A list of fun destinations for telnet

by tokyobreakfast • 6 months ago

338 114 6 months ago

n0um3n4• 6 months ago

uff I hope i can list my MUD game (still in dev, though)

conesus• 6 months ago

Say more, what’s the influence? My favorite branches were Diku/Merc and Circle based. SMAUG, Envy, ROM. Somewhere on a hard drive lives Abyss of Curak, my colorful and (in 1998) briefly popular MUD.

User23• 6 months ago

SillyMUD branches will always have a special place in my heart. Who doesn’t love leveling up in Sesame Street?!

m-hodges• 6 months ago

Oh man RIP towel.blinkenlights.nl 23

kidbomb• 6 months ago

Anyone knows what happened with it? Maybe the creator would like to pass the torch?

sigio3• 6 months ago

Its still running just fine

coatmatter• 6 months ago

alternative: telehack.com

huhtenberg2• 6 months ago

This is wonderful. Thank you.

augusteo• 6 months ago

The Star Wars ASCII animation was how I learned telnet existed. Felt like discovering a secret passage in the internet.

There's something pure about text-based interfaces. No loading spinners, no JavaScript frameworks, no cookie banners. Just text.

nomel3• 6 months ago

Wanting to know how email worked and then stumbling on it being mentioned next to the relevant RFCs was my first exposure! You could easily check pop3 mail over telnet, by sending all the commands by hand. HELO!

I then made my first email client, then an RFC later, and after browsing the web through telnet for a while, made my first web server!

tosti• 6 months ago

Telnet was among my debugging tools for web applications.

And sending an email without line editing felt much more exciting than a dedicated mail client. Just dig the remote MX, telnet to port 25 and do it by hand. Marvelous!

JamesTRexx• 6 months ago

I think I was the only one in the operations team who knew how to use telnet to check connections and existence of adresses on company and outside email servers. As well as other low level tools to diagnose problems with Windows PCs and servers. There just weren't any gui tools like that.

sixtyj• 6 months ago

I have checked right now that Multi-User Dungeons we played in the 90s, still exist and are played. 35 years later!

Telnet or Mudnet client needed :)

I’ve just poked my schoolmate - he almost didn’t graduate because of MUD.

ale422• 6 months ago

EHLO! You're definitely not alone on this RFC path ;-)

dec0dedab0de• 6 months ago

sending email over telnet was part of my training as tech support for a dial-up ISP.

efdee• 6 months ago

I hate to be that guy, but HELO/EHLO is smtp, not pop3

jagged-chisel• 6 months ago

I fixed a client’s Outlook many years ago with telnet. The app just wouldn’t download email. No error.

So, with the guy looking over my shoulder, I telnet to the email server, list his messages, and discover that there’s an email with an attachment that’s too big for Outlook to handle. Read some basic info from the message so he could confirm that deleting the message was fine - deleted the message, and Outlook worked again.

Dude was thrilled. Fun times.

gambiting• 6 months ago

I remember showing it to people on school computers circa....2008? Which was funny because nearly everything was blocked on these machines......but CMD and telnet worked fine lol. I remembered the URL by heart because of it :D

RGamma• 6 months ago

Not many moving pictures either. It was like the literary age of the internet.

mghackerlady• 6 months ago

Whenever I want to go back to this era, I fire up w3m. Not everything works but things work well enough to quench my thirst

hei-lima2• 6 months ago

The tradition lives on here: ssh -p 1977 sw.taigrr.com

shikhar• 6 months ago

We run a copy using https://github.com/gabe565/ascii-movie, you can `nc starwars.s2.dev 23`

It's our favorite way of demoing s2.dev, https://x.com/jrdi/status/2014318511120670859

flufluflufluffy• 6 months ago

For real! I just unlocked my memory of the Star Wars asciimation. Totally forgot it existed until now.

alexjplant• 6 months ago

I discovered Telnet from some schlocky book [1] my parents had bought at Barnes and Noble about "Ethical Hacking" written by a guy who was later given a "Security Charlatan of the Year" award at DEF CON 20. I'd no idea it was a protocol - I thought it was just a program that let you talk directly to services like SMTP. I found netcat and friends later and thus never really got to use telnet for its intended purpose.

