Follow me if I advance, kill me if I retreat, avenge me if I die.
- Mary Matalin
Revenge is justice.
- The Last Viking
If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh?
If you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?
- William Shakespeare
The purpose of the newsgroup alt.revenge is to discuss means and methods of revenge. We talk about revenge schemes and exchange ideas and problems. We often have people posting one or two articles about a special problem they have, and then we try to help them as good as we can. We aim to bring out the creativity in people and to make revenge look a bit a more like an art form rather than the old childish' cut his tires, kill him, steal or destroy his property.
Alt.revenge is not a newsgroup that was meant to be put on a long cross-
posting list. It happens sometimes that we are included on cross-posting
lists just because the original sender thinks that we will stirr up things,
and make trouble. We really hate that! So, before you answer an article,
make sure to trim the newsgroups line if it contains more newsgroups than
alt.revenge.
Alt.revenge is not a newsgroup with people who wish to do your revenge. You
have to do your own revenge yourself, that is the only way you can really
retrieve yourself. To hear that someone screwed up your mark doesn't really
make you feel any better. We sometimes get request about mailbombing other
user's account. We will not do that, but we might tell you how you can
accomplish it yourself.
Alt.revenge is not an advertising forum. It is nice to know about revenge
related books and such but that is really where the limit goes.
Alt.revenge is not a newsgroup with the purpose of flaming. Although some
posters really "beg" to be flamed, it is still not our main purpose to do
so. We sometimes have our little fights here, but we're trying to limit
ourselves.
Alt.revenge is not a place where you should post articles like, "I forgot to
logout, please flame me." Put those articles in alt.flame or somewhere else,
we really don't care about them.
Alt.revenge is not a newsgroup for discussion of how to kill or seriously
injure people (or animals). Although some of our suggestion wanderer in the
shadowland of right and wrong (from the law's view) it doesn't mean that we
want to break it all the time. Actually it's much more fun to make your mark
embarrased infront of his friends. Also remember that things, like cars and
houses, are often insured and protected, and if the mark get the money back,
there is no loss on his behalf.
Alt.revenge is not a group for prankers. We sometimes get inspiration and
ideas from prankers, but there is a big difference between revenge and
pranks. (see 04).
Alt.revenge is not a group for people who want to make bombs and blow up
other people. If you're seeking knowledge in making bombs, then we suggest
you go to rec.pyrotechnics. One of the reasons for this is because
explosives are considered unstable at best, and you really don't want to
blow up yourself or become a murderer (terrorist).
The world is evil and if you let things go by, then everyone can abuse you.
If you don't want to be bothered more, if you want total peace, then you can
either move to a place where there is nobody around, or fight back. Let the
bastards know that you're not one of those you're just letting everything
pass by because it's the easiest, let them know that nobody messes with
you!
The difference between revenge and pranks might sometimes be a bit
confusing. The actions which the avenger or the prankster performs are often
very similar. Yet, the avenger will always have a different motive, and in
most cases the magnitude of his actions is more violent and distinct.
The motive of the avenger is to retrieve his justice for something that has
wrongly been done to him. The motive of the prankster is to annoy people to
the point where it amuses the prankster, or atleast he get a kick out of it.
Some people say that avenger's are evil and that pranksters are more mild.
If you forget about motive, then it's often right. Yet, if you bring motive
into it, you will have a situation where the pranksters are the evil ones
who can't let innocent people alone, whilst the avenger is the good ones
who're trying to make their own justice. The motive is clearly different.
It is hard to discuss ethic when we talk about revenge. Often the payback
becomes a bit harder than the cause, maybe to prevent it from happening
again or maybe because it's done hastily or in bitterness. There are also
different levels of revenge, this is discussed in the document '
Ethics of Revenge' available at
The Avenger's Front Page
on the Web (see
#99). A few words of wisdom though;
- Revenge is a dish best served cold. Let your mind cool down, rethink the
matter, the mark will always be there and if you strike when he least
expects it, then you can take advantage of the surprise.
