TIL during the early days of the internet, companies tried to prohibit linking to some of their sites. The linked site linked to all of them during half of 2002

Internet security in 2002 was an unpublished URL!

I was once accused of hacking at a former job. I used File Explorer to log into a remote system and look at files of a program we were troubleshooting, while they were logged into the desktop remotely. In those days, Windows only allowed 1 connection (plus console, but that's another story), so when I started describing the file structure, they got all quiet. Then they asked how I could see that, which I explained I just used File Explorer. They didn't know how I could use Explorer (they didn't know the difference between File and Internet Explorer) to access the server, so obviously I must be hacking. I explained how I was just looking at the files, and if that's really relevent as the software was currently broken and we were trying to fix it for them. They insisted that I stop hacking their servers. So I had to spend the rest of the session asking them to describe the file structure over the phone so I could troubleshoot their software.

You'd think this was at some podunk little company...but no, this was a multi-billion dollar oil company in Texas. Never overestimate the abilities of someone just because they work for a large company.

I was accused some years ago (like... 2012?) of "hacking" an alpha of an online game because I changed some urls to get items or move them between players... I actually documented all of this and sent them plenty of bug reports. It was an alpha, after all and we were specifically asked to report bugs.
They then literally sent me an email and told them that they can see my provider from my IP and will contact them to sue me for hacking...

The game never left their alpha state and soon after closed down completely over some drama where a mod got access to important keys and locked everyone out.

Fun fact: the programmer of that pile of shit then announced that they started working for a huge online game company.

Remember in the early days when a teacher would write a super long url on the chalkboard and then you had to write it down with a pencil on paper, and then later type it all into a computer

This post's title will surely be a finalist at the inaugural fediverse dementia inducing post title awards!

Is it 2002, or the early days of the internet?

Most sites you could navigate all files and pages as file explorer. No unauthorized errors.

Good times!

Elite hackers at Reuters

Man the guessing the url part just trigger a memory for me but I can't remember what the site was... Was a website back in early/mid 2000s that used to do a girl of the day post, it was originally a clothed and naked shot but for some reason around 2006 that stopped having the links for the naked shots, you used to have to manually add a N to the end of the url... Anyone remember what that site was, page style was heavily black with fluro green accents

We're not so far away from that as you may think. The judicial power still lies in the hands of rich boomers who don't understand shit. Watch the politics - they almost catch up to the 21rst century. Almost.

Awww, come on. /. still exists. Here's the URL to them directly.