Like most important things in life, the DarkNet started in 2011 with one person and an idea of the future. The vision was magnetic and has drawn in those willing to help build such a community.
Unsurprisingly, the DarkNet has flourished. In 2014, the member list was small, but we’ve grown exponentially. Our community is bound together with the help of a digital entity known as the Daemon, which manages agents’ interactions, hosts training lessons, and helps us spread our knowledge.
But we aren’t alone in this world, and we’ve encountered some resistance to our independent community. There are those who seek to destroy what we’ve created because we pose a threat to their own ideas, which include using innocent people for selfish means. One of these groups is led by a man known only as the Mad Hatter.
2014
An agent was attacked and kidnapped when her safe house was compromised. The subsequent confrontation and rescue from the group headed by the Mad Hatter led to intel that they were trying to electronically infiltrate the DarkNet community. When that failed, he tried to lead a physical attack during DefCon. However, with the help of our agents, we managed a surprise attack first, taking out his army and sending him deep underground. Finally, we had some time to breathe and recover.
2015
We started the year strong, but received some alarming news – a mole sent by the Mad Hatter had infiltrated our organization and was working to bring down the Daemon. Her name, as we discovered, was Mona, and she exposed our security weaknesses one by one, until she successfully crashed the Daemon. We managed to reboot the Daemon from backups and, almost simultaneously, apprehended Mona. However, it turns out her time spent undercover with the DarkNet affected her more than she’d anticipated – Mona wanted to flip sides for real, working with us against the Mad Hatter.
2016
We received an emergency message from Mona, once again undercover, working to smuggle data from the Mad Hatter’s systems. She’d been discovered as a triple agent and needed an escape, as well as a safe space to stay. She spoke of some important information on a drive grabbed in the chaos of her flight, but lost in that same chaos. With her help, with the Mad Hatter on our heels every step of the way, our agents found the drive before the Mad Hatter’s minions could destroy it. The information within the drive revealed the existence of a second Daemon – one created and controlled by the Mad Hatter, called the March Hare.
2017
The DarkNet and its allies were caught off-guard when a new faction moved in, staging a coup against the Mad Hatter and scattering those few members of his organization who remained loyal. Our agents investigated, and discovered the man behind the coup was BiZ, the powerful and charismatic new CISO of Cyberez, Inc. Mona, concerned by BiZ’s motives and resources, struck out on her own to dig deeper. Whatever she found was incriminating enough that she risked everything to break into Cyberez’s headquarters – and nearly lost everything when BiZ ambushed her during her escape and tried to burn her to death. Our agents rescued her, and our allies in an archivist organization called the Moiety whisked her away to recover in safety, but BiZ remained in power.
2018
BiZ reached out to us in an attempt to decimate the leftover band of resistance from his takeover of the Mad Hatter’s organization. These resisting agents remained loyal to the Mad Hatter, and had taken to calling themselves the Deckers, in honor of the card-based identification system they used among themselves. A message from one such agent, the Ace of Spades, forced us to make a choice: the Deckers or BiZ? We chose to side (temporarily) with the Deckers, which led to them holding onto enough power to keep fighting BiZ – and, ultimately, us for control of the March Hare. The existence of the March Hare had been kept secret for the last two years, but the Mad Hatter, in his rage at the takeover and attempt to destroy what was left of his team, tried to regain control. BiZ wanted it equally as much, however, to finish what he’d started – domination of both the Deckers and the security world. When we were unable to secure the March Hare, we turned it over to the Deckers.
2019
The Mad Hatter and his remaining Deckers launched an attack against Cyberez, using the March Hare. The resulting splash damage also (temporarily) brought down the DarkNet networks. Due to the attack, Cyberez had to bring in an outside company to help investigate and repair. In this process, they found BiZ had a long list of crimes committed within the company — and ousted him as CISO. However, Mad Hatter and his Deckers were still out for revenge and wanted to take everything down — permanently. Mona sneaked into our own servers to leave a message: Cyberez provides a lot of services, many life-saving, and if the Mad Hatter succeeded, lives would be lost. That was enough to light a fire under the DarkNet agents to rally against the Mad Hatter. With credentials passed on from Mona, the agents managed to scour the March Hare’s networks and flip the kill switch. Mona is still on the run, but Cyberez’s networks, and all those who rely on them, are safe, for now. BiZ has fled to Russia and the Mad Hatter and his Deckers have hunkered down to plot. We managed to get a temporary reprieve
2020
Everyone was driven underground into Recovery Mode
While the contest was held, the story did not move forward.
Society as a whole was told to stay in their homes due to a worldwide threat.
2021
We rallied online and continued to work with new players online and at the conference.
The story was on hold due to people still seeking shelter.
2022
We got back to the conference, got folks hands on and back to the basics.
Story started picking back up with the boss fight, which leads us into this year.
2023
Agents,
We have received a message from Cyberez.
Hello Darknet,
Thank you for your help in cleaning up the mess after BiZ and The Deckers decided to make Cyberez their war zone. Our outside contractor did a decent job of getting us back up and running but it certainly wasn’t perfect. There are still a number of internal services that could use some work and some of the things they stood up have started to fail already.
Our new team has been working to keep restoring systems and trying to figure out what is going on but they don’t have the experience needed. We are hoping we can work with you again to help investigate some of these systems and hopefully there is some information that can help you determine the Hatters and Biz’s next plans.
I will have my team send over whatever they find and I hope Mona is doing better now.
Sincerely,
Margaret
CISO of Cyberez, Inc.PS All flamethrowers have been removed from the property. I believe one of your Operative had an idea for them. Hopefully it doesn’t involve the bidet they were muttering about.
Looks like Cyberez could use our help again. It seems like they want to turn things around and put BiZ and the Hatters behind them. I certainly don’t blame them. The Operatives will arrange for the delivery of anything Cyberez wants us to investigate.