Tag Archives: history

How a grad student trying to build the first botnet brought the Internet to its knees

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On November 3, 1988, 25 years ago this Sunday, people woke up to find the Internet had changed forever. The night before, someone had released a malevolent computer program on the fledgling computer network. By morning, thousands of computers had become clogged with numerous copies of a computer “worm,” a program that spread from computer to computer much like a biological infection.

via How a grad student trying to build the first botnet brought the Internet to its knees.

Robert Morris’ father worked for the NSA at the time.

From: Robert Morris (cryptographer)

There is a description of Morris in Clifford Stoll‘s book The Cuckoo’s Egg. Many readers of Stoll’s book remember Morris for giving Stoll a challenging mathematical puzzle (originally due to John H. Conway) in the course of their discussions on computer security: What is the next number in the sequence 1 11 21 1211 111221? (known as the look-and-say sequence). Stoll chose not to include the answer to this puzzle in The Cuckoo’s Egg, to the frustration of many readers.[8]

Private Cygnus Spacecraft Makes Historic 1st Rendezvous with Space Station

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Orbital officials initially aimed for Cygnus to arrive at the space station on Sunday, Sept. 22, but a data format issue between the spacecraft and orbiting lab forced the company to abort that first rendezvous attempt. Troubleshooting efforts with that glitch and the impending arrival of a new space station crew aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, which launched and docked on Wednesday (Sept. 25), pushed Cygnus’ arrival to today.

via Private Cygnus Spacecraft Makes Historic 1st Rendezvous with Space Station | Space.com.

The other firm is SpaceX of Hawthorne, Calif., which has a $1.9 billion contract for 12 supply missions using its Dragon space capsules and Falcon 9 rockets. SpaceX has flown two of those delivery missions already, and is expected to test fly an upgraded version of its Falcon 9 rocket later today in a launch from California. Unlike Cygnus, SpaceX’s Dragon capsules are equipped with a heat shield and can return science experiments and gear to Earth from the station.

The birth of MMOs: World of Warcraft’s debt to MUD

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Before there were the current generations of MMOs there were MUDs – multi-user dungeons or ‘dimensions’. And before there were MUDs there was MUD: A multi-player, text-based game running off a mainframe at Essex University.

MUD (known as MUD1 since the release of its successor, MUD2) used an interface similar to that of single player text adventure games and transplanted it to a multi-player realm where players could live virtual lives, solving puzzles, collecting treasure and killing fantastic creatures (and/or each other). The game launched in 1978, developed by Essex students Roy Trubshaw and, later, Richard Bartle.

via The birth of MMOs: World of Warcraft’s debt to MUD – games – Software – Techworld.

Robert McNamara and the Dangers of Big Data at Ford and in the Vietnam War

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The use, abuse, and misuse of data by the U.S. military during the Vietnam War is a troubling lesson about the limitations of information as the world hurls toward the big-data era. The underlying data can be of poor quality. It can be biased. It can be misanalyzed or used misleadingly. And even more damning, data can fail to capture what it purports to quantify.

via Robert McNamara and the Dangers of Big Data at Ford and in the Vietnam War | MIT Technology Review.

If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It: Ancient Computers in Use Today

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Sparkler Filters of Conroe, Texas, prides itself on being a leader in the world of chemical process filtration. If you buy an automatic nutsche filter from them, though, they’ll enter your transaction on a “computer” that dates from 1948.

via If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It: Ancient Computers in Use Today | PCWorld.

The key punch isn’t the only massive accessory in Sparkler’s arsenal. The 402 also links to an IBM 514 Reproducing Punch, which has been broken for three years. When it works properly, the 514 spits out punched “summary cards,” which typically contain the output of the 402’s operation (such as sum totals) for later reuse. Sparkler stores all of its punched data cards–thousands and thousands of them–in stacks of boxes.

EVE Online | Stories From The First Decade

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The decade of history of EVE Online is unique. It has its heroes, scoundrels, heists and intrigue. Unlike other games, those are not stories written by developers and acted out by NPCs. They are true stories about the actions of the players that inhabit this world.

via EVE Online | Stories From The First Decade.

Go to this site and read some stories.  This game has always amazed me with the news it generates through the stories it has produced throughout the years.   I find games like this very complicated.  The stories do read like a novel or possible screenplay.

Has World War II carrier pigeon message been cracked?

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“You will see the World War I artillery acronyms are shorter, but, that is because, you have to remember, that, the primitive radio-transmitters that sent the Morse code were run by batteries, and, those didn’t last much more than a half-hour tops, probably less.

“Thus all World War I codes had to be S-n-S, Short-n-Sweet.

via BBC News – Has World War II carrier pigeon message been cracked?.

Happy bday! SMS txt msgs turn 20

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The approval was finally given and the systems interconnected, then Papworth, sitting in front of a personal computer, tapped out the greeting “Merry Christmas” and sent it via SMS to Vodafone Director Richard Jarvis.

The text-messaging era was born.

via Happy bday! SMS txt msgs turn 20 – Computerworld.

Perhaps it’s no surprise then that in late 1995, three years after Papworth’s first text message, users were only sending an average of one text every two and a half months.

For Winning The Nobel Prize, Niels Bohr Got A House With Free Beer

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Niels Bohr is one of the greatest scientists who ever lived and a personal hero of mine. He was also a favorite of his fellow Danes when he lived in Copenhagen. Today, however, I found out just how much they loved him. Apparently, after he won the Nobel Prize in 1922, the Carlsberg brewery gave him a gift – a house located next to the brewery. And the best perk of the house? It had a direct pipeline to the brewery so that Bohr had free beer on tap whenever he wanted.

via For Winning The Nobel Prize, Niels Bohr Got A House With Free Beer – Forbes.

So was free beer the reason why Bohr was able to make great strides in developing quantum mechanics? Okay, probably not – but I’m sure a few late night drinking sessions with other physicists didn’t hurt.

The New Microsoft Walled Garden

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For the first time in the history of the PC, Microsoft is rolling out a new Windows ecosystem for which they will be the sole software distributor. If you buy Windows 8, the only place you will be able to download software that integrates with its new user interface will be the official Windows Store. Microsoft will have complete control over what software will be allowed there.

via Critical Detail.

This article has a very lengthy description of Microsoft Windows and MS-DOS describing  past evolution of the PC to where it is now going.  In essence, Microsoft want to be like Apple.  It will be interesting to see how this all plays out in the next year.  Here’s another blurb:

Now, this is apparently a point of some contention. Perhaps because Microsoft has not made a bigger deal about it in their press releases, not everyone believes that distributing software for the modern UI will require developers to get Microsoft’s permission. But they are wrong. In order to set the record straight once and for all, a complete, thoroughly researched analysis of Microsoft’s official publications on the subject is included as Appendix B to this article. It demonstrates that there is no method for developers to distribute modern UI applications to the internet at large without receiving explicit approval from Microsoft.