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goatse.cx

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Goatse" and "Goatsex" redirect here. For the computer hacker group, seeGoatse Security.For sex among goats, seeGoat § Reproduction.

goatse.cx
Type of site
Shock site
Available inEnglish
CommercialNo
RegistrationNone
Launched1999
Current statusDefunct (but has mirrors)

goatse.cx(/ˈɡoʊtsidɒtˌsiːˈɛks/GOHT-see-dot-see-EKS,/ˈɡoʊtˌsɛks/;"goat sex" ), often spelled without the.cxtop-level domainasGoatse,is aninternet domainthat originally housed an Internetshock site.Its front page featured a picture entitledhello.jpg,showing a close-up of a hunched-over naked man using both hands to stretch open hisanusand expose his redrectumlit by thecamera flash.

The photo became anInternet meme,and has been used inbait-and-switchpranks,prevention ofhot-linkingin a hostile manner, anddefacement of websites,in order toprovoke extreme reactions.Even though the image from the site was taken down in January 2004, mirror websites are widespread.

History[edit]

As a shock site (1999-2004)[edit]

The website's domain was originally registered in 1999. The earliest form of the site only consisted of two pages, both of which had images noted for theirshock value:[1]

  • "the receiver", the main index page, titled "eh", containedhello.jpg.
  • "the giver", titled "woah", contained amanipulatedphotograph of a man reclining on a boat with a largepenisreaching up to his chest, suggesting that the man in the first image is stretching his anus to accommodate the giant penis.

In June 2000, a Feedback page was added to the site, which contained various emails from readers, alongside anindexpage contentdisclaimerwarning above. A link to a defunct website called biganal was added in August.[2]Later additions to the site by mid-2001 were links to other defunct websites such as dolphinsex.org and urinalpoop.org, and a subpage called "contrib", which consisted of a collection of homages and parodies of the images received from readers.[3]

The website was updated again in November 2002, adding a warning below the image about unofficial goatse.cxmerchandise,with a reassurance that official merchandise would be made available.[4]

Domain suspension (2004-2007)[edit]

On January 14, 2004, thedomain namegoatse.cxwas suspended[5]byChristmas Island Internet Administrationdue toAcceptable Use Policyviolations in response to a complaint,[6]but manymirrorsof the site are still available,[7]remaining on display on many other websites. AChristmas Islandresidentfiled the complaint that resulted in the suspension of goatse.cx's domain name.[1]

Sale of domain name (2007-2010)[edit]

In January 2007, the Christmas Island Internet Administration put the domain goatse.cx back into the available domain pool. Following this, the domain began housing varioustyposquattingsites.[8][9]

The domain was subsequentlyregisteredon January 16 through domain registrar Variomedia,[10]and the registrant tried to auction the right to use the domain.[11]

An early attempt to offer the domain for sale by SEOBidding placed the reserve at $120, which was not met.[12]

The goatse.cx domain name was reportedly sold at anauctionon April 30, 2007, to an unknown bidder. According to SEOBidding, the first auction ended with fake bids so the auction was reactivated.[13]This was again won by fake bidders, so in July SEOBidding announced that the website would be sold for $500,000 and thatlegal actionwould be pursued against the fake bidders.[14]In October, the website redirected to aSedoholding page, stylized as a search engine.[15]On November 25, 2007, and continuing as of June 2010, the site was still for sale, listed as: "goatse.cx Asking: $50,200 minimum".

First relaunch (2008-2011)[edit]

On July 4, 2008, the website was relaunched and became home to a parody of the original site, with thehello.jpgimage replaced with an image ofBill O'Reilly,although the file name and alt text remained the same as before, with red text above mentioning about the website still being for sale.[16]This image was later replaced in December with another showcasing a stylized representation ofhello.jpg,which featured a pair of silverrobotichands 'stretching' a metallic, circular wallaperturein what appears to be afuturisticfactory setting, with a photoshopped image of the characterGumbynext to it. Above the image was a link to a site called imagechan.[17]

In April 2010, the site was updated after almost a year, containing an announcement for an emailing service called "Goatse Stinger 2.0" that was planned to go into beta on May 9, 2010. The website also added a Yahoo! mailing list, and a sketch with hands spreading wide a view onto a mailingenvelope,parodyinghello.jpg.[18]This was later revealed to be a planned email service at the site.[19]This was never updated beyond that point, and by June 2011, the "" version of the website began redirecting to a web-hosting company's website.[20][21]

Second relaunch (2012-2017)[edit]

