HAUNTED HOSTS HALLOWE'EN 2024 REVIEW
       
       The first ever Haunted Hosts event was a humble success! Five hosts
       participated with tricky and treaty experiences for their visitors.
       
       pazz0 hosted a mock login shell that appeared to remove the user's
       $HOME folder upon disconnection. pazz0 also hosted a MUD spanning a
       three story house party. Surprises were hidden throughout: a mirror
       revealed a bloody murder, a faucet turned to dispense water, and a
       strange puppet sat atop a cabinet. moth also contributed to pazz0's
       project in the many creative discussion on 238c.org#238c.
       
       __20h__ hosted a script that dispensed emoji candies as treats and
       punny jokes as tricks. __20h__ also augmented the Bitreich server bot
       annna to give out tricks and treats under the guise of old grandma
       annna.
       
       pi31415 used the Gopher protocol to serve visitors weird and random
       recipes most befitting the haunted night. Among other things, this
       included a tangerine lamp (trick) and a pumpkin pie (treat).
       
       ROYGBYTE hosted a mock login script with devious messages
       revealed at each user's reconnection. This included chilling rm
       commands, a satanic parody of the OpenBSD login message, a rousing
       quote about breaking free from the shackles of conformity, and more.
       
       someodd hosted an old timey Felix the Cat video projected through the
       terminal. someodd also hosted an animation of a witch bubbling over
       her cauldron, and subsequently resulting in rm -f commands, strings of
       random text, and a connection terminating into a mock
       shell. (someodd's host was unavailable on the ghoulish night, but has
       since been brought back online).
       
       Parts of gophersphere were decorated in celebration of the holiday,
       too. The gopherlawn was adorned with pumpkins, spiders, and
       bats. There were also two tutorials on running spooky server daemons
       to support the event, from each of ROYGBYTE and someodd.
       
       Next year, I hope to have twice the amount of hosts participating. I
       will put a bit more work into broadcasting the event around IRC and
       the gophersphere. I will also ponder whether the conceit of the event
       should be broadened. Initially, it was intended for participants to
       serve spookiness over ssh. But participants added delightful and
       frightful experiences on IRC and Gopher, too.
       
       My thanks to everyone for participating! Boo!