History of 127/8 as localhost/loopback addresses (2021)
Keith Henson (who happens to be an old friend of John Gilmore, who wrote the internet-history post we&#x27;re discussing) had to explain a geeky in joke about the 127.0.0.1 local loopback address, public ftp sites, secret copyrighted Scientologist OT religious texts, and a great troll of the usenet alt.religion.scientology group, in a legal deposition, under oath, to Scientology lawyers, while rolling on the floor laughing hysterically.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Keith_Henson#Scientology" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Keith_Henson#Scientology</a><p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;smokyhole.org&#x2F;kh&#x2F;kh.htm" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;smokyhole.org&#x2F;kh&#x2F;kh.htm</a><p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cryonet.org&#x2F;cgi-bin&#x2F;dsp.cgi?msg=6289" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cryonet.org&#x2F;cgi-bin&#x2F;dsp.cgi?msg=6289</a><p>Readers of alt.religion.scientology were astonished to notice a large collection of alleged secret, copyrighted and trade secret protected documents of the church of scientology posted anonymously over the weekend of May 5. An expert source known to Biased Journalism verified the documents as authentic.<p>[snip--to transcript from a deposition of Keith Henson by the &quot;Church&quot; of Scientology. Lieberman is their lawyer.]<p>Lieberman: do you know who Patrick J. Volk is?<p>Henson: to the best of my knowledge I&#x27;ve never heard of this person.<p>Lieberman explains that Volk is apparently communicating from some educational institution in Pittsburgh. Henson still doesn&#x27;t recognize the name. Lieberman hands Henson a document.<p><pre><code>    From: hkhenson@shell.portal.com (H Keith Henson)
    Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
    Subject: Re: OT Materials...
    Date: 6 Apr 1995 19:35:38 GMT

    Parick J Volk (pjvst+@pitt.edu) wrote:
    :    Screw the courts....
    :    I have an ftp site for all the OT materials...
    :    ftp:127.0.0.1  &#x2F;pub&#x2F;texts&#x2F;news&#x2F;alt&#x2F;religion&#x2F;scientology
    :    I don&#x27;t know how long I&#x27;ll have it up.
    :    P J Volk
    :    (alt.2600 lives! All hail the clams and trolls!)

    Great stuff!  But don&#x27;t you expect the &#x27;ho to blow a gasket?
</code></pre>
Henson: (cracks up) this is a great troll.<p>Lieberman: (acidly) you find this amusing?<p>Henson: yes. It&#x27;s an in joke.<p>Lieberman quotes from the Volk post: &quot;screw the courts&quot; and also says that he has an ftp site for all the OT materials. &quot;Mr. Henson is laughing hysterically about this posting for reasons that I suppose he understands--&quot; Henson offers to explain.<p>Lieberman: What&#x27;s an ftp site?<p>Henson explains that ftp means file transfer protocol. You can use almost any machine on the Internet to access a file on almost any other machine, that has been placed in an ftp directory, he says with relish. [He goes on at length about how this is done.]<p>Lieberman: Okay. &quot;So when he said &#x27;I have an ftp site for all the OT materials,&#x27; he is saying he has all the OT materials on a site which people can access.&quot; Was Henson aware of Patrick Volk&#x27;s ftp site? Does this refresh your recollection? he demands.<p>Henson: well, you see right after the colon, it says ftp:127.0.0.1?<p>Lieberman: yes.<p>Henson: that&#x27;s a loopback address.<p>Lieberman wants to pursue the question of the site with the OT materials. Was Henson aware of Patrick Volk&#x27;s ftp site?<p>Henson: (patiently) It&#x27;s at 127.0.0.1. This is a loop back address. This is a troll.<p>Lieberman: what&#x27;s a troll?<p>Henson: it comes from the fishing where you troll a bait along in the water and a fish will jump and bite the thing, and the idea of it is that the internet is a very humorous place and it&#x27;s especially good to troll people who don&#x27;t have any sense of humor at all, and this is a troll because an ftp site of 127.0.0.1 doesn&#x27;t go anywhere. It loops right back around into your own machine.<p>Lieberman [not getting it]: So the idea here was to make the church think that this person had an ftp site and to take action against him and, in fact, he didn&#x27;t have it; is that your point?<p>Henson: Oh, it&#x27;s really humorous, and I picked up on it and instantly added something to extend the troll. Extending the trolls like this is an art form of the highest order.<p>Lieberman (acidly): I see. So this is part of your art form where you say, &quot;don&#x27;t you expect the &#x27;ho to blow a gasket?&quot;<p>Henson: yes.<p>Lieberman (starting to lose his temper): so you do remember this posting apparently?<p>Henson (helpfully): I can&#x27;t remember for certain that I did this one, and certainly I could not swear to any of the material on here being letter perfect on it (but he goes on to say that it is such a good one that he would be happy to take credit for it).<p>Lieberman: You find this whole thing kind of amusing, don&#x27;t you?<p>Henson: Oh, this is screamingly funny.<p>Lieberman (no more Mr. Nice Guy): You find it amusing to make Helena Kobrin and the church go after you or other people for this sort of thing, whether you have the materials or not; is that right?<p>Henson: It&#x27;s a great game.<p>Lieberman: It is a great game. You really find it amusing, don&#x27;t you?<p>Henson: It&#x27;s an extremely amusing thing.<p>Lieberman: All right. You find it amusing when you receive these letters from Ms. Kobrin, the cease and desist letters? It&#x27;s part of the game; isn&#x27;t it? [This goes on for awhile as Lieberman hammers at the point. Henson reiterates that he is amused, and wants to talk about the SP levels.]<p>Lieberman: You find it an amusing part of the game when you receive these cease and desist letters, right?<p>Henson: No, no. It&#x27;s not amusing, it&#x27;s a major increment in status.<p>Lieberman: I see. You feel this increases your status, right? On the internet, on a.r.s.<p>Henson: Yes, absolutely.<p>Lieberman: All right. And it&#x27;s all part of this game, right?<p>Henson: Absolutely.<p>Lieberman: It&#x27;s all part of the troll, right?<p>Henson (waving exhibit): This is a great troll. I mean, anybody in the computer business instantly would have spotted this, ftp:127. In fact, it even says trolls in here (indicating). In fact, this was cross-posted from --<p>Lieberman has heard more than enough about trolls: &quot;There is no question pending. You can hold your comments.&quot;<p>Lieberman (with an air of getting into the bizarre nature of the situation): why did you think this would cause Ms. Kobrin to blow a gasket?<p>Henson: this wasn&#x27;t addressed to Helena. He goes on to explain that the message is a loop back. If it worked at all it would be a loopback to your own machine. If you tried it you&#x27;d discover it&#x27;s a troll. The 127 is the loopback address! It&#x27;s a joke, but the lawyer isn&#x27;t getting it.<p>[The observer notices that the RTC lawyer has connected &quot;the &#x27;ho&quot; with Ms. Kobrin. Evidently the nickname has made transit to the solid world. Ms. Kobrin is stuck with it for life.]