop culture references. ANYWAY what impressed me so much were the little mermaid costumes - something like 8 people had huge, brightly colorful exagerrated costumes that really looked great. The sketch didn't last 3 or 4 minutes, and that was the entire life of all those costumes! I guess they could reuse the costumes at some point, but making costumes sets for just a couple of minutes of airtime is really impressive, since it must cost a lot to have all of that made on short notice.
Considering the half ass appearances to the writing and acting in the show, it doesn't quite add up that props, costumes, sets, etc. would be so top notch. Although compared to celebrity salaries its probably still chicken scratch. The comedy industry seems like a complicated Byzantine political landscape, where success is defined less by a persons' raw ability to be funny in favor of a more holistic set of qualifications: how easy they are to work with, seniority, who their friends are. All I can conclude from what I've read is Lorne is on top of it because he is the best at this portfolio of skills, and he is always hungry to expand it at every opportunity. He eat sleep and breathes the industry. The man is dedicated.

I think we can all relax about SNL being as bad as it is with all of this in mind. In a recent interview with Tina Fey, she lists things she learned as head writer from Lorne Michaels. #1 on the list: Producing is about discouraging creativity.