[1] https://archive.org/details/unofficialguidet0000fadi_r0y3/pa...

iberator4• 6 months ago

I hate this server. Every single time someone talks about Telnet mentions this site for past FIFTEEN or TWENTY YEARS as something novel.

ITs not obscure, not unknown or special - it's the most known talent site on earth.

It was made AFIR to show capabilities of ffmpg ASCII/ANSI renderer.

Real gems are SDF.ORG, TWENEX.ORG, or Cray 1 supercomputer Access, bbses and backdoors.

Ps. Telnet can be run and it is DAILY inside of the telecoms and one of few ways to speak with BSC, RNC, RRUS and individual basebands(even ultra fresh with 5G). All over IP/SEC and isolated networks. You MUST know if you are serious about computer business hehe

AUDIT people also loves it - you can record entire session of Chinese or Swedish engineer doing some new shit to basebands. This or logging entire screen

Don't think it's dead.

queenkjuul2• 6 months ago

It was a jewel of the Internet, yes the one telnet site everyone knew (the ONE and ONLY) and I'm genuinely sad to learn it's gone--it was still there last time I tried it.

And it definitely wasn't using ffmpeg, it was bespoke hand-typed ASCII

shorden• 6 months ago

nethack.alt.org is conspicuously absent...

anthk• 6 months ago

And Slashem (his expanded sibling) and the server for Dungeon Crawl (for people which prefer action over exploration).

tux3• 6 months ago

It supports SSH. Since that's already in place, not much point in telnet, especially since NAO wants a password. And you prettu much have to go out of your way to install a telnet client these days.

That's a bit like connecting to IRC with netcat. It's easy to do, there's some kind of a retro hacker feel to it, but it's just not very practical.

sgt• 6 months ago

This is insane

doom.w-graj.net 666
Play Doom in the terminal (code and details)

mwest2• 6 months ago

Very cool, some nice nostalgia looking through that list!

Missed a trick not being able to “telnet telnet.org” though. :-)

cerebrum012• 6 months ago

try .com

mwest2• 6 months ago

That doesn't work either? Looks like the .com and .net domains are sadly just up for sale rather than being used for something fun.

_ache_• 6 months ago

Related to the last Telnet CVE? Why talking about telnet now otherwise?

btheconqueror• 6 months ago

haha, I was just going to say the same thing

tech-no-logical• 6 months ago

for years I had this in my .muttrc. it's been commented out since it stopped working...

#set signature="cat ~/.signature && telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl 666 | tail -n3|"

macintux3• 6 months ago

Per this thread it may be IPv6 only now.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46775926

cl3misch2• 6 months ago

I was wondering why the Starwars one is not at the top of the list. Then I saw it no longer exists :-(

sigio3• 6 months ago

It still exists, and still works. I was sure I showed it to someone a few months ago, and just confirmed, it's still online. (I know the guy who built it). It works over ipv4 and v6, with the ipv6 version having some additions ;)

w4yai• 6 months ago

Doesn't work for me

cl3misch2• 6 months ago

Thanks! Admittedly I didn't check before writing my comment. It does indeed still work! Maybe one has to enable ipv6.

queenkjuul2• 6 months ago

It worked last time i tried it, but it's not working for me today

crowfunder• 6 months ago

Wasted opportunity for a telnet.net or tel.net domain.

moritonal• 6 months ago

If you want a rabbit hole, this is the likely owner of both tel.net and sms.net = https://www.gbnet.net/

hahahahhaah• 6 months ago

Also teln.et (Ethiopia)

ale422• 6 months ago

This makes me think of the historical hxxp://simtel.net/ domain (now web spam, whence the hxxp), see e.g. https://web.archive.org/web/20010602231157/http://www.simtel.... The first time seeing it I was always thinking to something like "simulated telnet"...

phplovesong2• 6 months ago

I can forsee a future when all the AI slop, popups, fake news, propaganda and ads have fully consumed the web.

Maybe then we just go back to an oldschool text based way of communicating.

No google. No socials. Just text.

Bender4• 6 months ago

That should be Gopher for websites but advertisers would find it should it become popular. Text chat via IRCD. Advertisers get banned on IRC.

akuchling• 6 months ago

Or its modern incarnation, Gemini. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_(protocol)

VMG3• 6 months ago

Do you believe that it is impossible to advertise, spread fake news or propaganda via text?

