Overview[]
A screenshot of a recovered BACK-NET website, circa 1928.
BACK-NET (Phenomenon 2) is essentially the Backrooms’ version of the internet; a wide area network that uses an anomalous protocol in order to transfer data between devices. Access points to BACK-NET are usually exclusive to levels mimicking manmade structures such as Level 0, Level 4, or Level 9, making long-distance communication difficult outside of the few levels with the connection.
However, unlike the baseline Frontrooms internet, BACK-NET holds various anomalous properties that distinguish it from a normal wireless network, with the network being mysterious in nature and often quite unstable at times. Research by The Kauer Research Organization into BACK-NET is ongoing to this very day.
Terminals[]
The main access points to BACK-NET are Terminals: aged, bulky machines resembling desktop computers manufactured in the 80s and 90s. The native operating systems installed on terminals vary; some range from undocumented systems almost alien in nature to familiar (albeit outdated by Frontrooms standards) operating systems. However, all Terminals are able to have other operating systems installed on them, the most popular of which being BackOS.
Upon booting up, all Terminals have three applications: a file explorer, a settings app (which may or may not be functional), and an application dubbed “BACK-NET”. Upon opening the app, one will be met with a black and white color scheme, bearing a Wi-Fi symbol, the title “BACK-NET”, and three buttons: “Recently Visited”, “Enter URL”, and “Random Page”; these all facilitate access to the various sites within the network.
Functionality[]
Although the BACK-NET protocol rarely allows interaction with the Frontrooms, it does enable you to connect to other Terminals and host various websites like one would on the normal internet. Each website's link comes in the following format:
A glitch within the public M.E.G database.
Therefore, if a domain was named "backnet-4://erjjfkjklsl.net", it would be located within Level 4; this functionality has been used in past by various groups to locate and seize servers across BACK-NET. Additionally, the location of the server host has impacts on one's connection to the server; Terminals on other levels will have an increasingly slow connection to the host server the farther away they are from the host's level on the Casper-Bray Numbering System, with an average of 1ms in increased latency per level. Additionally, each Terminal's IP address also deviates from that normally expected for a computer; each device's IP address is infinitely long in length, using letters, numbers, and other unicode characters within it.
BACK-NET connection on the Anomalous Levels has been known to behave rather strangely; all sites and terminals within a given anomalous level are located within a level-wide intranet, isolated from the rest of BACK-NET; this has resulted in much information about these levels being hard to access.
Although there are a select few well-known websites, such as The Database or Backchat, an infinite number of websites lie within the depths of the network, most of which are not human in design; these natural websites are often known as the "dark web" of BACK-NET, often being rife with cognitohazards, endless adverts and blogs without sense or value, and numerous viruses both anomalous and non-anomalous.
A failed attempt to access Google Chrome from BACK-NET.
Links to other websites often come in advertisements or text in these websites, often sending one down an endless rabbit hole of unnerving digital constructs. Even websites hosted by humans are less than stable; glitches (both client side and server side) occur regularly on websites hosted by BACK-NET, and pop-up ads leading to undocumented websites have been known to commonly appear.
On occasion, the BACK-NET protocol may allow access to the Frontrooms' internet and vice versa. In all known cases, this connection is one-way only; one may access a website in normal reality but not upload content to it, and IP addresses from Earth have been recorded in server logs, but have never uploaded content to BACK-NET. Cross-network connection is ephemeral at best; after a few minutes, connection will be lost., and the user will be cut off.
History[]
A forum website dating back to 500 BC; the webpage has suffered severe corruption due to gradual wear and tear of the servers and instability in its source code.
BACK-NET has seemingly existed ever since the Backrooms itself has. Cave paintings made by Homo callidus populations depict bulky shapes resembling terminals, as well as crudely drawn depictions of its websites; many similar paintings by early humans also share these elements.
Although for most of human history, the means of reliably operating a Terminal remained a mystery, with the inventions of the latin alphabet around 700 BC, increased activity on BACK-NET would begin to surface as people began to develop an understanding of the QWERTY keyboard. The first human-made websites on BACK-NET surfaced around this period; however, due to them mainly copying code from the existing natural websites (as human understanding of coding languages was extremely limited), they had numerous bugs and were barely functional.
This would soon change in the late 1700s; on January 23rd, 1779, Selah White would bring back multiple books from the Omnia Athenaeum on HTML, CSS, and Javascript, using them to create the Public Interdimensional Forum (later renamed to Backchat in 1984). Although this greatly aided in cross-level communication at the time, it did not see as much use as the average social site, due to the average person's unfamiliarity with modern technology.
Later in the 1960s, with the invention of the ENIAC in the Frontrooms and The First's discovery of how to properly use conventional coding languages, a boom in new BACK-NET websites would occur, with the Enigmatic Space Information Security & Protection System and the M.E.G's public database being established in the following years.
In the modern day, an estimated 60,000 human-made websites exist on BACK-NET, which, in tandem with The Database, have brought a new age of documentation and discovery to this dimension.
List of Popular Websites[]
See also: Extended BACK-NET Website List
backnet0://thearchives.org[]
“The Database,” also referred to as “The Archives” within its source code, is search engine of anomalous origin hosted on BACK-NET, seemingly designed to compile documentation regarding the Backrooms. Although it is a useful tool, one would be advised against taking it for granted; many webpages stored by the Database contain bias, and misinformation runs rampant without any moderation.
backnet4://back.chat[]
Formerly the Public Interdimensional Forum, and commonly nicknamed ∞chan (pronounced "infchan"), Backchat stands as the most popular social network in the entire Backrooms, similar in design and functionality to sites like 4chan. Around 95 million registered accounts exist on it (although most have not seen use for years), and it remains an easy way for one to reach out to other people and exchange survival tips in the otherwise isolated landscape of this dimension.
Written and designed by Stormy.
Critiqued by Arbi.
Audio is Implanted Memories by Infinity Frequencies (seriously go check them out, they have some cool music).
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