In October 2012, it was announced that the goatse.cx domain had been acquired by a new owner, who was advertising a forthcoming webmail service to give users access to goatse.cx email addresses.[22][23]The domain, at that time, redirected to signup.goatse.cx, which said the service would be "launching in early December 2012 for limited release".[24]By 2013, the website had launched anIndiegogoaccount for supplying the email addresses.[25]

In January 2014, the site announced that it was preparing to launch its owncryptocurrency,the "Goatse Coin". The website was later updated to reflect this.[26]By July, the website featured a YouTube video promotingDogecoin.[27]

In December, the website announced that it would be offering subdomains.[28][29]

Use as cryptocurrency website (2017-2022, 2024-present)[edit]

In August 2017, the website became home to a crypto website different from the "Goatse Coin" incarnation, offering up a cryptocurrency titled the "Goatseum", activating as anethereumsite.[30]By October, the website announced plans for a meme cryptocurrency service, with the news section mentioning its past history of being aninternet meme.[31]

On November 18, 2018, after a period of maintenance, the website became home to a page where advertisers could buy pixels forethereum.[32][33][34]

In May 2022, the site's domain lapsed and began redirecting to a Sedoparked domainpage, containing no content related to Goatse. A copy of the original site can be found at the goatse.info domain.

On March 31, 2024, the website was relaunched with text teasing a new project.[35]The following week, the site's Twitter page revealed this to be a new incarnation of the "Goatse Coin" cryptocurrency project from prior.[36]Afterwards, the site's domain began redirecting to a group on the messaging board website Telegram connected to the Goatse Coin project. Both pages utilize a pixelated version ofhello.jpgas its profile image and cover photo.[37]Later on in the month, the site officially relaunched, describing its new crypto coin as being "The World's First Shock Token".[38]

Reception, parodies and subsequent usage[edit]

Because many Internet users have been tricked into viewing the site or a mirror of the site at one time or another,[39]it has become an Internet meme.[1] On November 24, 2000, the Goatse "giver" and "receiver" images were posted to the official onlineOprah WinfreyMessage Boards in theSoul Storiesboard. Trystan T. Cotten and Kimberly Springer, authors ofStories of Oprah: the Oprahfication of American Culture,said that this "seemingly considerable male intrusion drove many of the women elsewhere, and the board was retired shortly afterwards".[40]Slashdotaltered its threaded discussion forum display software because "users made a sport out of tricking unsuspecting readers into visiting [goatse.cx]".[41] TheLos Angeles TimesWikitorialwas introduced on June 17, 2005, to be a publicly accessible method of directly responding to the paper's editorials; Wikipedia co-founderJimmy Waleshad consulted on the project, and on its first day contributed a "forking" of the page to accommodate opposing opinions.[42]Prior to the feature's introduction,L.A. Timeseditorialand opinion editorMichael Kinsleystated that "Wikitorials may be one of those things that within six months will be standard. It's the ultimate in reader participation".[43]The wiki was closed two days later on June 19, 2005, because,The Guardianreported, "explicit images known as Goatses appeared on [it]".[42]

The practice of using goatse.cx as a "fake" link to shock friends became popular, according toROFLconorganizer Tim Hwang in an interview onNPR,because

it's... the spectacle of the thing, right? You really want to be there when the person is seeing it. To the extent that there's all these sites online of sort of people taking pictures of their friends and showing them Goatse... [In photos online,] It's like thousands and thousands of people looking really shocked or disgusted. It's really great.[44]

The goatse.cx image has been used by website authors to discourage other sites fromhot-linkingto them. By replacing thehot-linkedimage with an embarrassing image when hot-linking has been discovered, an unsubtle message is sent to the offending website's operators, visible to all who view the web page in question.[45]In 2007,Wiredhot-linked to another site in an article about the "sexiest geeks of 2007"; the site subsequently swapped the hot-linked image with one from goatse.cx.[46]

FollowingHurricane Charleyin August 2004, a photograph purporting to show "the hands of God" in the cloud formations in the aftermath of the disaster circulated via email. The image was eventually proven to be a parody, the clouds having been photo-manipulated to include hands, as in thehello.jpgimage.[47]

In his bookThe Long Tail(2008), Chris Anderson wrote that goatse.cx is well-known only to a relatively small Internet-using "subcultural tribe" who reference it as a "shared context joke" or "secret membership code". Anderson cited a photo accompanying an "otherwise innocuous article" about Google in the June 2, 2005The New York Times,in whichAnil Dashwore a T-shirt emblazoned with stylized hands stretching out the word "Goatse".[48][49][50]