Do you know what the letters in LLM mean?

phplovesong2• 6 months ago

Tell me where the slop is distrubuted on? Its 99% Social media, fake news sites, propaganda like fox or any russian "news site" or some combo of the above.

If we dont have any of the above the propaganda or AI slop is just not worth it.

This is why having small focused MODERATED communities is the only viable future.

jayknight• 6 months ago

We'll all just be fingering each other.

Vaslo• 6 months ago

Can’t tell if this is a sexual comment or a comment on people tattling on each other but thought provoking either way

tgv3• 6 months ago

    ~/work/...> telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl
    zsh: command not found: telnet

MonkeyClub• 6 months ago

May be a case of PEBKAC.

Bender4• 6 months ago

Search your OS repositories for something like inetutils-telnet.

tgv3• 6 months ago

I know. It's just that out-of-the-box, telnet isn't even installed anymore.

chasd002• 6 months ago

i bet this is something an ai could help with. "write a simple telnet client in python. It only needs to connect to the host and display what the host sends. conform to any connection initialization requirements per rfc 854". That would probably get you close.

/edit front page of google did this and it worked for me. Need to do a pip install telnetlib3

  import telnetlib3
  import sys

  def simple_telnet_client(host, port=23):
    """
    Connects to a telnet server and prints incoming data.
    Compliant with RFC 854 (via telnetlib handling of NVTs).
    """
    try:
        # Initialize connection
        print(f"Connecting to {host}:{port}...")
        tn = telnetlib3.Telnet(host, port)

        # Read and display output indefinitely until connection closes
        while True:
            # read_eager() reads data already available without blocking
            data = tn.read_eager()
            if data:
                sys.stdout.write(data.decode('ascii', errors='ignore'))
                sys.stdout.flush()

            # Check if socket is closed
            if tn.get_socket() is None:
                break

    except ConnectionRefusedError:
        print("Connection refused.")
    except Exception as e:
        print(f"An error occurred: {e}")
    finally:
        if 'tn' in locals():
            tn.close()
            print("\nConnection closed.")

  if __name__ == "__main__":
    # Example usage:
    # simple_telnet_client("telehack.com", 23)

    # Replace with desired host
    host = input("Enter host: ")
    simple_telnet_client(host)

tgv3• 6 months ago

apt/brew/your-package-manager install telnet is simpler and more reliable.

VMG3• 6 months ago

Note that this is much more dangerous than visiting a website. ANSI escape sequences can seriously mess with your system, RCE included.

kjs32• 6 months ago

Note that this is much more dangerous than visiting a website.

Are you being hyperbolic or do you seriously think the attack surface area of ANSI escape sequences is 'much more' than, say, Javascrpt?

ifh-hn• 6 months ago

JavaScript has to escape the browser sandbox, does telnet have a similar sandbox? Or can it access the system directly?

I don't know the answer but if telnet can directly access the system that seems more dangerous irrespective of the attack surface.

hei-lima2• 6 months ago

For those of you curious about what the Star Wars one looked like, the tradition lives on here: ssh -p 1977 sw.taigrr.com

cerebrum012• 6 months ago

just type `starwars` from telehack

pards• 6 months ago

My first introduction to the internet was through the telnet-based EW-too talkers like Foothills (Boston U) and Forest (UTS). I have very fond memories of staying up late talking to people from all over the globe. It was truly amazing to me.

The best part was how the users moderated behaviour - bad actors were ejected swiftly but rarely permanently.

Bender4• 6 months ago

The first BBS I used in the 80's eventually ended up with a telnet daemon but its owner passed away and I think the person that took it over eventually shut lois.org down. Domain is still registered. I can't fault them, it was an ancient system.

api• 6 months ago

If you run stuff like ZeroTier or Tailscale or any other encrypted mesh or VPN you can just run telnetd and happily remote access with plain text.

