Tech Time Warp: Making nothing of mobile malware
An early case of mobile malware provoked an interesting reaction from pundits: swift dismissal as much ado about nothing. In June 2000, users of mobile phones made by the Spanish telecommunications company Telefonica began receiving strange text messages. The messages...
Tech Time Warp: Burning questions about Flame’s origins
The Flame virus first flickered publicly in May 2012 when the United Nations’ International Telecommunications Union requested the hacking of Iranian computers be investigated. Although not widespread — only a few hundred targeted computers were thought to have been infected...
Tech Time Warp: Kodak plays for KEEPS
Eastman Kodak’s major product announcements on May 29, 1985, remind us yet again of how far we’ve come in less than 40 years. The New York Times, The Washington Post and Associated Press all covered Kodak’s news about KEEPS (short...
Pioneers in Tech: Kao Chung-chin and Lois Lew, who brought IBM’s typewriter to China
In today’s globalized, always-connected society, another innovation we take for granted is the universality of computers despite language differences. And some of us in English-speaking countries will even go a step further and assume computers all over the world have...
Tech Time Warp: Could I have email, texts, and spam, without the spam?
This week’s Tech Time Warp is all about “spam.” Spam can now be used as a noun or verb and even has an adjectival form: “spammy.” And to think, not long ago it was solely canned meat! So how did...
Tech Time Warp: The ANIMAL instinct to do good
If you have ever dabbled in Dungeons & Dragons, you are familiar with the “alignment system,” which is a way to chart characters’ tendency toward good vs. evil as well as their inclination to follow rules (“lawful” vs. “chaotic”). With...
Tech Time Warp: The USB drive that changed military cybersecurity
Persistent BadUSB-style attacks are nothing new. The spread of malware via USB once caught the U.S. military by surprise, leading to a temporary Army ban on the use of external drives and ultimately the creation of Cyber Command to protect...
Pioneers in Tech: Taher Elgamal, father of SSL
Since 2017, April has been recognized as Arab American Heritage Month, with the Biden administration recognizing the heritage month for the first time at the federal level in 2022. Chances are you have purchased something online in the past week....
Tech Time Warp: Smelling a RAT in Graybird
This week’s Tech Time Warp is one of the most insidious forms of malware: the remote access Trojan, or RAT. While other viruses brick your machine or spam your email contacts, a RAT lurks in the background, quietly stealing passwords...
Tech Time Warp: Remembering the Z80 SoftCard, Microsoft’s first hardware product
Microsoft’s success with the Surface doesn’t change the fact the tech giant is primarily known for software. After all, Windows and Microsoft Office are ubiquitous in corporate life. But don’t let these juggernauts erase memories of the Z80 SoftCard, Microsoft’s...
