StrangeSearch

From Rofflehaus

The search engine that made electronic piracy easy enough for even a Gamma Phi Beta pledge to commit.

Facilitated the easy finding of mp3s, movies, software, and child pornography. Also facilitated the easy prosecution of those possessing said material by the ISUPD.

During its heyday several competing search engines arose such as Landex, Monkeyballs, CrazySearch, WeirdSearch, Fseek, and Pantssearch. While some were in many ways technologically superior to StrangeSearch, none could match the popularity of the original.

Before StrangeSearch, the only way to search the network was to go through the Network Places listing through Windows and clicking on random computers. At this time, big_D was one of the most popular computers, for having 18GB of mp3s.

StrangeSearch's listing of the computers with most shared material ended up being a very convenient way for ISUPD/DPS to find people to target.

Following a series of file-sharing busts in 2003 many ISU students disabled file sharing on their computers. Within days the indexes dropped from thousands of gigabytes to around twenty. Most competing search engines died off along the way due to various problems. Pantssearch, for example, voluntarily shut itself down to avoid being used as a tool by ISUPD to find filesharers.

StrangeSearch shut itself down in June 2003.

What remains is StrangeTalk.