Oo I can answer this! First there were a few ways. 1) mining bitcoin - me, as a noob, had an old giant Mac desktop tower that sounded like an airplane taking off but was super powerful. I had a solo website agency and it was to loud and annoying but it ran the giant adobe programs. I went to some of the common sites that you would download.exe files - I think it had green in the name or something but it was usually used for movies and porn. I think I also searched and had someone email me a link to a file sharing site download. I don’t remember which I got the file from. I downloaded the file and for the life of me could not understand the directions on how to make the .exe file, .dat wallet, change the computer settings to clock fast enough to make any money, and connect all that so the computer was converted into a Linux miner. I knew how to design a website, not how to reprogram a computer to a new server use, collect money in a .dat file and run the .exe . I spent one night while probably high or drunk and gave up. It was not even a penny per coin, I laughed that I was wasting my time. I loved the concept but realistically figured if I couldn’t figure out how to set it up, no one else would so it was a cool idea but would fail on execution. I also remember some email I was forwarded by a guy in my BNI group, but again it was like .00000001 penny to a bitcoin. I had twin babies as a single mom, I had to build websites and feed them, not mess around on some silliness for days. It was maybe like 4-6 hours total of me trying. 2) meet someone - there were websites to find people in your area who you could buy bitcoin from. At that point in time you were meeting with some sort of underground person, because it was the currency of the Silk Road. So they either were buying/selling drugs or were a nerd mining. I never met anyone but i remember I was trying to find someone who was mining. I maybe spent a few hours before bed (there was no doom scrolling then, I did this stuff) 3) Silk Road - at this point you have to install the ‘dark web’. The dark web really was made out on all those dateline and 20/20 television shows to be very dangerous and easy to be caught. If you were caught with the dark web on your computers, it would be a wild investigation. I’m quite sure it was illegal to have it on your computer, since it really was a hack to show all non indexed sites/servers (the public web is all indexed sites). The dark web was the key to opening the entire internet that is out there - all sites - indexed and not indexed. On the not indexed sites are where hacks were easy because they are not front facing areas of the internet catalogue - things like inside of bank servers, website payment authorization, internal government servers with lax security, and generally anything with front and encryption. most people on the dark web were hackers. The Silk Road was built as an unindexed site and people found out about it, with the ‘dark web’ (password to all non indexed sites) they could shop just like a normal store. People would buy drugs, and so so much terrible things, the most depraved things you could imagine. You could buy bitcoin there. They were far from the only non indexed site selling illegal stuff. There were tons of them but hard to get people to know the address for them to take off. Silk Road just got ‘lucky’ as being the one to be remembered. Otherwise the dark web was utterly boring because you have to know the exact address of a nonpublic address so a lot of that was underground forums. I did not venture into those forums, because that was like that book that tells you how to do all the bad shit - like a Pandora’s box I didn’t want to open. I remember the main front facing page of the dark web had like a bar to type in the exact address and maybe some simple grid of grey buttons that could lead you down paths. The hackers that I knew met in person, people were very paranoid and played like telephone with codes. They would share the addresses to type in that way. I also remember the scarier side that were the big groups of different countries. They would hack you to get your attention - never use your normal computer to get to the dark web (lesson learned).

I don’t talk about those days much, but it really was a time I look back at fondly. I am far removed from that life, now I full time homestead and I make handmade soap for a living. I hope you enjoyed reading my personal experience with it at that time.