Not that it buys you anything other than being retro. :)

simmons• 6 months ago

Wow, that takes me back. It reminds me of the pre-web days when people would set up telnet services for providing information about the weather, ham radio callsigns, lyrics, FTP search engine (archie), and of course BBSs. An acquaintance of mine maintained a list of telnet BBSs and services that was fairly popular at the time. [1]

[1] http://www.textfiles.com/bbs/BBSLISTS/internetinfo.txt

xeyownt2• 6 months ago

For telnet.wiki.gd, there is a captcha:

Captcha: Repeat the first spacecraft to land on another planet three times.

All my answers failed. I guess I must be a computer.

xeyownt2• 6 months ago

Tried:

- Venera

- Venera 7

- the first spacecraft to land on another planet three times.

- the first spacecraft to land on another planet three times

- the first spacecraft to land on another planet the first spacecraft to land on another planet the first spacecraft to land on another planet

- Rosetta

...

Okay found it: Venera Venera Venera

fer• 6 months ago

venera venera venera

orthoxerox• 6 months ago

- the first spacecraft to land on another planet the first spacecraft to land on another planet the first spacecraft to land on another planet

The Wi-Fi password is "four words all uppercase, one word all lowercase".

homeonthemtn• 6 months ago

Any one got a good MUD to recommend?

MiscIdeaMaker992• 6 months ago

BatMUD is the one I played a long time ago, and has been around for 35 years now. I honestly don't know how active it is these days.

https://www.bat.org

tenthirtyam• 6 months ago

I just checked and ancient.anguish.org is still online. Port 2222.

fragmede3• 6 months ago

this is ssh, but funky.nondterministic.computer is one

fragmede3• 6 months ago

ssh doesn't support virtual hosts, otherwise I'd try some other stuff. There's just something to be said for running on the default port.

LightBug1• 6 months ago

Surfers!

jamal-kumar• 6 months ago

My favourite way back in the day (late 90s/early 00s or so) was telling people to go start->run->telnet www.boston.ru and it would be a little asciimation of a penis getting erect and then spurting with a pc speaker noise...

People would sometimes flip out like they had gotten a virus or whatever

mcculley• 6 months ago

How was a noise other than ASCII BEL sent over telnet?

kmstout• 6 months ago

"I Ping, Therefore I Am": https://www.ipingthereforeiam.com/bbs/

mmmlinux• 6 months ago

Wow, that scrolling banner...

garaetjjte• 6 months ago

I did Pong, Breakout and Tetris few years ago: telnet milek7.pl

degrees57• 6 months ago

Thank you! This was fun.

moonlion_eth• 6 months ago

I made a roguelike telnet server telnet hetz.latha.org 2323

drtournier• 6 months ago

$> telnet tsunami.thebigwave.net

The one and only. Still online to my surprise.

yaky• 6 months ago

Rainmaker was pretty great, and it lasted at least as far as 2018. I don’t recall what happened to it.

WeatherUnderground shut its API down in 2018.

jfalcon• 6 months ago

Back in a time when you had to pay out the nose for long distance calling, you had outdial service through X.25 PSN or more often, as ARPANet turned into Internet, you had Telnet accessible outdials.

https://cdn.preterhuman.net/texts/underground/hacking/INTERN...

Too bad mobile killed the dialtone.

dataf3l• 6 months ago

try pub400.com

nhggfu• 6 months ago

telnet to port 25 to send fake emails <- glory days.

Bondi_Blue• 6 months ago

Others: (where netcat is suggested) https://github.com/chubin/awesome-console-services?tab=readm...

cmcollier2• 6 months ago

Ah, so this is why I suddenly got a bunch of email.

Hey all, site owner here. Thanks for the visits and all the fun stories! I really miss this era of computing. Feel free to let me know if you have something that should be added to the site.

Here's some site meta-history too:

https://telnet.org/history/

antisol2• 6 months ago

Cool site! I especially like the list of RFCs.

Just fyi, towel.blinkenlights.nl:23 still works for me, though I think maybe that's an IPv6 version, there's a note about ipv6 at the start that I was too slow to read. Maybe it should be re-listed? :)

cmcollier2• 6 months ago

Thanks! I did notice there are mixed stories about it working, and I got some email about it too. I'll check it out and make an update.

aprilnya• 6 months ago

towel.blinkenlights.nl seems to still work for me?

A list of fun destinations for telnet

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