Tech Time Warp: Everybody was kung fu fighting
This week’s Tech Time Warp goes back twenty-nine years ago, when one of the more convoluted chapters in technology history was being written. Research scientist Tsutomu Shimomura was enjoying a Christmas vacation in Lake Tahoe when he received a troubling...
Tech Time Warp: Father Christmas leaves a lump of coal for NASA
These days, there seems to be a festive seasonal version of everything. Even items you never dreamed possible (such as cat litter). Malware is no exception. In this edition of Tech Time Warp, we look back at 35 years ago,...
Tech Time Warp: Public sees glimpse of computing’s future on TV
In this edition of Tech Time Warp we see how sixty-nine years ago this week, the public got a televised glimpse of computing innovations we now take for granted. On Dec. 14, 1954, legendary journalist Edward R. Murrow featured the...
Pioneers in Tech: Happy birthday to code-breaker W.W. Chandler
This month marks the 110th anniversary of the birth of W.W. Chandler. In this edition of Pioneers in Tech, we will look into his impact on technology. Chandler was responsible for installation and maintenance of the World War II-era code-breaking...
Tech Time Warp: O CHRISTMA tree, O CHRISTMA tree, your exec is not so amazing
It’s the most wonderful time of the year! That doesn’t mean you should let your guard down when it comes to cybersecurity. That’s a lesson some computer users learned the hard way in December 1987. In this edition of Tech...
Tech Time Warp: Kenzero more than Kenough in terms of problems
It was obvious in the late 1990s and early 2000s—the heyday of peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing networks—that the concept was too good to be true. In this edition of Tech Time Warp, we will take a look at, aside from the...
Tech Time Warp: Origins of the term “computer virus”
Now, nearly four years since the word “coronavirus” entered the popular lexicon, who doesn’t feel like an amateur epidemiologist? Given world events, it should be easy to understand why Leonard Adleman—the “A” of the RSA algorithm—was inspired by the graduate...
Pioneers in Tech: Gene Amdahl, “father” of mainframe computing
When you walk around with a computer in your hand or on your wrist, it’s easy to forget how much of the world still runs on mainframe computers. In this Pioneers in Tech, we look at how an estimated 10,000...
Tech Time Warp: Morris worm alerts the internet to cybersecurity risks
Back in 1988, the internet was a much smaller and friendlier place. No more than 100,000 computers were online, and no one considered the need for precautions like firewalls. In this week’s Tech Time Warp, we will see where that...
Tech Time Warp: Three times installing an update would have been a good idea
As Cybersecurity Awareness Month draws to a close, we turn our attention to a frequently overlooked but simple way to stay safe online: installing security updates. Security updates tend to appear at inopportune times, and it’s easy to say, “I’ll...