- If the trouble is a problem that can be solved, then solve it. Don't seek
revenge when you can do something about it.
- Is the mark the right one? An important question, sometimes it happens
that people are getting revenge on wrong persons. Base your knowledge on
facts, not indices. There is always a responsibility on the shoulders of
an avenger.
- Dogs, cats. They're animals and can not be held responsible for what
they're doing, wrong or right. If the problem is a dog yelling all night,
then aim you revenge towards the owner.
- It is hard to not involve 3'rd innocent person, but you should strive to
do that. Atleast don't make an innocent hurt in any form. Always try to
imagine that you're that 3'rd person and that you're in their situation.
The best thing is probably to try to make the 3'rd person a secondary
mark.
There are situations where you should avoid revenge. What you choose to do
is completely your own business though.
One situation is very typically, "My girlfriend broke up with me." So, what?
She broke up with you? Maybe you're not good enough for her? Anyway, doesn't
she, as an individual have the right to do that? Now the matter might be
different if she was screwing around or if she did something real inpolite
like throwing you out of the house on Christmas eve. My point is, you are
hurt, but it doesn't always make things right to get even. There will always
be a time to settle things, and the law system has no sense of humor when it
comes to revenge.
Another situation might be if you are thinking about bringing matters into
court, or infront of any other authority (SysAdm!) If you want to do that,
then you really should be careful about what you say and do. Things that are
said or done will usually surface later in such sitations. If you get for
example a threatening email, contact the sysadm/root and complain to him
about it. If you reply in a manner that breaks the net.etiquette then it
might be used against you later.
A third situation might be if there is a war going on. You and your mark
have been playing pranks on each-other for a long time, and it might have
developed into more serious things. Whatever you do, he does back, maybe
even worse. Nobody usually win in a war, so it's probably best to be mature
and call it quit, or you can try talking to the guy.
In another situation it might be that the mark doesn't know he's bothering
you. Like if he is doing something that is really annoying you and you don't
say anything. The best to do in this situation is probably again to talk to
the person and try to find a solution. A solution is almost always better
than revenge.
Many people come to alt.revenge with an article like this, "I am pissed at
my brother, any suggestions for a good revenge?" then they post it. The
problem with this is that we have no clue who your brother is, what he is
doing, where he is working, if he has a girlfriend, if he has some strange
habits or if he sits on his room all day and play the guitar (like mine).
So, please people, give us a clue about who your mark is. Tell us what he
has done, and give us as much relevant information about him as possible.
Also check out The Avenger's Handbook, it contains loads of schemes, maybe
you'll find one that suits you?
Maybe the first thing you should consider before you do anything is the
consequences of your action. Deacon put it well when he wrote, "Be prepared
to do the time for the crime." Many of the revenge schemes described in
alt.revenge involves doing things that are illegal, can you afford getting
caught? It's easy to say that you won't, but there is always some who does.
Will the scheme lead to a solution where the original problem, the reason
why you seek vengance, will go away? Will the mark understand that he is
better off not doing what he originally when you have got your vengance? Is
it possible for the mark to do you wrong again? Can you avoid that? These
are really questions you should ask yourself.
As what you're about to do is getting more serious, it gets more important
that you avoid getting caught or leave tracks on the scene. Things you
should think about is:
-Never use your own phone. (It can be traced)
Okay, this might be a bit paranoid. Yet, if you take many precautions you
will minimize the risk of ending up in the big house.
It is possible to use internet for revenge purposes, but it's not advised.
Everything you do on your VAX or UNIX account is usually audit filed. That
means that your system-operator can monitor and checkout whatever you do
whenever he wants to. This simple fact makes revenge on internet difficult.
The safest way to keep your account might be to get a freenet account or an
account that you pay for. If you buy an account then you can mess more
around, you pay for the service and the system-operator usually let things
go (aslong as you're within legal limits).
