About · EmulateHacks · A terminal museum

A museum you can type inside.

36
exhibits
5
eras
1988
earliest

Is

  • An interactive archive of real hacking history
  • A scripted browser terminal you type through
  • Educational simulation with a defensive focus
  • A debrief after every reconstruction
  • Safe — no network, no real exec, ever

Is not

  • A hacking tutorial or exploit guide
  • A CTF platform
  • Running real shells or real commands
  • Reachable from any real network
  • Publishing credentials, targets, or working PoCs

01

Why it exists

Most security writing happens at the wrong level. Blog posts explain. Conference talks narrate. CTFs challenge. Few things let you sit at the prompt the way the person who lived through the incident did — with the same files in the same place, and type your way through it.

EmulateHacks exists to teach how incidents look from the inside, so the next one is recognised earlier. Every exhibit ends with a debrief: what actually happened, what was simulated, and what to take back to the systems you actually own.

02

Mechanics

Each exhibit ships with a fictional or historically abstracted filesystem, a numbered list of steps, and a short narrative arc. When the engine recognises a step’s expected command, it prints a quiet line of narration and unlocks the next step.

If you get stuck, type hint. If you want to explore freely, every exhibit is also browsable — the steps gate the story, not the prompt. Type help to see everything the shell understands.

03

The stack

stack.txt
terminalwterm — DOM-rendered VT220, Zig core → WASM
shellcustom engine — virtual FS, step matcher, ANSI output
rendererNext.js 16 · React 19 · Turbopack
stylingTailwind CSS v4 · Instrument Serif · Geist Mono
hostingVercel · no server, no DB, no auth
# native text selection · browser find · copy-paste · a11y

Safety notice

EmulateHacks is an educational simulation platform. All environments are fictional, sandboxed, or historically abstracted. The platform does not provide access to real targets, real credentials, live exploitation infrastructure, or malware. Historical reconstructions are abstracted so they teach the shape of the incident without becoming a recipe.

If you are a teacher, a security trainer, or a journalist and would like a specific incident reconstructed responsibly, please submit a request.