• I can’t even tell you what us Gen Xers did because I am not sure if the statutes of limitations have run.

    Vaguely, it involved ftp and file repositories hosted unwittingly by large companies plus restricted IRC channels to discuss the locations of such places.

    • Unless you killed somebody, the statutes of limitations have run.

      I still remember the “dumb” tech was AOL warez chatrooms where you interacted with a chat bot to get an email with lists of scene games, movies and other stuff in the traditional multi-RAR parts, and you’d individually request them a few at a time to be emailed. Then you’d move to IRC when you found out could be done faster, or BBSes.

      I’ve probably forgotten most of how things worked.

    • I remember installing a keylogger on the school library computers, then “accidentally” disconnecting the dialup internet and asking the teacher to type the login credentials again. I bet the ISP was confused when they saw so many concurrent logins after hours, all playing Quake and downloading huge files.