There are a lot of fairly murky, less mainstream parts of the internet. Usenet groups continue to be one, as does IRC, although neither of these are particularly “secret” — they’re just not really popular in the same way that, say, MySpace is popular.
Then again there are some stranger things, right here on the web. Hoodwink.d is one of them.
Hoodwink’d seems to work by using host headers to allow you to visit certain non-standard domains; once there, you can install a greasemonkey script that makes the whole thing work. Obviously, this is incredibly geeky, and the intructions are more or less designed so that a non-techie-geek would be basically unable to join.
What is the point, you may ask? Basically, you can then add comments to sites which have been “winked” — these comments will only show up if you are using the hoodwink’d greasemonkey script. So, all around the web — well, mainly well-trafficked geeky sites like slashdot and boingboing — there are whole dialogs going on which are totally invisible to the majority of the sites visitors.
Elitist? Possibly. Useful? Not really. Counter-intuitive to the open-conversation-centric nature of the web? Maybe.
But at the same time, pretty cool, and downright interesting in the way it all works.
There is not a whole lot of traffic in the hoodwink’d dialogs, but as a proof of concept, it’s a fascinating tool and community.
Speaking of semi-underground chatting, whatever became of Chatsum? I just reinstalled the Firefox extension, and it seems pretty dead….
Can anyone please explain how to install hoodwinkd? I’m completely lost.
There’s really nothing to “install”…
Part of what makes hoodwinkd interesting is that you have to be able to figure it out to get into it. ;-) However, there are (or were, at least) sites out there with instructions, you may want to keep Googling for it.
A couple tips:
- There is a file on windows & linux &c called “hosts”. Maybe look for some information on that. You might see something that looks familiar to part of the hoodwinkd information booth.
- If you’re behind a corporate firewall, it may just Not Work; don’t bang your head against the wall, try it somewhere without a firewall.
Another note: Hoodwinkd is not necessarily a secret clan of underground hackers doing and discussing things of amazing intricacy and import. Then again maybe it is. There are relatively few members and there is relatively little traffic of discussion, so it really isn’t as though you’re missing a world of vibrant color and illumination. On the other hand, if you just think it’s interesting (which I do, and is a good enough reason to want to check it out), keep looking for the way in. Have fun!