On the internet, there exists multiple levels depending on the depravity and exclusivity of certain cites, services and content. The surface web, the dark web, and the deep web. The surface web is the level you’re on right now, with things like Google, Yahoo, Facebook, etc.
The deep web is stuff that’s below the surface, stuff that’s hidden from the public eye like government cites.
And the dark web is what it says on the tin. From counterfeit items, luxury drugs to the most depraved content one can find from child sexual abuse to cannibalism to hitmen. Or luxury pickles. It’s a mixed bag.
Today we have a game that’s been rumored to originate from such a place, Lostboy.EXE. Look, it’s cliche, but we gotta start off with the classics.
I’m sure I don’t need to introduce 4chan, it’s the edgy and lawless image board that birthed Anonymous as well as several iconic memes, the posterchild of online degeneracy. But on August 22nd, 2012, someone would unintentionally drop what I can only describe as a bomb onto the message board. An anonymous user would upload a Mediafire link to a game they’d made for the /v/ and /x/ boards, intriguing the other anons. It was some innocent fun, all things considered.
The game consisted of a single empty maze with several images of babies and religious imagery pertaining to demonic entities, you know, the usual for horror indie games. It doesn’t take a lot to unsettle someone. Just imply crimes against children and you got a free ticket to WTF-land. But otherwise it was a pretty boring game, so people in the board complained as per usual.
Imagine this: you’re the average 4chan user who just downloaded a shit game full of creepy ass imagery yet no gameplay. Just full of weird images of infants and satanic shit, you feel that you’ve seen either an edgy kid’s attempt at a game or something you shouldn’t have seen. Maybe if you played for longer you would’ve seen something truly fucked ala Sad Satan. You go to the message board where you found the link and try to figure out what the fuck you just walked into.
And then you see your full name, address, and phone number posted in that very thread.
You see, what many users didn’t realize at first glance was that there were not one, but two links to the game, one of which being a fake malware version of the game that gave the second uploader remote access to the computers of whoever was unlucky enough to fall for the dupe. This way the anon who made the dupe was able to get their personal information and leak it into the /v/ and /x/ threads on the game. People got paranoid after this was found out–who knew what the hacker did with their computers, they could’ve taken pictures through their webcams or worse, filled their computers with illegal child sexual abuse material. Because 4chan is fucked like that. It wasn’t like the site was unfamiliar with csam being leaked onto their site, but some people weren’t as degenerate and didn’t want to be arrested for what was essentially a 2/10 indie horror. Admins would later delete the threads and put up a warning for users to not download any content found on 4chan.
It wouldn’t be until 2023 that the alleged creator of the original safe version of Lostboy.EXE was even discovered, a Twitter user by the name of rob_is_an_idiot, who was interviewed by the French Youtuber known as Feldup. Unfortunately we do not know what the fuck was said in the interview as we are not French and refuse to learn French. But we will link to the interview, of course.
Alongside this, Rob would make a Twitter post about the subject:
“I made lostboy.exe back in 2012 and shared it with 4chan's /v/ board, it was a gamemaker 7 tutorial reskinned. There was never any other version. The "virus lostboy.exe" was just a RAT virus, not the game. They simply renamed their exe to lostboy.exe.”
While the original link still exists, I highly discourage downloading the game unless you’ve got a good antivirus or lawyer. We don’t wanna accidentally distribute “cheese pizza” or viruses here, but if you wanna seek out Lostboy.EXE that’s your prerogative, not ours. But yeah, that’s the story of Lostboy.EXE as it stands–a simple game made for shits and giggles turned into a backdoor for malicious activity and an internet urban legend that until now has been left unsolved. The moral of the story? Don’t download shit from 4chan.
Developer Interview: « lostboy.exe » le JEU PERDU de 4chan - Findings HS