Yet, there are ways to use internet for revenge purposes. If you look a bit
around in the fall when the newcomers have just made their "virgin"-login,
you will notice that many of them simply forget to logout. If you use their
account to forge news-articles or email, then be aware that you are
involving an innocent person, unless the mark is the one who forgot to
logout. Another way to get past the audit file is to get the internet access
without using your own account. Many systems has full telnet access which
can be executed without loging in. At most systems this is possible,
although it is often hidden. Check around and talk to some of the geeks to
find to how it can be done. Tell them you have to telnet somewhere but that
you don't have an account at the place you are at. When you have gotten
telnet access, you can break into a news-server or mail-server and then
forge from there. Now the sysop has to prove that you were sitting in the
computer lab at that specific moment (which usually would be hard).
Another way to use internet for revenge purposes is to use netscape from a
borrowed terminal. Often internet is promoted with netscape, what the owners
usually forget is that you an use telnet from netscape. On Internet caffes
you can rent a terminal with netscape running for a certain amount of time,
those are very convenient to use when you want to telnet to port 25.
There are also fake-mail servers and anonymous-servers around, although I
wouldn't guarantee the safety of using those.
This is explained very good in The Avenger's Handbook. Read section
10,11ab and 12 of this FAQ). What it basically is about, is to
telnet directly to the mail/news server and talk directly to it. This is
traceable though, so be careful.
Good forgers can change almost everything on the article or email that
they're forging. Yet, there is one distinct traceable line, that is the
message ID line.
Message-ID: <3m3u2c$bv0@athos.cc.bellcore.com>
This message was sent from bellcore com. If someone forged an article and
that article contained that message-ID, then I suggest that you email
postmaster@athos.cc.bellcore.com or root@athos.cc.bellcore.com and ask if
he can look in his audit file. Yet, the message-ID can be changed.
Message-ID: <3m3u2c$bv0@athos.cc.bellcore.com>
The header in the article above suggest that someone from diablo.onthenet.
com.au has broken into the athos.cc.bellcore.com nntp server
and forged an article from there, in this case you should email both the
sysops at diablo.onthenet.com.au and athos.cc.bellcore.com. There are ways
to avoid getting that NNTP-Posting-Host line, but there is no way (that I
know of) to alter it.
Path: news.mindlink.net!rover.ucs.ualberta.ca!overland.foo!bellcore.com!news
The article above would have been forged from rover.ucs.ualberta.ca,
overland.foo doesn't exist so it couldn't have been in the rightful path-
line. You can usually use the ping command to check if a site or router
exist.
NOTE! All examples above are made situations, the original posters did
not forge or fake anything. I just made it look like they did.
This 25 thing that people are talking about is the port 25 of a server,
which is it's mail-server. E.g. if you telnet to your domain with 25 as the
port number (e.g. for me, telnet stud.cs.uit.no 25) then you will be able to
talk directly to the mail-server. Every login onto this port (and everything
else you do on the net, for that matter) is logged. That means that it's
traceable. Even if you make a forgery were you can't see that you're the
sender, it's possible for the administrator to see where it comes from.
You can do the same thing with the news server, were you would have to use
port 119.
Mailbombing is a term that we use for sending quantities of junk mail to a
specific target (user). This can be done in two ways, you can send the user
many short emails, or you can send the user a few HUGE emails. If you send
him, say, 350 messages saying "fuck you", then he will have to delete all of
the messages, which would be both tiresome and annoying in the lenght. If
you send him a few huge messages, then you might be lucky enough to use up
all his disc quota. If you're a real bold one and sends GIGANTIC amounts of
crap email, then you might be lucky enough to crash their system.
Yet, before you try any of this, remember that you're audited and that it
will be traced back to you. Source code to help you send big quantities of
email can be found at
The Avenger's Front Page.
The best way of dealing with crime and harrassment on the internet is to
complain directly to the user's sysop. It is imporant that you behave
politically correct and that you're not just flaming when you file the
complaint. A person who files this kind of complaint are on the internet
often refered to as net.cop.
