Tuesday, February 28, 2006

The Curador - Raphael Gray

On January 15, 2000, 19-year-old "Curador" Raphael Gray, stole over 23,000 credit card numbers from eight small companies. This "saint of e-commerce" hacked into U.S., British and Canadian companies during a crusade to expose holes in Internet security and used Bill Gates' credit card details to send him Viagra.

Monday, February 27, 2006

Tequila

Tequila, the first widespread polymorphic virus, was found in the wild in 1991. Polymorphic viruses change their appearance with each new infection making it difficult for virus scanners to detect them.

Sunday, February 26, 2006

SPAM

Spamming means to send the same message to many newsgroups or email addresses. Did you know that the term came from a sketch from Monty Python's Flying Circus?

Mr Bun
What have you got, then?
Waitress
Well there's egg and bacon; egg, sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg, bacon and spam; egg, bacon, sausage and spam; spam, bacon, sausage and spam; spam, egg, spam, spam, bacon and spam; spam, spam, spam, egg and spam; spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, baked beans, spam, spam, spam and spam; or lobster thermidor aux crevettes with a mornay sauce garnished with truffle pâté, brandy and a fried egg on top and spam.
Mrs Bun
Have you got anything without spam in it?
Waitress
Well there's spam, egg, sausage and spam. That's not got much spam in it.
Mrs Bun
I don't want any spam.
Mr Bun
Why can't she have egg, bacon, spam and sausage?
Mrs Bun
That's got spam in it!
Mr Bun
Not as much as spam, egg, sausage and spam.
Mrs Bun
Look, could I have egg, bacon, spam and sausage without the spam.
Waitress
Uuuuuuggggh!
Mrs Bun
What d'you mean uuugggh! I don't like spam.
Vikings (singing)
Spam, spam, spam, spam, spam ... spam, spam, spam, spam ... lovely spam, wonderful spam ...

http://www.noteboom.demon.nl/spam.html

Saturday, February 25, 2006

Shadowhawk

On January 23, 1989 Herbert Zinn (Shadowhawk) was the first person to be convicted as a juvenile under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986. Zinn was 16 when he managed to break into AT&T and Department of Defense systems. He was sentenced to nine months in prison and fined $10,000.

Friday, February 24, 2006

Nokia 3310/3330

Nokia once said that if all the Nokia 3310/3330 phones sold were laid end-to-end, the line would stretch from Helsinki, Finland to Santiago, Chile - over 13,500 kilometers.

Penet.fi

In September 1996 the world's most popular anonymous remailer penet.fi was closed down by its operator Johan Helsingius after a Finnish court ruled that he must reveal a customer's real email address. The remailer had been raided by the Finnish police the previous year, following a complaint from the Church of Scientology that a penet.fi customer was posting the church's secrets on the Internet.

Thursday, February 23, 2006

Stalker Site

A Stalker site is a Web site that is devoted to a celebrity. The content of the site clearly indicates that the fan, who created the site, is obsessed with its subject.

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Hamster

A Hamster in PC hardware terms refers to a tailless mouse, i.e., one with Bluetooth or an Infrared link to a receiver on the machine, as opposed to the conventional cable.

Tennis for Two

Did you know that William Higinbotham created the first videogame in 1958? The game, called "Tennis for Two", was created and played on a Brookhaven National Laboratory oscilloscope.

San Francisco Bay Area Earthquake

According to rumors the San Francisco Bay Area earthquake of 1989 was initiated by IBM to test quality-assurance procedures at its California plants.