The Cutting Room Floor
| Basic Information | |
|---|---|
| Release Year | 2002 (Blog) - 2010 (Wiki) |
| Product Type | Website, Video Game Archiving |
| In Production | Yes |
| Official Website | https://tcrf.net |
The Cutting Room Floor (TCRF) is a website founded in 2002 (then relaunched in 2010) by Xkeeper (Rachel Mae[1], formerly known as Alexander Todd Workman)[2]. dedicated to the cataloguing of unused content and leftover debugging material in video games.[3] Originally a blog, it was then relaunched as a wiki. It is considered by many to be the best source for documenting unused video game content.
Consumer impact summary[edit | edit source]
The main concern for consumers accessing this site stems from the fact that, since March 30[4], they are going out of their way to block users utilizing a VPN (Virtual Private Networks) to access the website.
On top of this, they are also blocking users from utilizing the Tor networks to access material on their site.
Both of these actions together hamper the user's freedom to access the site in a way that makes them feel comfortable.
Users would probably not feel the need to access this site with either a VPN or via Tor if there weren't also stringent privacy violations occurring on the site as well. Since it is all but confirmed that the administrators of the site are not just keeping IP addresses of visitors in ways that open it to security risks.
The administration have also been online to flaunt various threats such as their suggestion to send "gzip Bombs" to various offending users.
The privacy and freedom issues are also amplified with the administrators banning users coming via URLs hosted on specific sites that do not align with their ideals. Users who wish to consume the information on the site have to be careful that their political views and ideology align with that of the team of administrators or otherwise end up banned and considered an "offensive user".[5]
Incidents[edit | edit source]
This is a list of all consumer protection incidents related to this website.
Harassment on their user base[edit | edit source]
On June 1st, the website administration celebrated Pride month with an assortment of LGBTQ+ logo variants.[5] A few long-time contributors voiced their concerns on this subject, one instance was from Jo Li on the main talk page of the site[5]. However, instead of civilly discussing over it, they received derogatory comments making fun of their opinions, finishing off with a permanent ban.[5]
This is in contrast to their at least two of their rules of conduct:
- Be polite.
- Assume good faith.
Other users have been permanently banned on Discord after voicing their concerns. They have since locked down any invites to their server.
The administrators have been actively monitoring incoming connections. As of June 8th, they have done the following:
Ban of Tor and VPN users[edit | edit source]
Users connecting from Tor or a VPN are greeted with a message asking to disable their VPN, with the pretext being for combating an ongoing DDoS attack.[6][4]
Ban of users with specific referral ID[edit | edit source]
As of June 6th, users have also been who have a referral ID coming from https://kiwifarms.st and https://www.4chan.org[7]. In addition, users banned from this also receives a cookie without their express consent. This is potentially in violation of the GDPR[8], stating:
- Strictly necessary cookies — These cookies are essential for you to browse the website and use its features, such as accessing secure areas of the site. Cookies that allow web shops to hold your items in your cart while you are shopping online are an example of strictly necessary cookies. These cookies will generally be first-party session cookies. While it is not required to obtain consent for these cookies, what they do and why they are necessary should be explained to the user.
- Statistics cookies — Also known as “performance cookies,” these cookies collect information about how you use a website, like which pages you visited and which links you clicked on. None of this information can be used to identify you. It is all aggregated and, therefore, anonymized. Their sole purpose is to improve website functions. This includes cookies from third-party analytics services as long as the cookies are for the exclusive use of the owner of the website visited.
Openly sharing IP addresses[edit | edit source]
The owner of the website posted on a now deleted Mastodon (that has been since archived on https://kiwifarms.st) the idea of sending "gzip bombs" to offending users. However, he didn't hide any IP addresses from the logs. It is fair to assume that, considering the blocking of Tor and VPNs, the owner keeps logs of normal IPs and could potentially use these for unethical purposes.
See also[edit | edit source]
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ "User:Rachel Mae". The Cutting Room Floor. Archived from the original on 18 December 2022. Retrieved 17 December 2022.
- ↑ "Alexander Workman in Federal Way, WA (Washington)". FastPeopleSearch.com. 8 Jun 2025. Retrieved 8 Jun 2025.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ↑ "The Explorers: The gaming archaeologists digging through the code you were never meant to see". Edge. 16 Dec 2013. Archived from the original on 18 Feb 2014. Retrieved 28 March 2018.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 "TCRF has been getting DDoSed". Xkeeper's blog. 30 Mar 2025. Archived from the original on 31 May 2025. Retrieved 8 Jun 2025.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 "This Isn't Why I Came Here". The Cutting Room Floor. 1 Jun 2025. Archived from the original on 6 Jun 2025. Retrieved 8 Jun 2025.
- ↑ "403 Forbidden". The Cutting Room Floor. 8 Jun 2025. Archived from the original on 7 Jun 2025. Retrieved 8 Jun 2025.
- ↑ "Video Game Archival Autism / TCRF / Jul / Sonic Retro / And More". Kiwi Farms. 6 Jun 2025. Retrieved 9 Jun 2025.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ↑ "Cookies, the GDPR, and the ePrivacy Directive". gdpr.eu. 18 Nov 2019. Archived from the original on 30 May 2025. Retrieved 8 Jun 2025.