WTF Even Is This? An Internet Enigma...

So, I came across something really strange today. I was on a Discord server related to the SVV and in the off-topic section someone had posted an ip address that opened onto a strange mystery: http://104.236.82.233/. It gave some details on how to connect via SSH so I fired up PuTTY and connected. What I found makes absolutely no sense.

Apparently, this mystery began when a guy noticed a strange network interface on his VPS (virtual private server). He checked it out and apparently it connects to these networks (so far he has found 2) that use some 1980s technology to connect to various servers on these networks. All these servers do is send plain text messages to the requester. The first network had many servers connected to it but he only managed to get replies from a few of them.

The first server he found that replied was from some supposed company selling tape. However, like all the things on here, this appears to be fictional as I could not find anything about this company on the internet and why would a company only sell their product on a network that noone has ever heard of? However, a google search of the company name did include a strange hit from a website called ciamedical.com that was selling imaging chemicals for xrays and stuff made by a company of the same name. https://www.ciamedical.com/solutek-en

Another thing he found on this network was a supposed hosting company selling incredibly inadequate server space. This did include a phone number and he called it and the prices seemed good so he is considering renting some server space to investigate this network further. However, as with the duct tape company, I couldn't find anything about this company on the internet.

The only other servers he found on this network included what appears to be show dates for a band that included a cryptic message about how they didn't want to put details on the venue over this unheard of network as they weren't sure if the dance floor could handle the increased traffic, one that was apparently some sort of news service but so far has only returned the phrase "No news is good news and there's none today," and one that is a test for some markup language I've never heard of, WML.

As I've said, this really doesn't make much sense but that's why I find it so intriguing. All of this has to serve some type of purpose and he actually did talk to a guy when he called the hosting company. On the second network he did find a bank but there was no way to create an account and apparently the accounts are connected to the device, on account per device. If you are interested in this, the guy who found all this is posting updates on twitter here. It all appears to be run through hardware somehow as he says there is no program running on his server and it just seems to use the standard Linux networking stack. If you have any idea what this is drop me a comment. Have fun and happy steeming!