The administration can usually be reached at root@domain, staff@domain or
postmaster@domain. The safest assumption would be to post directly to root.
e.g., root@aol.com, postmaster@netcom.com or root@mit.edu.
If the complain is filed due to an article of threatening nature you should
extend the complaints a bit; contact your local police and their local
police, contact their school's security dept. and the Dean of Student
Affairs at their campus or their employer.
If their message is of a personally threatening nature that makes references
to you race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation, you may also want to contact:
The American Civil Liberties Union or one of various group-oriented civil
rights groups like the NAACP, JDL, ADL, Americans with Disabilities,
ACTU-UP, etc.
If their message is a pyramid scheme, contact their service providers as
outlined above, and also contact the FBI and/or the US Treasury Department.
There are millions of users on the internet, and there is no complete
directory where you can look them up. Yet, there are many ways to retrieve
information about people on the net. The first thing you usually need to
know is the mail address. If you don't have the email adress you won't get
far. A way to get this is to ask the postmaster at the place were the person
you're seeking is located. E.g. send an email to postmaster@domain asking
for the email address of the user you're seeking.
When you have the email adress you can try fingering the user. This is done
by writing finger name@domain. This will usually give you the whole name of
the user and wether he's loged in or not. Sometimes users have a .plan and a
.project file were there might be addtional information (some users writes
their address and phone number in the .plan file) (suckers!).
If you already have the email address, then it might be a good idea to start
looking on the World Wide Web. Many American Universities has complete
directories of their employees and users available on the Web. If you go to
The Avenger's Front Page (see #99) you will find a hotkey for a location
where there is a list of most Universities that had net access. When you get
to the home-page of the University where the mark is a student, then you
can start searching for a phone or address book (Not every University has
one)
Another way to find the University home-page is removing stuff from the
users email address. e.g. paalde@stud.cs.uit.no would be
http://www.uit.no/.
There is a script called
http://www.umd.umich.edu:80/~nhughes/htmldocs/av.html
(Nathan Hughes)
The Avenger's Front Page is now available on the World Wide Web. You will
there find a whole collection of revenge schemes and related material. It's
definitely worth looking at. You can retrieve it by selecting the URL:
http://www.cs.uit.no/~paalde/Revenge/
If you fail to download
The Avenger's Handbook, then just email me and I
will send it to you...
02... What is alt.revenge not about?
03... Why can't we all be friends?
04... What is the difference between revenge and pranks?
05... What kind of ethic codes should I follow in alt.revenge?
06... When should I avoid revenge?
07... How do I present my problem in the newsgroup?
08... What do I need to think about before I plan my revenge?
09... How do I avoid getting caught?
-Never use your own computer account. (It can be traced)
-Never drive to your mark's house with your own car. (Park some blocks away)
-Never work with bare your hands uncovered. (Use gloves)
-Never let anyone see you. (Sneak in, sneak out)
-Never talk to anyone about what you have done. (No bragging!)
-Never steal anything. (As it might connect you with the crime)
-Never use your own hand writing or your own printer. (It can be traced)
-Never involve a 3'rd person. (Don't trust anyone)
-Never mail a letter from or near your home city/town, workplace, etc.
-Never use saliva on an envelope or stamp.
-Never use credit cards or personal checks to purchase revenge supplies.
10... How can I use internet for revenge purposes?
11a.. How do I forge an email/news message?
11b.. How do I trace a forged article or email?
NNTP-Posting-Host: diablo.onthenet.com.au
Message-ID: <3m3u2c$bv0@athos.cc.bellcore.com>
12... What is this 25/119 thing, and how can I do it?
13... What is mailbombing?
14... How do I deal with internet crime and harrassment?
15... How can I find information about people on Internet?
99... Where can I find revenge related text on the Internet?
Europe:
http://www.cs.uit.no/~paalde/Revenge/TAH.html
(The Last Viking)