In an unprecedented digital heist that has left both tech experts and meme enthusiasts scratching their heads, a hacker known only by the alias “ByteBeard” managed to steal the entire internet this past weekend. ByteBeard, who reportedly started his cyber career trying to pirate old episodes of “Teletubbies,” explained to police he just wanted to prove it was possible, but his ambitions quickly got out of hand.
“I just thought it would be funny,” ByteBeard explained in a candid statement from his mum’s basement, where he was apprehended early Monday morning. “I mean, stealing the internet? That’s the digital equivalent of that time my friend stole that giant inflatable gorilla from the car dealership. Ridiculous, but totally worth it for the laughs.”
The heist was noticed shortly after ByteBeard’s success, when millions suddenly found themselves unable to stream cute cat videos at the office or check to see if they had won imaginary internet points. Facebook statuses across the globe bemoaned the tragedy with captions like “Lost without the net :’(“ followed by a jarring silence because, well, they couldn’t actually post it.
The plan took a nosedive when the 28-year-old techie accidentally uploaded the entirety of the internet to his “free-tier” cloud storage account. The storage provider, FluffyCloud Inc., automatically deleted the data, assuming it was another case of someone backing up too many photos of their lunch.
Scientists attempted to explain the scale of ByteBeard’s misadventure. Dr. Emily Scrolling, a digital analyst, tried to put it into perspective: “Imagine if somebody managed to steal all of human history’s collective knowledge and useless Tumblr posts, only to misplace it behind a digital couch cushion. It’s like the Library of Alexandria burning down, except instead of books, it’s web pages about conspiracy theories concerning actual lizard people.”
Tech companies are scrambling to restore the internet to its former glory. Google has partnered with a dozen hackers from rival internet forums to rebuild the web from cached versions they had stashed away for “totally legitimate reasons.”
Meanwhile, ByteBeard has been sentenced to 200 hours of community service, primarily to help baffled elderly folks restore their browsers’ homepage from Bing to Google. In a twist of humor, he’s been also assigned to teach internet safety classes at the local library, where he’s expected to explain why storing the internet in a virtual broom closet wasn’t one of his finest ideas.
“I suppose I proved my point,” ByteBeard said to reporters outside the courthouse, stressing that he “meant no harm.” Internet users everywhere, while initially frustrated, admitted that the week-long hiatus from the online world had been…refreshing. “I actually went outside!” one user exclaimed, struggling to stifle their shock and awe. “The sun is surprisingly warm.”
With an imperfect digital mirage quickly taking the place of what once was, the tech community is already working on ways to prevent such an event from happening again. In the meantime, ByteBeard has primarily occupied himself with a new project—reprogramming his Mum’s smart fridge to flash “MOTIVATIONAL MESSAGES” every four hours, with classics like “You don’t need a second slice of cake,” primarily for the laughs.