Zoklet, the forum of bad ideas, has shuttered

SWIM plans is to suitcase the essential items in SWIMS butt. SWIM will carefully triple wrap the drugs, as well as using 2 condoms. SWIM is aware of the dangers of putting drugs in SWIMS ass.

It seems only natural that this post comes from a forum called "Bad Ideas," a database of discussions on ill-advised activities such as PayPal fraud, car-hopping and shoplifting. The author goes on to announce the subject's intention to smuggle an iPhone into prison by similar means, making use of the acronym "SWIM"–"Someone Who Isn't Me"–in an attempt to distance him or herself from the post.

Popular right around the time Jackass first debuted on TV screens, Bad Ideas was part of Zoklet.net, a forum dedicated to sharing unusual or difficult-to-find information. For years, Bad Ideas was its morbidly fascinating main draw, an online library of advice, stories and "lulzy bad ideas" for aspiring criminals.

This month, Zoklet finally closed its doors, with its owner, known as Zok, citing health concerns, mounting surveillance, and legal fees as the cause. "Over the years, I've been contacted and questioned by the FBI, secret service, local law enforcement, lawyers, and nosy reporters… It has not been a fruitful adventure," he wrote in a post. (This nosy reporter did try to approach Zok, but received no reply.)

Zoklet was heir to a series of websites which retained the same community over 20 years, starting in 1990 with the BBS file-sharing network NIRVANAnet, then later Totse (an acronym for the psychedelic "& the Temple of the Screaming Electron"), and after that Zoklet. Each site was founded on the tenet of freedom of information, but was doomed to collapse under the weight of its own controversy.

When a 1993 article in the Contra Costa Times accused NIRVANAnet of "providing instructions on credit card fraud, money laundering, mail fraud, counterfeiting, drug smuggling, cable-TV theft, bomb-making and murder," its founder, the pseudonymous Jeff Hunter, defended it in a letter to the editor:

NIRVANAnet, Totse and Zoklet held common ideals, but their message was always ultimately drowned out by infighting and trolling. Through Zoklet's afterlife on Reddit ( /r/Zoklet is a no-man's land, but /r/Totse is thriving), I tracked down former moderator Dfg to find out more, along with long-term forum contributor DaGuru, who was apparently something of an antagonist as he was banned from Zoklet on and off for trolling.

"From 2009 to 2013 was the golden age of Zoklet," DaGuru said. "The site had probably been dying for the last two years. A lot of key members had been banned, or left, and almost all the conversation on Zoklet became stuff about Zoklet. Just drama."

Dfg spoke of dedicating years of his life to the forum: "Think of Zoklet as an addiction. Once you get you're just stuck… If I had spent that amount of time on something else I would quite frankly be swimming in moolah."

Bad Ideas exemplified Zoklet's contradictory values: a sense of communal goodwill coupled with indifference to society as a whole. But the new recruits lured in by Bad Ideas took the site in a reckless direction.

Using the WayBack Machine, I scanned through questions about ID forgery, how high to price Adderall prescriptions for resale, and how to sell college essays online. Sometimes the advice issued is flippant ("Pawn all your mommies gold…"), other times it is scheming and ambitious.

The board's visitors claim to flashmob shops and forge casino chips, preying on corporate America. Anarchist insurrection never seems far off, with free speech pushed to its limits. An unruly update to Abbie Hoffman's 70s counterculture bible  Steal This Book, Bad Ideas lends a devilish new dimension to life, as though its users have found a way to game reality.

Until you step back and realize you're reading a board called Bad Ideas. "You are a future inmate," writes one deadpan commenter, and they might very well be correct. In 2011, Texas student Lucas Henderson was  sentenced to $900,000 in restitution payments for creating a 45-page manual titled "How to Make Coupons" and distributing fake coupons on Zoklet and 4chan.

Henderson's crime bore all the hallmarks of a standard Bad Idea: a DIY ethos and knowledge shared online, aimed at damaging corporations rather than independent shops. "Never steal from a mom & pop store" proclaim the rules of Zoklet's shoplifting thread. "This goes to the belief of sticking it to 'The Man.'"

As Zoklet veered closer to crowdsourced car-crash reading, it drew enthusiastic new users but alienated old ones. "Bad Ideas probably brought in most of the new members to Zoklet," DaGuru said. "Most of the content there would only be appealing to 14-year-olds and bums… things that the person asking either had no hope of achieving or just liked to imagine themselves doing." Dfg's comments corroborated this: "Thanks to Bad Ideas and other shady users, Zoklet got the wrong type of attention."

Henderson was tracked down by his IP address. Similar claims of bank heists and break-ins put Dfg in a difficult position as moderator. "You really don't have any decent options," he said. "Try going to jail for some idiot who posted on your website."

Eventually, Zoklet surfaced at a cultural crossroads, where forum culture gave way to social media, and the files and secrets shared on its threads became available to the internet at large. Bad Ideas, which had drawn new life and infamy to Zoklet, slowly began to destroy it with spam and trolling. "Forums like Totse and Zoklet can't survive for long," said Dfg. "It's just not sustainable. In the end free information killed forums."

The schisms and purges led to several new sites, including Totse.info, Totse2 and  Totseans (still active, and of which Dfg is owner/admin). "It was a clusterfuck, to be honest," said Dfg. "The same users going around creating drama." New sites Sanctuary and LongLiveZoklet now compete to rally the community Zoklet left behind.

The final threads on Bad Ideas go from bravado to paranoia and sorrow, a forum in mourning for itself. Calls to "go out with a BANG" go unheeded, while one user asks, "Is there a lawyer in the house?" Another exchange calculates the time spent on Zoklet by its users was 27 years in total, asking "What do we name our, uh, child. Our digital man-baby?"

No one replies. And then:

"Zoklet joined the 27 Club."

"Omg you're right, I didn't think about that. Fucking epic. We went out like rockstars… Like the rockstars we'll never be."