Parazite is a strange, scatterbrained anti-censorship library of files and links that revels in its mission and revels in itself. Nekro’s Guide to Hidden Services calls the site “incredibly strange but well-made”, a brief but on point hint at the journey a curious reader will take: bewildered, concerned, disgusted, impressed and then everything all over again in an unknown order.
“I have distributed everything,” writes Chip, the man behind Parazite. “I have distributed to everyone… Some things I like… Some things I don’t like… U don’t like it… AND STILL I DON’T GIVE A SHIT… FUCK U!!!”
Parazite opens as a bombastic circus act dressed defiantly in 90s-style html and near-incomprehensible Time Cube-style writing. This can be credited to the charming Chip being a non-native English speaker in possession of a hyperactive mind and grandiose sense of purpose.
Chip’s name is Marko Sihvo (pictured to the right)
, a 36-year-old man living in Helsinki, Finland. Sihvo has run Parazite since the winter of 1995 when he was just 18-years-old. It’s been 18 years since that launch and it seems like precious little has changed.
The 1995 launch makes the site something of an elder statesmen in the tradition of anti-censorship libraries. Since the inception of Tor in 2002, a number of the libraries have mirrored themselves as an .onion as a precaution against any potential legal action.
Dropping hints of what’s to come, Parazite continues to unfold with sometimes rambling talk of an anti-authoritarian empire, treason, prison camps, terrorist activities and world peace that’s often wrapped in nonsensical strings of English words and peppered with German, Arabic and Finnish.
Eventually, a much needed map to the site is offered up. A list of categories for the files provides a quick guide to what resides in this library:
- ira - “Internet rebel axis” offers e-books such as “Networks and Netwars: The Future of Terror, Crime, and Militancy by John Arquilla, David Ronfeldt”
- jihad - A collection of quotes, propaganda and various files on training for terrorism and “jihadi snuff media” that includes beheading and bombs.
- warez aka. piracy - Chronicles global police action against digital pirates.
- nazism, nationalism, racism & revisionism - A collection of racist propaganda.
- violence & sexual violence - Instructions and celebrations of how to kill or assault men, women and children.
- bombs, destruction & vandalism - A thorough set of instructions on how to create and deploy weapons varying from rocket launches to atomic bombs to “gerbil feed bombs.” The vandalism section offers documents focused on chaos in cars, schools, public toilets and much more.
- hacking, phreaking - Nostalgic articles from the hacking and phreaking scenes of yesterday.
- Columbine ’99 → Myyrmanni y2k1 → Jokela y2k7 → Kauhajoki y2k8 - Documents related to four school shootings including internet footprints from the shooters.
- dealing with the legal system - Books such as “100 ways to disappear” and interrogation tips.
- self-destruction - The idealogy and instruction of suicide.
- crime- How to steal a car, credit card, bike, file and more.
- lock picking - If you’re going to use the breaking and entering guides, this ought to help.
- privacy & cryptography - A small collection on how to surf and talk as anonymously as possible.
- land of ice - Information surrounding LOI, a website busted in 1996 for “distributing obscene material.”
- visual information criminality - Censorship involing child pornography.
- virii aka computer viruses - A largely censored section that once held source code from various viruses.
- (not-so-popular) sexual activity - Documents about “deviant” sexual acts such as necrophilia and zoophilia. Sample doc: “GUIDE TO SEX WITH DOGS AND FAQ’S”
- blasphemy aka. jumalanpilkka - In support of Denmark’s right to blasphemy Islam, a collection of docs surrounding blasphemy and famous cases such as Theo Van Gogh’s.
- cannibalism - Sample doc: “Butchering the Human Carcass for Human Consumption”
- anarchism - Texts on the idealogy of anarchism.
- misc - How to look through trash, cheat at school, lie, run away from home and more.
- drugs - Archives of famous communities such as The Hive and Rhodium as well as guides to manufacturing, consuming and legalization.
The site is “for terroristic, criminal, insane and ignorant (law-neutral irregular asymmetric non-conventional universal peace work) purposes only,” writes Chip, “including but not limited to: receiving professional revolutionary services through international freedom fighting in preemptive counter-tyranny special neutralization operations using inter-continental rendition of non-conventional humanitarian supplies.”
He’s having a laugh, you hope, even if he’s quite serious about what he’s doing.
“Some people may wonder, why I do the things that i do (like have this sick material on-line),” writes Chip. He’s traded these sorts of files for almost two decades and has kept them available online for free ever since.
“In my opinion all information should be freely available.. But no information will be available unless someone does the work.. so when no one (well.. actually there may be few others) else does it much much better.. then there is an opportunity for me to put the information on-line.. I don’t really mind about the contents … It’s just a string of bits.. If there is demand then I will supply.. There is no big difference between (jpg) dog sex and (asm) polyvectorshade source for me … it’s just information.. and when I have/can get some.. then I keep it available.. as freely as possible.”
As freely as possible, Chip offers material both promoting violent jihad and cursing it.
The “nazism, nationalism, racism & revisionism” section of the site was investigated by Finnish authorities in 2006 when the site was “suspected of committing ‘incitement against an ethnic group’. Sihvo himself tipped the police off about his own site in order to test freedom of speech in Finland, according to user WhiteNation88 on the white supremacy forum Stormfront.
A detective recommended that the section “be removed from the internet.” The prosecutor dropped the charges. Parazite repeatedly mentions the case and proudly maintains a list of legal documents surrounding the case and trumpets his resistance to authority: “BRING IT ON!”, he says to authorities contemplating action.
Chip says he is “pro-freedom and anti-regulation,” a position that falls neatly in line with the ideology of a important breed of 1990s netizens that brought the world landmark sites such as drug manufacturing-focused discussion forums like The Hive.
As a service to the overwhelmed and confused, Sihvo wrote this mini-manifesto to sum up himself and his site:
pro-abortion * pro-atheism * pro-commercial sex * pro-distribution of illegal pornography * pro-hard drugs (especially stimulants and hallucinogens) * pro-suicide/assisted-suicide/euthanasia * pro-teen sex
——————————– anti-censorship * anti-copyright * anti-enforcement (["truth" + "health" + "justice" + "security"] ~ “peace”) “services” * anti-legalism * anti-moralism * anti-normalism * anti-paternalism * anti-prohibition * anti-racism * anti-religion * anti-”science” * anti-”skepticism” * anti-sexism * anti-violence
“I know that many people in high positions and their anti-liberty supporters ooppose the views that I represent,” wrote Chip in 1997. ” They will oppose me, even if they knew that I am on the right side. It’s just like South Africa — justice and liberty are raped using “security intrest”, “public intrest” rhetorics and scaretactics to keep the majority on their side. “Security intrest” and “Public intrest” bullshit are just a great excuse for the rulers, they are not trustworthy, they have betrayed liberty many times before. Just look at the movie censorship, many decades of censorship for “public security reasons” and on what basis? There was never a reliable basis for the censorship.”
Parazite’s 15-year-old guest book is filled with praise as recently as a week old. “One of the best sites on tor!!!,” wrote excalibur on May 28, 2013.
“Working my way down a list of onions,” wrote Daschi. “Just discovered the deep web and I’m having a blast. You have a pretty awesome site. Keep on rockin my friend.”
“This site is fucking nuts. I love it. Thank you for everything here.”
“Love the site,” wrote SteveDallas. “A great mixture of completely worthless junk written by 12 year olds from the good ol BBS days, AS WELL AS awesome files keeping speech free and liberty alive. Love it.”
Nice site btw, I really liked the part on how to fuck a goat.