Investigations

Under Forty Gigabytes of Grief: The Desperate Race to Save GeoCities Before Yahoo Pulled the Plug

In 2009, Yahoo announced it was deleting 38 million personal homepages, MIDI soundtracks, animated GIFs, and the awkward digital first impressions of an entire generation. A ragged band of volunteer archivists had about three months to save as much as possible. They almost did it.

Jun 25, 2026

The Pirates Hollywood Forgot: Inside XDCC's Unstoppable Underground Empire

While the MPAA was busy killing Napster and suing grandmothers, IRC's XDCC protocol quietly became the internet's most resilient piracy network. Twenty-five years later, it's still running under Hollywood's nose—and thriving.

Mar 17, 2026