As the Internet expanded and came under the control of powerful corporations and paranoid national governments, a new movement arose from the splintered ranks of the hacker community. Calling themselves Cipherpunks (in the self-mocking style of hackers), these young and old libertarians came to believe that the only way to protect the privacy of the individual from the increasingly-prying eyes of governments was to provide strong and robust public-key encryption to the masses. After the introduction of the government- corporate Firewire standard (which most people considered a betrayal), Cipherpunks organized into strong communities and started operating purely on a subversive-cell basis, protected by incredibly-strong (but now illegal) software encryption. Accused of being paedophiles and terrorist, and hounded by federal agents, these Cipherpunks found the group loyalty and cohesion they never had before. Calling themselves the Undernet Organization, they staged elaborate raids on governments systems and burrowed their way into secure transmissions to proclaim their global presence. Their 'Charter of Privacy for the Rights of All People' inspired people as few things had. When the global internet collapsed during the Pacific War, Undernet's ultrasecure systems were among the least-damaged, and Undernet's commitment to providing propaganda-and-cost-free information and news earned them the respect of the common man.

In today's hyperspeed webworks environment, Undernet still maintains its traditional interlocking-triad-cell structure, which creates a formal hierarchy but prevents infiltration. General consensus has it that Undernet has never been moled by any agency. Probably the greatest impediment to foreign penetration is Undernet's cryptic net-sub-culture, which is absolutely overflowing with codewords, acronyms, obscure references, and bizarre in-jokes which take years to master. Undernet utilizes such sophisticated cryptography that it is mathematically impossible to crack their codes even in theory. Undernet is the hearth of hacker culture, although by no means an exclusive one. In recent years Undernet's reputation has suffered as members begin to delve into strange experiments and criminal activities, but the system's anarchist mindset and anonymous structure makes disciplining these offenders impossible.

+++Hey, you've got to take the shitty with the witty. Even if some of us are pushing stims and macrops, the rest of us are trying hard to break down the walls and let you live in peace! 'Sides, what we do is none of your biz, Crypto+++[Enorg]+++

BENEFITS
Membership in Undernet is strictly hierarchal based only upon merit (but attitude also counts). If you've got the gift for a small hack, you'll be respected. Anonymity and privacy are the foundations of this Clan, and loyalty is also important. {Rule: members gain +1 Secrecy but must maintain strict codes of secrecy themselves]