In June 2007, a proposed sketch of the2012 Summer Olympics logoappeared on theBBC News 24broadcast and website[51][52][53]as one of the 12 best viewer-submitted alternatives to the official logo. In it, two hands stretched the "0" wide in "2012", as the submitter wrote, "to reveal the Olympics".[51]The sketch was later shown as part of a gallery of viewers logos onBBC London Newsand BBC News 24, and was subsequently removed from the website. The editor of the BBC News website acknowledged the mistake in his blog, saying his team "simply didn't spot it".[54]

In June 2010, a group of computer experts known asGoatse Securityexposed a flaw inAT&T's security which allowed the e-mail addresses ofiPadusers to be revealed.[55]Andrew Auernheimer(aliasweev), a member of the group, was interviewed by the media and discussed the group's name, among other things.[56]The group uses a stylized cartoon of the cropped goatse.cx image as their logo and has the motto "Gaping Holes Exposed".[57]

The Registerreported thatScottish TV News,while reporting on a hacking incident, unintentionally broadcast a link to Goatse images while showing theLulzSecTwitterfeed on the victim site, which read, "For anyone that doesn't know what goatse is, check it out here, it's really eye-opening: [link]".[58]

In May 2015, pranksters displayed Goatse on a digital billboard inBuckhead,Atlanta,Georgia.[59]

Pranksters signed thePGP keysofFacebookandAdrian LamowithASCII artof Goatse.[60]

In 2022, severalmodsfor the gameGarry's Modwere noted to have been altered to cause "pornographic jumpscares" of the Goatse image.[61]An article fromPC Gamerdescribed the image as "really upsetting" and noted the prominence of the mod in the game's community leading to many being affected.[61]

In September 2022, news media reported multiple incidents across the US of users of the elementary school interactive appSeesawhaving their accounts compromised in order to post links to the image in parent-teacher chatrooms. Seesaw later removed the images and stated that the breach had only affected the accounts of individual users withinsecure credentials.[62][63]

U.S. jurisprudence[edit]

On September 20, 2013, theUnited States Department of Justicefiled a response brief[64]in theUnited States Court of Appeals for the Third CircuitinUnited States v. Auernheimer,an appeal in a criminal case from theUnited States District Court for the District of New Jersey,which involved the access of AT&T customers' email addresses by Goatse Security.[65]The brief explains on page three that "The firm's name is a reference to a notoriously obscene internet shock site" and includes a footnote which reads "For a more graphic description, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goatse."

