Internet Underground
March 24, 2015 9:00 AM Subscribe
Online For Issue 1
December 1995
Features:
"Arbiters Of Cool"
The Siskels and Eberts of the bandwidth. Who are these guys, and are they cool?
"The Bug Heard Round the World":
Netscape hackers discover security breaches in the world's most popular browser.
Behind the Internet’s first magazine
browse the archives
Confessions of a Smut Blocker, 1997
Ziff-Davis suspended publication in 1997.
Tickled to see On The Net With... Rodney Dangerfield.
posted by Superfrankenstein at 10:01 AM on March 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
IU: How did you get interested in the Internet and cyberspace?And whaddya know, Rodney.com is still up and looking good.
RD: My wife showed me and I thought it was wild.
posted by Superfrankenstein at 10:01 AM on March 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
If you can google it, not underground. If it has a term "darknet", not underground. If it's unencrypted, or even using an identifiable encryption scheme, not underground. [sapphire, pass it on]
posted by sammyo at 10:44 AM on March 24, 2015
posted by sammyo at 10:44 AM on March 24, 2015
I remember this. Still have an old hardcopy or two or three in my old magazine collection.
So this was a physical thing; which seemed like an oddity at the time - a physical magazine about the online world. Unlike Boing Boing (the physical magazine - I have some copies of that as well) and Mondo 2000 (I have almost the entire collection of those) it was entirely focused on online stuff; generally with a focus on 'the underground'. 2600 was directed at wanna be hackers; those actually engaged in shady activities (or people wanting to be)... This was more for people interested and curious (but not actually knowledgeable).
It certainly had a niche; there really wasn't anything like it at the time. But holy cow, 1995 wasn't a good time to start a new magazine. And people could find out about 'cool sites' on... the internet; they didn't really need a magazine for it.
Sammyo: That's a pretty narrow definition of 'underground'. By your definition there was no underground anything until the internet was around and crypto protected sites were available. Also, if you are using an UNidentifiable encryption scheme, you've probably brewed your own crypto, and chances are it's crappy/useless crypto. Don't brew your own crypto, for securities sake.
Netscape hackers discover security breaches in the world's most popular browser.
One of those two researchers went on to invent OTR (off-the-record); great to see folks move from breaking stuff to securing it (he's a prof now at a large university).
posted by el io at 12:24 PM on March 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
So this was a physical thing; which seemed like an oddity at the time - a physical magazine about the online world. Unlike Boing Boing (the physical magazine - I have some copies of that as well) and Mondo 2000 (I have almost the entire collection of those) it was entirely focused on online stuff; generally with a focus on 'the underground'. 2600 was directed at wanna be hackers; those actually engaged in shady activities (or people wanting to be)... This was more for people interested and curious (but not actually knowledgeable).
It certainly had a niche; there really wasn't anything like it at the time. But holy cow, 1995 wasn't a good time to start a new magazine. And people could find out about 'cool sites' on... the internet; they didn't really need a magazine for it.
Sammyo: That's a pretty narrow definition of 'underground'. By your definition there was no underground anything until the internet was around and crypto protected sites were available. Also, if you are using an UNidentifiable encryption scheme, you've probably brewed your own crypto, and chances are it's crappy/useless crypto. Don't brew your own crypto, for securities sake.
Netscape hackers discover security breaches in the world's most popular browser.
One of those two researchers went on to invent OTR (off-the-record); great to see folks move from breaking stuff to securing it (he's a prof now at a large university).
posted by el io at 12:24 PM on March 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
"Underground" is the term we used back then, I assure you. It was basically any site too small for any of the web directories of the time. Google.com didn't even exist as its own entity until late 1997.
posted by eamondaly at 1:07 PM on March 24, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by eamondaly at 1:07 PM on March 24, 2015 [3 favorites]
Some sites that I've worked on were featured in Internet Underground a few times, and it was exciting because it's fun to be in a magazine that's on sale at the supermarket. But I never saw any real spike in traffic—it was hard enough to make sense of any traffic in the '90s—and never heard from anyone who learned about the sites through that magazine. I wonder what the readership was, both in numbers and demographics.
There was another magazine about the Internet from that era, called "The Web." It had a more mainstream approach, and was apparently intended for people who didn't have an Internet connection: The magazine included a CD-ROM holding a few pages from each featured site. I remember having to fill out all these corporate permissions forms before they would scrape my site and add these html files to their CD-ROM. I bought a copy of the magazine at Safeway and tried the CD ... all the image files on my site were broken, even though the images were there on the CD. HTML was tough for a lot of people.
posted by kenlayne at 5:16 PM on March 24, 2015 [3 favorites]
There was another magazine about the Internet from that era, called "The Web." It had a more mainstream approach, and was apparently intended for people who didn't have an Internet connection: The magazine included a CD-ROM holding a few pages from each featured site. I remember having to fill out all these corporate permissions forms before they would scrape my site and add these html files to their CD-ROM. I bought a copy of the magazine at Safeway and tried the CD ... all the image files on my site were broken, even though the images were there on the CD. HTML was tough for a lot of people.
posted by kenlayne at 5:16 PM on March 24, 2015 [3 favorites]
Kenlayne, we had the same experience with a couple of those cd type mags. I also remember going to CeBit, and taking CDs of our print mags to be slide shows at the booth, because it was the only way you could electronically display something as graphics dependent as a magazine about 3d design because browsers that displayed images did it poorly and slowly.
posted by dejah420 at 6:24 PM on March 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by dejah420 at 6:24 PM on March 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
The Death and Life of Great American GeoCities
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:06 AM on March 27, 2015
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:06 AM on March 27, 2015
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