For about as long as the internet has existed, it’s been used for illicit activity. Before e-commerce ballooned into a multi-trillion dollar industry, the first deal facilitated by the internet was a weed exchange between students at Stanford University and MIT at some point between 1971 and 1972. These days, McAffee estimates cybercrime costs the global economy as much as $600 billion, and the FBI’s efforts to curb the harm of internet fraud have taken many forms over the years.
The agency even compiled an internal 83-page guide to internet slang which, thanks to a 2014 Freedom of Information Act request, is now available for your enjoyment. It’s on the Internet Archive, albeit in very low quality, and it has 2,800 entries from ALIHAL (at least I have a life) to WWOTW (wicked witch of the west) and everywhere in between.