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^abcKirkpatrick, Stewart (June 9, 2004)."Lazy Guide to Net Culture: NSFW".The Scotsman.Archivedfrom the original on December 31, 2007.RetrievedJune 15,2010.Links to complaint.
  2. ^"The Receiver"goatse.cx2000. Archived from theoriginalArchivedOctober 12, 1999, at theWayback MachineDecember 2, 2000.
  3. ^"The Receiver"goatse.cx2004. Archived from theoriginalJanuary 9, 2004.
  4. ^"The Receiver"goatse.cx1999. Archived from theoriginalArchivedMay 25, 2010, at theWayback MachineOctober 12, 1999.
  5. ^Miller, Garth (January 12, 2004)."Notice Regarding AUP Complaint Version 1.1 (redacted)"(PDF).Christmas Island Internet Administration. Archived fromthe original(PDF)on May 31, 2004.
  6. ^.cx – Christmas Island (.cx ccTLD) Acceptable Use PolicyArchivedMay 19, 2011, at theWayback Machine.Council of Country Code Administrators. Retrieved June 15, 2010.
  7. ^"goatse.cx 2003".Archived fromthe originalon June 23, 2003.RetrievedMay 8,2007.
  8. ^https://web.archive.org/web/20070226025015/http://goatse.cx/
  9. ^"goatse I need free trimspa please i dont have money".March 24, 2007. Archived fromthe originalon March 24, 2007.RetrievedMarch 10,2023.
  10. ^Variomedia AG – Domain-Registrierung, Webhosting, ResellerArchivedDecember 8, 2007, at theWayback MachineOfficial website. Retrieved June 15, 2010.
  11. ^Portail d'informations Ce site est en vente!ArchivedDecember 2, 2000, at theWayback Machine(in French)(Site content no longer present.)
  12. ^"SEOBidding goatse.cx Auction Listing".SEOBidding.April 2007. Archived fromthe originalon April 10, 2007.RetrievedJune 15,2010.
  13. ^Brownlee, John (April 24, 2007)."goatse.cx Now For Sale!".blogs.wired.Condé Nast Digital.Archivedfrom the original on April 27, 2007.RetrievedMay 8,2007.
  14. ^"SEOBidding goatse.cx Auction Listing".Archived fromthe originalon July 13, 2007.RetrievedJune 15,2010.
  15. ^"Goatse.cx - the Best goatse Resources and Information".Archived fromthe originalon October 2, 2007.
  16. ^"Goatse.cx - Goatse".Archived fromthe originalon October 1, 2008.
  17. ^"Goatse.cx - Goatse".Archived fromthe originalon December 18, 2008.
  18. ^"Goatse.cx (2010 May 9)".Archived fromthe originalon May 7, 2010.RetrievedMay 11,2022.
  19. ^"Goatse.cx (2010 May 25)".Archived fromthe originalon May 25, 2010.RetrievedMay 11,2022.
  20. ^"Smarter web hosting - WebFaction".Archived fromthe originalon June 22, 2011.
  21. ^"Redirect".goatse.cx.webfaction. Archived fromthe originalon July 17, 2011.RetrievedJuly 17,2011.
  22. ^"Goatse Mail".Archived fromthe originalon October 21, 2012.
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  24. ^"Signup.goatse.cx".Archived fromthe originalon November 12, 2012.RetrievedMay 11,2022.
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  27. ^"Goatse.cx - Goatse".Archived fromthe originalon July 29, 2014.
  28. ^"Goatse Apps - Goatse.cx is offering subdomains on Goatse.cx! You can do virtually anything you want with Goatse Subdomain, just like a normal domain! Host your webpage, blog, resume or irc server! Users can easily choose which IP they want to point the subdomain towards! Example: YourSite.Goatse.cxLaunching soon, signup below to be notified first!".Archived fromthe originalon December 25, 2014.
  29. ^"Goatse Apps - Goatse.cx is offering subdomains on Goatse.cx! You can do virtually anything you want with Goatse Subdomain, just like a normal domain! Host your webpage, blog, resume or irc server! Users can easily choose which IP they want to point the subdomain towards! Example: YourSite.Goatse.cxLaunching soon, signup below to be notified first!".goatse.cx.Archived fromthe originalon January 23, 2015.RetrievedMay 15,2022.
  30. ^"Goatse Cryptocurrency - Open, Decentralised and Fast".Archived fromthe originalon August 26, 2017.
  31. ^"Goatse: Meme creation in the blockchain".Archived fromthe originalon October 4, 2017.
  32. ^"The Thousand Ether Goatse · Own a piece of internet history!".Archived fromthe originalon November 18, 2018.
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  36. ^https://twitter /GoatseDotCx/status/1777076036070445118
  37. ^"Goatse's Crypto Project".
  38. ^https://goatse.cx/
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  44. ^Hwang, Tim (April 1, 2008)."Rick-Rolling: An Action Primer for the Uninitiated".The Bryant Park Project,NPR(Interview: Transcript). Interviewed byAlison Stewart.New York, New York.Archivedfrom the original on January 22, 2012.RetrievedSeptember 16,2010.
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  47. ^Mikkelson, Barbara and David P. (June 15, 2007)."The Hands of God".snopes;Snopes.Retrieved November 14, 2011.
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  50. ^As of 10 September 2010the NYT archives index the article by keyword"goatse"ArchivedMarch 3, 2012, at theWayback Machine.
  51. ^abOrlowski, Andrew (June 4, 2007)."No goat sex at the Olympics, rules BBC".Bootnotes.The Register.Archivedfrom the original on June 7, 2010.RetrievedJuly 7,2010.
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  57. ^Goatse Security websiteArchivedJune 15, 2010, at theWayback MachineHome page logo. June 12, 2010. Retrieved June 15, 2010.
  58. ^Oates, John (July 29, 2011)."Scottish telly news pumps goatse link – Och aye the NOOO"ArchivedAugust 10, 2017, at theWayback Machine.The Register.
  59. ^Sankin, Aaron. "Goatse billboard hack horrifies drivers in Atlanta"(Archive).The Daily Dot.May 16, 2015. Retrieved on June 3, 2015.
  60. ^"Great, Someone Managed to Sign Facebook's PGP Key with an ASCII Goatse"(Archive).Vice.June 2, 2015. Retrieved on June 5, 2015.
  61. ^ab|Litchfield, Ted (June 4, 2022)."PSA: Popular Garry's Mod add-ons were altered to include pornographic jump scares".PC Gamer.RetrievedJune 4,2022.
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  64. ^Response Brief for US v Auernheimer[1]ArchivedJuly 18, 2014, at theWayback Machine[2]ArchivedJune 6, 2014, at theWayback Machineretrieved on 30 September
  65. ^Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) review of US v Auernheimer[3]ArchivedJuly 3, 2014, at theWayback Machineretrieved on 30 September

External links[edit]

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